“God grant it may!” said Mr. Deighton, and looking at the mystic sign, the use of which he had so often tried to put down as a silly, heathenish practice, he felt a twinge of conscience.
At last the work of plunder was over, and then Blount saw a swarm of black, excited savages, led by two or three “devil-doctors” or priests, advance towards the house. At the same moment Banderah, looking seaward, saw that the boat had left the schooner and was pulling ashore. He was just about to point her out to the trader when, for some reason, he changed his mind, turned away, and joined his white friends at the other end of the room.
Following the lead of the “devil-doctors,” who, stripped to the waist, and with their heads covered with the hideous masks used in their incantations, looked like demons newly arisen from the pit, the yelling swarm of natives at last reached the fence outside Blount's house; and Mr. Deighton, with an inward groan, saw among them some of his pet converts, stark naked and armed with spears and clubs.
Leaping and dancing with mad gyrations, and uttering curious grunting sounds as their feet struck the ground, the devil-doctors at last came within a few feet of the gate in the trader's fence. Then, suddenly, as they caught sight of a branch of cocoanut leaf twisted in and around the woodwork of the gate, they stopped their maddened whirl as if by magic; and upon those behind them fell the silence of fear.
“Thank God!” muttered Blount, “we are safe. They will not break Banderah's tapu.”
Then, rifle in hand, and with quiet, unmoved face, Banderah opened the trader's door and came out before them all.
“Who among ye desires the life of Banderah and those to whom he has given his tapu?” he said.
The smaller of the two priests dashed aside his mask, and revealed the face of the old man Toka, who had struck Baxter his death-blow.
“Who indeed, O chief? If it be to thy mind to make tapu this house and all in it, who is there dare break it? To the white man Challi and his sons and daughters we meant no harm, though sweet to our bellies will be the flesh of those whom we have slain and who now roast for the feast. But more are yet to come; for I, Toka, lost my son, when thou, Banderah, lost thy brother; and the gods have told me that I shall eat my fill of those who stole him.”
The savage, bitter hatred that rang through the old man's voice, and the deep, approving murmur of those who stood about him, warned both Banderah and Blount that the lust for slaughter was not yet appeased; so it was with a feeling of intense surprise and relief that he and the missionary saw them suddenly withdraw, and move rapidly away to the rear of the house among the thick jungle.