CHAPTER XXVII.
A STRANGE ALLY.
In Tu-Kila-Kila's temple-hut, meanwhile, the jealous, revengeful god, enshrined among his skeletons, was having in his turn an anxious and doubtful time of it.

Ever since his sacred blood had stained the dust of earth by the Frenchman's cottage and in his own temple, Tu-Kila-Kila, for all his bluster, had been deeply stirred and terrified in his inmost soul by that unlucky portent.

A savage, even if he be a god, is always superstitious.

Could it be that his own time was, indeed, drawing nigh?
That he, who had remorselessly killed and eaten so many hundreds of human victims, was himself to fall a prey to some more successful competitor?
Had the white-faced stranger, the King of the Rain, really learned the secrets of the Great Taboo from the Soul of all dead parrots?
Did that mysterious bird speak the tongue of these new fire-bearing Korongs, whose doom was fixed for the approaching solstice?
Tu-Kila-Kila wondered and doubted.

His suspicions were keen, and deeply aroused.