Had he made the storm, then, they asked, and eaten the storm-apple, for no use to himself, but out of pure perverseness?
If he didn't even want the windfalls and the objects vowed to him, why had he beaten down their crops and broken their houses?
They looked at him meaningly; but they dared not cross that great line of taboo.

It was their own superstition alone, in that moment of danger, that kept their hands off those defenceless white people.
At last a happy idea seemed to strike the crowd.

"What he wants is a child ?" they cried, effusively.

"He thirsts for blood! Let us kill and roast him a proper victim!" Felix's horror at this appalling proposition knew no bounds.

"If you do," he cried, turning their own superstition against them in this last hour of need, "I will raise up a storm worse even than last night's! You do it at your peril! I want no victim.