He held up the foot-covering of sealskin and walrus hide, and his
visitor examined it with secret interest.
"It did come to me by a close-driven bargain."
Klok-No-Ton nodded attentively.
"I got it from the man La-lah. He is a remarkable man, and often have
I thought ..."
"So?" Klok-No-Ton ventured impatiently.
"Often have I thought," Scundoo concluded, his voice falling as he
came to a full pause. "It is a fair day, and thy medicine be strong,
Klok-No-Ton."
Klok-No-Ton's face brightened. "Thou art a great man, Scundoo, a
shaman of shamans. I go now. I shall remember thee always. And the man
La-lah, as you say, is a remarkable man."
Scundoo smiled yet more wan and gray, closed the door on the heels of
his departing visitor, and barred and double-barred it.
Sime was mending his canoe when Klok-No-Ton came down the beach, and
he broke off from his work only long enough to ostentatiously load his
rifle and place it near him.
The shaman noted the action and called out: "Let all the people come
together on this spot! It is the word of Klok-No-Ton, devil-seeker and
driver of devils!"
He had been minded to assemble them at Hooniah's house, but it was
necessary that all should be present, and he was doubtful of Sime's
obedience and did not wish trouble. Sime was a good man to let alone,
his judgment ran, and withal, a bad one for the health of any shaman.
"Let the woman Hooniah be brought," Klok-No-Ton commanded, glaring
ferociously about the circle and sending chills up and down the spines
of those he looked upon.
Hooniah waddled forward, head bent and gaze averted.
"Where be thy blankets?"
"I but stretched them up in the sun, and behold, they were not!" she
whined.
"So?"
"It was because of Di Ya."
"So?"
"Him have I beaten sore, and he shall yet be beaten, for that he
brought trouble upon us who be poor people."
"The blankets!" Klok-No-Ton bellowed hoarsely, foreseeing her desire
to lower the price to be paid. "The blankets, woman! Thy wealth is
known."
"I but stretched them up in the sun," she sniffled, "and we be poor
people and have nothing."
He stiffened suddenly, with a hideous distortion of the face, and
Hooniah shrank back. But so swiftly did he spring forward, with
in-turned eyeballs and loosened jaw, that she stumbled and fell down
grovelling at his feet. He waved his arms about, wildly flagellating
the air, his body writhing and twisting in torment. An epilepsy seemed
to come upon him. A white froth flecked his lips, and his body was
convulsed with shiverings and tremblings.
The women broke into a wailing chant, swaying backward and forward in
abandonment, while one by one the men succumbed to the excitement till
only Sime remained. He, perched upon his canoe, looked on in mockery;
yet the ancestors whose seed he bore pressed heavily upon him, and
he swore his strongest oaths that his courage might be cheered.
Klok-No-Ton was horrible to behold. He had cast off his blanket and
torn his clothes from him, so that he was quite naked, save for a
girdle of eagle-claws about his thighs. Shrieking and yelling, his
long black hair flying like a blot of night, he leaped frantically
about the circle. A certain rude rhythm characterized his frenzy, and
when all were under its sway, swinging their bodies in accord with
his and venting their cries in unison, he sat bolt upright, with arm
outstretched and long, talon-like finger extended. A low moaning, as
of the dead, greeted this, and the people cowered with shaking knees
as the dread finger passed them slowly by. For death went with it, and
life remained with those who watched it go; and being rejected, they
watched with eager intentness.
Finally, with a tremendous cry, the fateful finger rested upon La-lah.
He shook like an aspen, seeing himself already dead, his household
goods divided, and his widow married to his brother. He strove to
speak, to deny, but his tongue clove to his mouth and his throat was
sanded with an intolerable thirst. Klok-No-Ton seemed to half swoon
away, now that his work was done; but he waited, with closed eyes,
listening for the great blood-cry to go up--the great blood-cry,
familiar to his ear from a thousand conjurations, when the
tribespeople flung themselves like wolves upon the trembling victim.
But only was there silence, then a low tittering, from nowhere in
particular, which spread and spread until a vast laughter welled up to
the sky.
"Wherefore?" he cried.
"Na! Na!" the people laughed. "Thy medicine be ill, O Klok-No-Ton!"
"It be known to all," La-lah stuttered. "For eight weary months have
I been gone afar with the Siwash sealers, and but this day am I come
back to find the blankets of Hooniah gone ere I came!"
"It be true!" they cried with one accord. "The blankets of Hooniah
were gone ere he came!"
"And thou shalt be paid nothing for thy medicine which is of no
avail," announced Hooniah, on her feet once more and smarting from a
sense of ridiculousness.
But Klok-No-Ton saw only the face of Scundoo and its wan, gray smile,
heard only the faint far cricket's rasping. "I got it from the man
La-lah, and often have I thought," and, "It is a fair day and thy
medicine be strong."
He brushed by Hooniah, and the circle instinctively gave way for
him to pass. Sime flung a jeer from the top of the canoe, the women
snickered in his face, cries of derision rose in his wake, but he took
no notice, pressing onward to the house of Scundoo. He hammered on the
door, beat it with his fists, and howled vile imprecations. Yet there
was no response, save that in the lulls Scundoo's voice rose eerily
in incantation. Klok-No-Ton raged about like a madman, but when he
attempted to break in the door with a huge stone, murmurs arose from
the men and women. And he, Klok-No-Ton, knew that he stood shorn of
his strength and authority before an alien people. He saw a man stoop
for a stone, and a second, and a bodily fear ran through him.
"Harm not Scundoo, who is a master!" a woman cried out.
"Better you return to your own village," a man advised menacingly.
Klok-No-Ton turned on his heel and went down among them to the beach,
a bitter rage at his heart, and in his head a just apprehension for
his defenceless back. But no stones were cast. The children swarmed
mockingly about his feet, and the air was wild with laughter and
derision, but that was all. Yet he did not breathe freely until the
canoe was well out upon the water, when he rose up and laid a futile
curse upon the village and its people, not forgetting to particularly
specify Scundoo who had made a mock of him.
Ashore there was a clamor for Scundoo, and the whole population
crowded his door, entreating and imploring in confused babel till he
came forth and raised his hand.
"In that ye are my children I pardon freely," he said. "But never
again. For the last time thy foolishness goes unpunished. That which
ye wish shall be granted, and it be already known to me. This night,
when the moon has gone behind the world to look upon the mighty
dead, let all the people gather in the blackness before the house of
Hooniah. Then shall the evil-doer stand forth and take his merited
reward. I have spoken."
"It shall be death!" Bawn vociferated, "for that it hath brought worry
upon us, and shame."
"So be it," Scundoo replied, and shut his door.
"Now shall all be made clear and plain, and content rest upon us once
again," La-lah declaimed oracularly.
"Because of Scundoo, the little man," Sime sneered.
"Because of the medicine of Scundoo, the little man," La-lah
corrected.
"Children of foolishness, these Thlinket people!" Sime smote his thigh
a resounding blow. "It passeth understanding that grown women and
strong men should get down in the dirt to dream-things and wonder
tales."
"I am a travelled man," La-lah answered. "I have journeyed on the deep
seas and seen signs and wonders, and I know that these things be so.
I am La-lah--"
"The Cheater--"
"So called, but the Far-Journeyer right-named."
"I am not so great a traveller--" Sime began.
"Then hold thy tongue," Bawn cut in, and they separated in anger.
When the last silver moonlight had vanished beyond the world, Scundoo
came among the people huddled about the house of Hooniah. He walked
with a quick, alert step, and those who saw him in the light of
Hooniah's slush-lamp noticed that he came empty-handed, without
rattles, masks, or shaman's paraphernalia, save for a great sleepy
raven carried under one arm.
"Is there wood gathered for a fire, so that all may see when the work
be done?" he demanded.
"Yea," Bawn answered. "There be wood in plenty."
"Then let all listen, for my words be few. With me have I brought
Jelchs, the Raven, diviner of mystery and seer of things. Him, in his
blackness, shall I place under the big black pot of Hooniah, in the
blackest corner of her house. The slush-lamp shall cease to burn, and
all remain in outer darkness. It is very simple. One by one shall ye
go into the house, lay hand upon the pot for the space of one long
intake of the breath, and withdraw again. Doubtless Jelchs will make
outcry when the hand of the evil-doer is nigh him. Or who knows but
otherwise he may manifest his wisdom. Are ye ready?"
"We be ready," came the multi-voiced response.
"Then will I call the name aloud, each in his turn and hers, till all
are called."
Thereat La-lah was first chosen, and he passed in at once. Every
ear strained, and through the silence they could hear his footsteps
creaking across the rickety floor. But that was all. Jelchs made no
outcry, gave no sign. Bawn was next chosen, for it well might be that
a man should steal his own blankets with intent to cast shame upon his
neighbors. Hooniah followed, and other women and children, but without
result.
"Sime!" Scundoo called out.
"Sime!" he repeated.
But Sime did not stir.
"Art thou afraid of the dark?" La-lah, his own integrity being proved,
demanded fiercely.
Sime chuckled. "I laugh at it all, for it is a great foolishness.
Yet will I go in, not in belief in wonders, but in token that I am
unafraid."
And he passed in boldly, and came out still mocking.
"Some day shalt thou die with great suddenness," La-lah whispered,
righteously indignant.
"I doubt not," the scoffer answered airily. "Few men of us die in our
beds, what of the shamans and the deep sea."
When half the villagers had safely undergone the ordeal, the
excitement, because of its repression, was painfully intense. When
two-thirds had gone through, a young woman, close on her first
child-bed, broke down and in nervous shrieks and laughter gave form to
her terror.
Finally the turn came for the last of all to go in, and nothing had
happened. And Di Ya was the last of all. It must surely be he. Hooniah
let out a lament to the stars, while the rest drew back from the
luckless lad. He was half-dead from fright, and his legs gave under
him so that he staggered on the threshold and nearly fell. Scundoo
shoved him inside and closed the door. A long time went by, during
which could be heard only the boy's weeping. Then, very slowly, came
the creak of his steps to the far corner, a pause, and the creaking of
his return. The door opened and he came forth. Nothing had happened,
and he was the last.
"Let the fire be lighted," Scundoo commanded.
The bright flames rushed upward, revealing faces yet marked with
vanishing fear, but also clouded with doubt.
"Surely the thing has failed," Hooniah whispered hoarsely.
"Yea," Bawn answered complacently. "Scundoo groweth old, and we stand
in need of a new shaman."
"Where now is the wisdom of Jelchs?" Sime snickered in La-lah's ear.
La-lah brushed his brow in a puzzled manner and said nothing.
Sime threw his chest out arrogantly and strutted up to the little
shaman. "Hoh! Hoh! As I said, nothing has come of it!"
"So it would seem, so it would seem," Scundoo answered meekly. "And it
would seem strange to those unskilled in the affairs of mystery."
"As thou?" Sime queried audaciously.
"Mayhap even as I." Scundoo spoke quite softly, his eyelids drooping,
slowly drooping, down, down, till his eyes were all but hidden. "So I
am minded of another test. Let every man, woman, and child, now and at
once, hold their hands well up above their heads!"
So unexpected was the order, and so imperatively was it given, that it
was obeyed without question. Every hand was in the air.
"Let each look on the other's hands, and let all look," Scundoo
commanded, "so that--"
But a noise of laughter, which was more of wrath, drowned his voice.
All eyes had come to rest upon Sime. Every hand but his was black with
soot, and his was guiltless of the smirch of Hooniah's pot.
A stone hurtled through the air and struck him on the cheek.
"It is a lie!" he yelled. "A lie! I know naught of Hooniah's
blankets!"
A second stone gashed his brow, a third whistled past his head, the
great blood-cry went up, and everywhere were people groping on the
ground for missiles. He staggered and half sank down.
"It was a joke! Only a joke!" he shrieked. "I but took them for a
joke!"
"Where hast thou hidden them?" Scundoo's shrill, sharp voice cut
through the tumult like a knife.
"In the large skin-bale in my house, the one slung by the ridge-pole,"
came the answer. "But it was a joke, I say, only--"
Scundoo nodded his head, and the air went thick with flying stones.
Sime's wife was crying silently, her head upon her knees; but his
little boy, with shrieks and laughter, was flinging stones with the
rest.
Hooniah came waddling back with the precious blankets. Scundoo stopped
her.
"We be poor people and have little," she whimpered. "So be not hard
upon us, O Scundoo."
The people ceased from the quivering stone-pile they had builded, and
looked on.
"Nay, it was never my way, good Hooniah," Scundoo made answer,
reaching for the blankets. "In token that I am not hard, these only
shall I take."
"Am I not wise, my children?" he demanded.
"Thou art indeed wise, O Scundoo!" they cried in one voice.
And he went away into the darkness, the blankets around him, and
Jelchs nodding sleepily under his arm.