"Then it came by on the bars, and harmed me not; and when my legs
could hold me up again it was gone from sight. And it is a very common
thing in that country. Even the women and children are not afraid. Men
make them to do work, these monsters."
"As we make our dogs do work?" Koogah asked, with sceptic twinkle in
his eye.
"Ay, as we make our dogs do work."
"And how do they breed these--these things?" Opee-Kwan questioned.
"They breed not at all. Men fashion them cunningly of iron, and feed
them with stone, and give them water to drink. The stone becomes fire,
and the water becomes steam, and the steam of the water is the breath
of their nostrils, and--"
"There, there, O Nam-Bok," Opee-Kwan interrupted. "Tell us of other
wonders. We grow tired of this which we may not understand."
"You do not understand?" Nam-Bok asked despairingly.
"Nay, we do not understand," the men and women wailed back. "We cannot
understand."
Nam-Bok thought of a combined harvester, and of the machines wherein
visions of living men were to be seen, and of the machines from which
came the voices of men, and he knew his people could never understand.
"Dare I say I rode this iron monster through the land?" he asked
bitterly.
Opee-Kwan threw up his hands, palms outward, in open incredulity. "Say
on; say anything. We listen."
"Then did I ride the iron monster, for which I gave money--"
"Thou saidst it was fed with stone."
"And likewise, thou fool, I said money was a thing of which you know
nothing. As I say, I rode the monster through the land, and through
many villages, until I came to a big village on a salt arm of the sea.
And the houses shoved their roofs among the stars in the sky, and the
clouds drifted by them, and everywhere was much smoke. And the roar
of that village was like the roar of the sea in storm, and the people
were so many that I flung away my stick and no longer remembered the
notches upon it."
"Hadst thou made small notches," Koogah reproved, "thou mightst have
brought report."
Nam-Bok whirled upon him in anger. "Had I made small notches! Listen,
Koogah, thou scratcher of bone! If I had made small notches, neither
the stick, nor twenty sticks, could have borne them--nay, not all the
driftwood of all the beaches between this village and the next. And if
all of you, the women and children as well, were twenty times as many,
and if you had twenty hands each, and in each hand a stick and a
knife, still the notches could not be cut for the people I saw, so
many were they and so fast did they come and go."
"There cannot be so many people in all the world," Opee-Kwan objected,
for he was stunned and his mind could not grasp such magnitude of
numbers.
"What dost thou know of all the world and how large it is?" Nam-Bok
demanded.
"But there cannot be so many people in one place."
"Who art thou to say what can be and what cannot be?"
"It stands to reason there cannot be so many people in one place.
Their canoes would clutter the sea till there was no room. And they
could empty the sea each day of its fish, and they would not all be
fed."
"So it would seem," Nam-Bok made final answer; "yet it was so. With my
own eyes I saw, and flung my stick away." He yawned heavily and rose
to his feet. "I have paddled far. The day has been long, and I am
tired. Now I will sleep, and to-morrow we will have further talk upon
the things I have seen."
Bask-Wah-Wan, hobbling fearfully in advance, proud indeed, yet awed by
her wonderful son, led him to her igloo and stowed him away among the
greasy, ill-smelling furs. But the men lingered by the fire, and a
council was held wherein was there much whispering and low-voiced
discussion.
An hour passed, and a second, and Nam-Bok slept, and the talk went on.
The evening sun dipped toward the northwest, and at eleven at
night was nearly due north. Then it was that the head man and the
bone-scratcher separated themselves from the council and aroused
Nam-Bok. He blinked up into their faces and turned on his side to
sleep again. Opee-Kwan gripped him by the arm and kindly but firmly
shook his senses back into him.
"Come, Nam-Bok, arise!" he commanded. "It be time."
"Another feast?" Nam-Bok cried. "Nay, I am not hungry. Go on with the
eating and let me sleep."
"Time to be gone!" Koogah thundered.
But Opee-Kwan spoke more softly. "Thou wast bidarka-mate with me when
we were boys," he said. "Together we first chased the seal and drew
the salmon from the traps. And thou didst drag me back to life,
Nam-Bok, when the sea closed over me and I was sucked down to the
black rocks. Together we hungered and bore the chill of the frost, and
together we crawled beneath the one fur and lay close to each other.
And because of these things, and the kindness in which I stood to
thee, it grieves me sore that thou shouldst return such a remarkable
liar. We cannot understand, and our heads be dizzy with the things
thou hast spoken. It is not good, and there has been much talk in the
council. Wherefore we send thee away, that our heads may remain clear
and strong and be not troubled by the unaccountable things."
"These things thou speakest of be shadows," Koogah took up the strain.
"From the shadow-world thou hast brought them, and to the shadow-world
thou must return them. Thy bidarka be ready, and the tribespeople
wait. They may not sleep until thou art gone."
Nam-Bok was perplexed, but hearkened to the voice of the head man.
"If thou art Nam-Bok," Opee-Kwan was saying, "thou art a fearful and
most wonderful liar; if thou art the shadow of Nam-Bok, then thou
speakest of shadows, concerning which it is not good that living men
have knowledge. This great village thou hast spoken of we deem the
village of shadows. Therein flutter the souls of the dead; for the
dead be many and the living few. The dead do not come back. Never have
the dead come back--save thou with thy wonder-tales. It is not meet
that the dead come back, and should we permit it, great trouble may be
our portion."
Nam-Bok knew his people well and was aware that the voice of the
council was supreme. So he allowed himself to be led down to the
water's edge, where he was put aboard his bidarka and a paddle thrust
into his hand. A stray wild-fowl honked somewhere to seaward, and the
surf broke limply and hollowly on the sand. A dim twilight brooded
over land and water, and in the north the sun smouldered, vague and
troubled, and draped about with blood-red mists. The gulls were flying
low. The off-shore wind blew keen and chill, and the black-massed
clouds behind it gave promise of bitter weather.
"Out of the sea thou earnest," Opee-Kwan chanted oracularly, "and
back into the sea thou goest. Thus is balance achieved and all things
brought to law."
Bask-Wah-Wan limped to the froth-mark and cried, "I bless thee,
Nam-Bok, for that thou remembered me."
But Koogah, shoving Nam-Bok clear of the beach, tore the shawl from
her shoulders and flung it into the bidarka.
"It is cold in the long nights," she wailed; "and the frost is prone
to nip old bones."
"The thing is a shadow," the bone-scratcher answered, "and shadows
cannot keep thee warm."
Nam-Bok stood up that his voice might carry. "O Bask-Wah-Wan, mother
that bore me!" he called. "Listen to the words of Nam-Bok, thy son.
There be room in his bidarka for two, and he would that thou camest
with him. For his journey is to where there are fish and oil in
plenty. There the frost comes not, and life is easy, and the things of
iron do the work of men. Wilt thou come, O Bask-Wah-Wan?"
She debated a moment, while the bidarka drifted swiftly from her, then
raised her voice to a quavering treble. "I am old, Nam-Bok, and soon I
shall pass down among the shadows. But I have no wish to go before my
time. I am old, Nam-Bok, and I am afraid."
A shaft of light shot across the dim-lit sea and wrapped boat and man
in a splendor of red and gold. Then a hush fell upon the fisherfolk,
and only was heard the moan of the off-shore wind and the cries of the
gulls flying low in the air.