The Great Taboo

"You have lived here long? " Felix asked, with tremulous interest, as he took a seat on the bench under the big tree, toward which his new host politely motioned him. "You know the people well, and all their superstitions?"

"_Helas_, yes, monsieur," the Frenchman answered, with a sigh of regret. "Eighteen years have I spent altogether in this beast of a Pacific; nine as a convict in New Caledonia, and nine more as a god here; and, believe me, I hardly know which is the harder post. Yours is the first White face I have ever seen since my arrival in this cursed island."