On the brightest tropic night the forest depths were dark with lurking mystery; the multitudinous twistings of the giant trees and their gnarled limbs, all thickly lichened with serpent-like vines, made a wonderful depth of brooding silence and unfathomable light, and in the moonlight looked like some mighty forest of twisted coral miles down under the sea.
White men would sooner walk miles than pass through those depths by night. “No, thank ye! No tabooed b—— heathen forest for me!” they said, as they gave a knowing glance. And none could persuade them. Old Sour Von Craut simply shrugged his shoulders, spread out his fat hands and intimated by raised eyebrows that it was the most natural thing on earth to have found the dead beachcomber, with ears and eyes missing, in the forests behind Felisi beach.
Even Gabrielle stopped running, gave a startled moan and looked up in the dim light. Something screamed and gave a mocking laugh; it was a red-striped vulture. The girl saw the whitened bones of its eyrie as it stood up and flapped its wings. For it had made its nest amongst a dead man’s bones, a grave up there in the palms of the tabooed forest. Just for a moment she crouched in fear, but not because of that sight over her head. An aged dark man with a large nose was passing along, not ten yards off, chanting to himself. It was Oom Pa, hurrying back from the festival outside Parsons’s grog shanty. He had a bamboo rod across his shoulders, Chinese fashion, wherefrom his calabashes swung as he disappeared in the depth beyond. In a few seconds Gabrielle was off again. She had been that way before, so knew the near cuts to the villages and tambu temples. As she ran out of the bamboo thickets she caught a first glimpse of the hanging lamps. A breath of wind had swept through the forest, blowing the thick, dark leaves aside that made the natural taboo curtain to the festival spot. She saw the whirling figures of the tambu maiden dancers. She heard the weird music of the flutes and twanging stringed gourds. The chants only increased the wild feeling of savagery that was delighting her soul. She did not hesitate, but deliberately pushed aside the bamboo stems and stood in the presence of that secret midnight throng of sacred worshippers and the great tambu priests. For a moment the dark heathen men and affrighted women stared from their squatting mats in astonishment, the expression on their faces strangely resembling the carved surprise of the big wooden, one-toothed idol that stood six feet high, staring with glass eyes from behind the taboo stage. Even the dancing tambu maidens swerved slightly in their sacred movements, their steps put out of gear as Gabrielle, with hands uplifted, and eyes staring strangely, appeared before that pae pae.
The head priest coughed in astonishment; then he rose and wailed out: “Taboo! She is white, and such are tabooed by the gods!”
As he brought his club down with a crash, anger come into the dark eyes of the sacred chiefesses, who had leapt to their feet, all disturbed while they had been paying obeisance to the wooden Idol Quat (chief god of the skies). It was a specially private occasion, only the greatly trusted allowed to attend. One stalwart chief stepped forward as though he intended slaying the girl on the spot. Old Oom Pa, who had barely wiped the perspiration from his brow and flung down his calabashes of bribes, gazed with as much surprise as anyone on Gabrielle. Then, seeing that harm might come to the girl, he hastily stepped forward and said: “Hold, O chiefs; this papalagi has that in her eyes which tells she is under the influence of our gods. And, therefore, is she not one of us?” He swiftly turned and said something in the guttural language of his tribe. Whatever he said was for Gabrielle’s benefit, for it greatly calmed the fears of the huddled dark men and their women-kind. In a moment the fierce resentment towards Gabrielle changed to wild grunts of welcome. One aged priest who was grovelling on his stomach before the dwarf taboo idols that were receiving the sacred slanting moonbeams through the palms prostrated himself at Gabrielle’s feet. The white girl looked round her like one who stared in a dream, then she gave a merry peal of laughter. The handsome, tattooed braves who stood leaning on the palm stems gave a hushed cry of admiration as they saw the girl standing, bathed in moonbeams, her hair wildly dishevelled, her eyes like stars, her arms as white as coral as she made mystical movements in a dance they did not know. The old priest, who was at her feet lifted his face and chanted some prayer to her eyes.
This act of the priest made the chiefs and chiefesses think that the girl was there by special decree of their kai-kai (sacred moon gods). In a moment the whole tribe had followed the priest’s act, hod surrounded the girl and were moaning and grovelling at her feet.
“Tala Marama Taraban!” (“’Tis a spirit-girl!”) they whispered in an awestruck voice as they lifted their chins and stared at the girl’s vacant eyes. The peculiar stare of those wonderful blue eyes intensified their superstitious belief.
Two of the chiefs rose, nodded their heads, wailed, and said: “She has been here before, O brothers!”
The tambu maidens had now stopped dancing. The barbarian flutes had ceased their wailings, not a drum note disturbed the hush as the wild, swarthy men gazed on Gabrielle and the aged priest chanted into her ears.
The girl seemed to be dimly conscious of the reverent homage those wild men and women paid her as they fell on their faces before her. She looked down with a dream-like stare on their muscular brown bodies, on their richly shelled ramis, their red-feathered headgear.