I'm really afraid we must go down to the cabin soon; she'll be shipping
seas before long if we stop on deck much later--and yet, it's so
delightful stopping up here till the dusk comes on, isn't it?)--well,
remember, I was saying, though they look so beautiful and dreamy and
poetical--'Summer isles of Eden lying in dark purple spheres of sea,' and
all that sort of thing--these islands are inhabited by the fiercest and
most bloodthirsty cannibals known to travellers."

"Cannibals!" Muriel repeated, looking up at him in surprise. "You don't
mean to say that islands like these, standing right in the very track of
European steamers, are still heathen and cannibal?"

"Oh, dear, yes," Felix replied, holding his hand out as he spoke to catch
his companion's arm gently, and steady her against the wave that was just
going to strike the stern: "Excuse me; just so; the sea's rising fast,
isn't it?--Oh, dear, yes; of course they are; they're all heathen and
cannibals. You couldn't imagine to yourself the horrible bloodthirsty
rites that may this very minute be taking place upon that idyllic-looking
island, under the soft waving branches of those whispering palm-trees.
Why, I knew a man in the Marquesas myself--a hideous old native, as ugly
as you can fancy him--who was supposed to be a god, an incarnate god, and
was worshipped accordingly with profound devotion by all the other
islanders. You can't picture to yourself how awful their worship was. I
daren't even repeat it to you; it was too, too horrible. He lived in a
hut by himself among the deepest forest, and human victims used to be
brought--well, there, it's too loathsome! Why, see; there's a great light
on the island now; a big bonfire or something; don't you make it out? You
can tell it by the red glare in the sky overhead." He paused a moment;
then he added more slowly, "I shouldn't be surprised if at this very
moment, while we're standing here in such perfect security on the deck of