The Great Taboo

All that night through -- their first lonely night on the island of Boupari -- Felix sat up by his flickering fire, wide awake, half expecting and dreading some treacherous attack of the unknown savages. From time to time he kept adding dry fuel to his smouldering pile; and he never ceased to keep a keen eye both on the lagoon and the reef, in case an assault should be made upon them suddenly by land or water. He knew the South Seas quite well enough already to have all the possibilities of misfortune floating vividly before his eyes. He realized at once from his own previous experience the full loneliness and terror of their unarmed condition.

For Boupari was one of those rare remote islets where the very rumor of our European civilization has hardly yet penetrated.