That might gain them at least a little respite.

Though even so he hardly knew what good it could do him to be elevated for a while into the chief god of the island.

It might not even avail him to save Muriel's life; for he did not doubt that when the awful day itself had actually come the natives would do their best to kill her in spite of him, unless he anticipated them by fulfilling his own terrible, yet merciful, promise.
Week after week went by--month after month passed--and the date when the Australasian might reasonably be expected to reappear drew nearer and nearer.

They waited and trembled.

At last, a few days before the time M.Peyron had calculated, as Felix was sitting under the big shady tree in his garden one morning, while Muriel, now worn out with hope deferred, lay within her hut alone with Mali, a sound of tom-toms and beaten palms was heard on the hill-path.