If any woman go near them before
Tu-Kila-Kila bids, let her be rolled in palm-leaves, and smeared with
oil, and light her up for a torch on a dark night to lighten our temple."
The King of Fire bent his head in assent. "It is as Tu-Kila-Kila wills,"
he answered, submissively.
Tu-Kila-Kila whistled again, this time twice. "The King of Water!" he
exclaimed, in the same loud tone of command as before.
At the words, a man of about forty, tall and sinewy, clad in a short cape
of white albatross feathers, and with a girdle of nautilus shells
interspersed with red coral tied around his waist, came forth to the
summons.
"The King of Water is here," he said, bending his head, but not his knee,
before the greater deity.
"Water," Tu-Kila-Kila said, with half-tipsy solemnity, "you are a god
too. Your power is very great. But less than mine. Do, then, as I bid
you. If any man touch my spirits, whom I have brought from my home in the
sun in a fiery ship, before I bid him to-morrow, overturn his canoe, and
drown him in lagoon or spring or ocean. If any woman go near them without
Tu-Kila-Kila's leave, bind her hand and foot with ropes of porpoise hide,
and cast her out into the surf, and dash her with your waves, and pummel
her to pieces."
The King of Water bent his head a second time. "I am a great god," he
answered, "before all others save you: but for you, Tu-Kila-Kila, I haste
to do your bidding.
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