II

When the white man saw the Eskimo, he started. Then tightening the

hood of his parka against the stinging ice-dust, he began creeping

cautiously away toward the sound of the drum. With every backward

glance he quickened his progress. At last he would be able to enter the

tunnel of the _kashim_ while the guard was absent from his post; for

though the missionary’s presence had been tolerated in the igloos, he

had never yet succeeded in forcing his way into the council-house. He

had convinced himself that once in the _kashim_, where he could address

the assembled village, he could persuade them to abandon their heathen

incantations and fling themselves on the mercy of God.

He pressed forward eagerly toward the open jaws of a whale which formed

the entrance to the tunnel. Despite his haste, he came to an abrupt

halt inside the passage. A queer cross of driftwood lay there, warning

strangers against entering the _kashim_ while the medicine-man was

performing the weird mysteries of his calling.

The missionary’s hesitation was banished by his zeal, and a moment

later he caught up a club from the stack of hunting implements near

the opening and began to feel his uneven way along the icy stones of

the tunnel. Half a dozen steps plunged him into darkness where every

movement of his feet roused wolf-dogs driven to shelter by the storm.

They leaped, savagely snarling their hatred of the disturbing white,

and the missionary, knowing that one misstep would send him sprawling

under their slavering jaws, laid about him with a club, beating a way

through the starving animals.

He advanced blindly until a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel

guided him to the opening in the floor of the _kashim_ above. With a

gasp of relief, he clutched the ladder that led upward, and mounted.

He was not observed as he thrust his head into the dim room, hot and

rank with ammoniacal smells and the reek of close-packed bodies.

Miak, the witch-woman, huddled in one corner, tending the wick of

the medicine-man’s stone lamp. It’s smoky light barely revealed the

skin-covered shelf about the walls where hunters, stripped to the

waist, sat cross-legged and cross-armed, their Mongolian faces set in

earnest concentration. On the floor below them squatted the women, the

old men, and the quiet children, naked as fishes.

All eyes were on Ah-king-ah, the medicine-man--Ah-king-ah who

had successfully defied the Christianizing efforts of two former

missionaries. Many were the tales told of the man’s cunning and

strength not only among the Eskimo tribes, but among the whalers and

the white traders of the arctic. In the Season of the Sun, when the

tribes assembled on In-ga-lee-nay for the yearly Festival of the Whale,

it took Miak, the witch-woman, three days to sing all the runes of his

magic. Mightiest and richest shaman of the high North was Ah-king-ah,

and great in the eyes of the Innuits, was the singing of Miak. So

strong were his words of enchantment, he could plunge a hunting-knife

through his vitals and dance with his necklace of bird-claws dangling

from the point behind. So marvelous were his chants of wizardry that

the sound of them formed kayaks, which took him far to the moonless

land, where spirits of departed ivory-hunters yielded up their secrets

to him. Ah-king-ah had the spirit of a crow. Ah-king-ah was a son of

the wind. Ah-king-ah flew to the moon on the rays of the ice-blink.

Once he flew to Siberia and challenged Nan-kum, the one-eyed shaman of

the Chuckchees, to battle for the supremacy of the North. Had not all

the village seen them fighting over the strait one morning--two great

black crows whose raucous screams sent chills to the hearts of the

bravest hunters? Mightiest shaman of the North was Ah-king-ah. With his

beak he had wrenched off the leg of Nan-kum and flung it to the ice,

cawing triumphantly, while the cripple flapped away defeated to Asiatic

shores. Had not Milli-ru-ak found the leg where it fell, and was it not

the leg of a man? And did not hunters returning from Siberian tundras

report Nan-kum hobbling about on one leg ever after? Great indeed was

Ah-king-ah, the medicine-man, and greater still would he be when he had

changed the wind that was bringing famine to In-ga-lee-nay; greater and

richer, for his price would be half the fruits of the village hunt for

the space of six hunting moons.

The missionary’s eyes fell upon Ah-king-ah, half crouching in the

middle of the floor. He was six feet tall, and nude except for a

short, transparent garment made of the intestines of seals and trimmed

with the crimson beaks of sea-parrots. He was beating upon the sacred

devil-drum and chanting runes treating of the secret things of spirits,

while his slim, naked feet made weird passes and performed strange,

halting steps. With every movement his superb brown body rippled

beneath the transparent shirt, setting all the beaks clattering in

measured cadence. Behind him sat his three apprentices, swaying their

naked bodies as they thumped the floor with sticks adorned with

wolf-tails and gull-wings.

A sudden, sinuous motion, and Ah-king-ah was facing the west. The drum

began a soft, rolling accompaniment to his rising, long-drawn croon.

The tawny torsos of the hunters, moving to and fro from the hips,

caught the light in zigzag waves.

Ah-king-ah’s tones grew louder, the tempo of the drum quickened, and

its sound swelled until it became the voice of the wind, the thunder

of crashing seas, the expression of nature in all her moods of fury.

Swaying bodies responded. The people began to shout, to vent queer

cries in unison, urging the shaman to greater efforts, deeper magic.

Excitement grew until it was a very frenzy of earnestness that

increased the heat of the _kashim_ and started the sweat on the sixty

bodies packed there. The reek of them was sickening, the deluge of

sounds deafening.

Suddenly everything stopped. Ah-king-ah grew rigid. While the jade and

amber beads dangling from the plugs in his lower lip quivered into

life, his dark face took on the look of a demon. He flung out his arms,

raised his chin, and sent an intonation soaring through the din of the

gale.

“Thou, Almighty Devil----”

“Stop!” The small figure of the missionary catapulted to the middle

of the room, one arm outstretched, one thin finger extended. “Stop,

blasphemer!” he shouted, lost to all sense of danger in the fervor

of his religious indignation. “Servant of Satan! son of Belial!

wouldst thou anger God by thy sacrilege?” His pale eyes flashed in his

twitching face, his accusing fingers trembled. “God alone is mighty!

God alone is good! Oh, poor deluded ones,”--he turned pleadingly to

the stunned and wondering people--“shut your ears to the evils of this

sorcerer! Turn to the true God, and the blizzard will die, and you

shall have meat!”

In the smoky light the astonished expressions on the dark faces

changed. They grew sullen, grew threatening, in a silence that was

pregnant with hostility. One wolf-step brought Ah-king-ah close to the

white man, who became dwarfed and insignificant beside the powerful

Eskimo. Ah-king-ah’s voice rang deep and mellow and supremely exalted

after the thin, excited tones of the missionary.

“The white man has spoken, my brothers. But--did we of In-ga-lee-nay

ask him for this God whom he says we insult? The white man has broken

in upon us. He has crossed the sign that warns all strangers from our

council-house. He has spoken. Listen now to Ah-king-ah and compare the

wisdom of our tongues.” He paused until the murmur of approval went

around the hunters’ shelf. “Well ye know that our people have lived on

In-ga-lee-nay for ten times a thousand moons, happy in the customs of

the ancient ones. Well ye know that our island and the waters about our

island have ever been the abode of plenty, the breeding-place of birds,

the dwelling-place of land-creatures, the home of sea-creatures. In

all the land of the Innuits no village has been so favored by the

spirits. In no village but thine could a man sit in his doorway and

shoot enough seals to give a feast.”

The hunters grunted assent and gravely nodded their heads above their

folded arms.

“Yea, my brothers, in the old time ye were happy. Your bellies were

rounded and well filled. Skins of oil hung from your ceilings, and oil

in plenty burned in the lamps of your igloos. This was the happy way of

life under the wise laws of your fathers.” Ah-king-ah shifted his drum

from one hip to the other and resumed with quickened utterance:

“Then comes this white man from the South. Uninvited, he pushes his way

into your igloos with the words of his God. He comes with the ringing

of the bell that is bad medicine in the ears of the almighty devil,

tossing in his hands the ivory ball of the world. Then, my brothers,

from the Place of Winds strange evils have come upon you. Why? Why, my

brothers?”

He allowed a moment’s silence before he leaned forward and whispered

slowly in a way that left the room ringing:

“The--almighty--devil--is--angry--with--you!”

In the hush that followed, the sound of the blizzard seeped in through

the thick walls. Ah-king-ah suddenly flung himself upright, and

continued in a voice that gathered volume as he proceeded:

“The almighty devil is angry with you for harkening to new words.

Behold, your bellies grow flat against your backs. Your igloos grow

cold. Your dogs consume each other. Oh, hear the words of Ah-king-ah,

my brothers, whom the spirits have taught concerning these things

of mystery.” The shaman wheeled, and with a quick, accusing finger

transfixed the missionary. “It is because of this white man and his

ringing bell that the devil is angry!” he shouted. “Wherefore, I say,

let this white man take his God back to his own kind--back to the land

of his fathers!” The words rose to a shriek. “Let him take his God back

to the land of his fathers!”

The muttering of the crowd broke loose in a yelling frenzy as men,

women, and children took up the cry. In the seething, sweating mass of

humanity the missionary’s protests were lost; but the dauntless little

man wrested himself from the hands of the medicine-man’s apprentices,

snatched the drum from the great Ah-king-ah himself, and leaped to the

now empty shelf of the _kashim_.

“Wait! Wait!” he commanded. His fist banged the devil-drum, which

none but a shaman might touch on penalty of death. The very magnitude

of the sacrilege bludgeoned the people into an aghast silence. “For

the sake of your starving women and children, listen to the words

of the white man’s God. In the Book of which I have told you it is

written: ‘Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do!’ Oh,

poor benighted ones, pray to God for help, and He will answer. For

two months ye have watched Ah-king-ah with his devil tricks trying to

change the wind. His words are a lie within his mouth! His sorceries

are an abomination to the Lord. His----”

A lightning movement, and Ah-king-ah had snatched the drum to him.

“We do not know this man’s God, and we do not want to know Him!” The

shaman’s mighty voice extinguished the missionary’s. “Let the white

man take his God back to the land of his fathers!” The rumble of the

drum began, and the shaman’s feet resumed their weird passes. Again

and again he repeated the words. His rhythmic chanting and the booming

of the drum woke the mob spirit in the people. The yelling crowd that

surged threateningly toward the missionary was led by Milli-ru-ak, who

leaped to the shelf and crooked his avid fingers about the white man’s

throat.

“Stop, my brothers!” The medicine-man’s authoritative voice rang out.

He had ceased his capering, and there was a light of apprehension in

his wary eyes. “Milli-ru-ak, lay thy hands off! It is not well that the

people of In-ga-lee-nay do violence to such as he, for well ye know

how the long arm of the white man’s law reaches even from the South,

where the sun sinks under the world, to the North, where the water

ends. Have ye forgotten the fate of the three medicine-men, Sautock,

Beelack, and O-tock-tock in the year of the Red Death? They did but

bind the man O’Ryan until his spirit fled--the strange man O’Ryan, who

swung the little cup of smoke before his God, and wore the long garment

of a woman, with a cross about his neck. Remember my brothers, how in

the Season of the Sun there came high chiefs from the South, mighty

in anger, and with stars on their breasts glittering like the fishes’

scales? Remember how they hanged Sautock, Beelack, and O-tock-tock high

on the slope back of the village? Have ye the minds of children that

ye can forget the long moons their bones rattled in the chains as the

east wind lipped them? I, Ah-king-ah, to whom spirits whisper, tell ye

it is not well that we do violence to a white man,”--he woke again the

rumbling rhythm of the drum--“but let him leave us in peace to practice

the ways of our fathers. Let him take his God back to his own land!”

“Yea! Yea!” The people took up the words in a clamoring chorus, while

the shaman’s three apprentices seized the protesting missionary and

carried him to the opening in the floor. One of them placed his feet on

the ladder. The other two pressed him down rung by rung until he found

himself on the floor of the tunnel, where the eyes of starving dogs

menaced him.

He stood uncertain for a moment while the _oom-oom_ of the devil-drum

rolled in his ears. Then blindly he groped and beat his way along the

slippery passage.

“Oh, Thou, Almighty Devil--” The propitiatory chant of Ah-king-ah

followed him out into the blizzard.

Darkness had already fallen. The malicious wind flung ice-dust like

splintered glass through the fur about his face. He shut his eyes

against the sting of it, and stumbled forward, a small, forlorn figure

in the polar night. A gust flung him into a drift, and he crawled on

his hands and knees until he encountered a dog asleep under the snow.

He rose hastily, shivering as the roused animal’s howls set all its

mates wailing their hunger in the blackness.

Back in the chill emptiness of his igloo he swayed toward his bunk and,

dropping on tense knees beside it, began to pray.