Late in the afternoon the camp of the fugitive rebels was reached, and Bent was safe.
Titokowaru, just back from a scouting expedition to the forest-edge, was in the village. The grim war-chief was genuinely pleased to see the white man back again, and safe.
"E tu!" said he; "it was fortunate indeed that Rupé met you in the forest. Had any of the others found you—my young men of the Tekau-ma-rua—then you had been a dead man!"
Now came an illustration of that many-sided law, the tapu. Titokowaru took the two eels which Bent had carried home on his back and hung them up as an offering to the atua, the heathen gods. They were under the ban because they had been borne on the white man's back, which was temporarily tapu; therefore they could not be eaten.
The honey, however, was not wasted. Titokowaru, having no doubt a sweet tooth, sagely decided that it would be sufficient to hang up the eels for the gods; he whakanoa'd the honey, that is, he repeated karakia, or incantations, over it, by which the maleficent powers of the tapu were nullified or averted and the food made fit for consumption.
[CHAPTER XXIII]
A BATTLE IN THE FOG