And even as he spoke, Felix Thurstan, rising once more on the crest of a
much smaller billow--for somehow the waves were getting incredibly
smaller as he drifted on to leeward--felt his heart sink within him as he
observed to his dismay that the Australasian must be steaming ahead once
more, by the movement of her lights, and that they two were indeed
abandoned to their fate on the open surface of that vast and trackless
ocean.




CHAPTER II.

THE TEMPLE OF THE DEITY.


While these things were happening on the sea close by, a very different
scene indeed was being enacted meanwhile, beneath those waving palms, on
the island of Boupari. It was strange, to be sure, as Felix Thurstan had
said, that such unspeakable heathen orgies should be taking place within
sight of a passing Christian English steamer. But if only he had known or
reflected to what sort of land he was trying now to struggle ashore with
Muriel, he might well have doubted whether it were not better to let her
perish where she was, in the pure clear ocean, rather than to submit an
English girl to the possibility of undergoing such horrible heathen rites
and ceremonies.

For on the island of Boupari it was high feast with the worshippers of
their god that night. The sun had turned on the Tropic of Capricorn at
noon, and was making his way northward, toward the equator once more;