THE BLUE GOD
As Florence returned from her lectures the following afternoon she passed
across the end of the lagoon.
Once she had found her skate, lost on the previous night, and thrust it
into the bag with her books, she glanced up at the ragged giant of a
building which lay sleeping there on its blanket of snow. She felt an
almost irresistible desire again to enter and roam about its deserted
corridors.
Walking to the corner beneath the broken windows, she glanced to the
right and left of her, allowed her gaze to sweep the horizon, then,
seeing no one who might observe her actions, she sprang upon the edge of
the wall, scaled the grating with the agility of a squirrel, tumbled over
the upper window sill and found herself once more inside.
In spite of the fact that it was now broad daylight and would be for an
hour, she found her heart fluttering painfully. The experiences of the
previous night were all too freshly burned on the tissues of her brain.
As she tiptoed down the balcony, then dropped from step to step to the
main floor below, the unpleasant sensations left her. She found herself
walking, as she had some years before as a child, in the midst of a
throng, exclaiming at every newly discovered monster or thing of delicate
beauty. The treasures had long since been removed to newer and more
magnificent quarters, but the memory of them lingered.
She was wandering along thus absorbed when her foot touched something.
Thinking it but a stray brick or crumbling bit of plaster, she was about
to bestow upon it only a passing glance when, with a sudden exclamation,
she stooped and picked it up.
The thing at first sight appeared to be but a bundle of soiled silk cloth
of a peculiar blue tint. Florence knew, however, that it was more than
that, for when her toe had struck it, she had thought it some solid
object.
With trembling fingers she tore away the silk threads which bound it, to
uncover a curious object of blue stone shaped like a short, squat
candlestick. Indeed, there were traces of tallow to be seen in the
cuplike hollow at the top of it.
"Looks like it might be blue jade," she told herself. "If it is, it's
worth something--"
The whisper died on her lips. A thought had come to her, one which made
her afraid of the gathering darkness, and caused her to hastily thrust
the thing into the pocket of her coat and hurry from the building.
That night, after the dinner dishes were washed, Florence, who had been
fumbling with something in the corner, suddenly turned out the lights.
Scratching a match, she lighted the half of a candle which she had thrust
into the candlestick she had found in the museum.
"Gather round, children," she said solemnly.
Placing the candle on the floor, she sat down tailor-fashion before it.
"Gather round," she repeated, "and you shall hear the tale of the strange
blue god. It is told best while seated in the floor as the Negontisks
sit, with legs crossed. It is told best by the dim and flaring light of a
candle."
"Oh! Good!" exclaimed Lucile, dropping down beside her.
"But where did you get the odd candlestick?" asked Marian as she followed
Lucile. "What a strange thing it is; made of some almost transparent blue
stone. And see! little faces peer out at you from every angle. It is as
if a hundred wicked fairies had been bottled up in it."
All that Marian had said was true, and even Florence stared at it a long
time before she answered:
"Found it in the old museum. Probably left behind when the displays were
moved out. I ought to take it down to the new museum and ask them, I
guess."
There was something in Florence's tone which told Lucile that she herself
did not believe half she was saying but she did not give voice to those
thoughts. Instead she whispered:
"Come now, let us have the story of the blue god."
"As the old seaman told it to me," said Florence, "it was like this: He
had been shanghaied by a whaler captain whose ship was to cruise the
coast of Arctic Siberia. So cruel and unjust was this captain that the
sailor resolved to escape at the first opportunity. That opportunity came
one day when he, with others, had been sent ashore on the Asiatic
continent somewhere between Korea and Behring Straits.
"Slipping away when no one was looking, he hid on the edge of a rocky
cliff until he saw the whaler heave anchor and sail away.
"At first it seemed to him that he had gone from bad to worse; the place
appeared to be uninhabited. It was summer, however, and there were solman
berries on the tundra and blueberries in the hills. There were an
abundance of wild birds' eggs to be gathered on the ledges. The meat of
young birds was tender and good; so he fared well enough.
"But, not forgetting that summer would soon pass and his food supply be
gone, he made his way southward until at last he came within sight of the
camp fires of a village.
"It was with much fear that he approached these strangers. He found them
friendly enough, ready to share food and shelter with him providing he
was willing to share their labor.
"You wouldn't care to hear of his life among these natives. Only the part
relating to the blue god is of importance.
"He found that these people worshipped a strange god, or idol. This idol
was a very ugly face carved out of a block of solid blue jade. When being
worshipped it was always illumined by some strange light which caused it
to appear to smile and frown at alternating intervals."
Lucile leaned over and gripped the speaker's arm. "See how the faces in
the candlestick smile and frown," she shuddered.
Florence smiled and nodded, then proceeded with her story:
"Little by little, as these people who called themselves Negontisks, who
lived in skin tents and traveled in skin boats as the Eskimos do, and are
considered by some to be the forefathers of the Eskimos, came to have
confidence in the seaman, they told him the story of the blue god.
"So ancient was this god that not the oldest man in the village could
recall the time when it had first been accepted as their god. They did
know, however, that one time when there were but five villages of their
tribe, and when all these villagers had joined in a great feast of white
whale meat and sour berries, on a slope at the foot of a great mountain a
huge rock had come rattling down from the cliffs above and, passing
through their midst, had crushed to death five of their number.
"As is the custom with most barbaric tribes, these people considered that
anything which had the power to destroy them must be a god. This rock,
which proved to be of blue jade, became their god. And that they might
have it ever with them as they traveled, that it might protect them and
bring them good fortune, they carved from it five hollow faces, like
masks. One of these was taken by each village. Then they went their way.
"From that day, so the story goes, the Negontisk people were greatly
prospered. They found food in abundance. No longer were there starving
times. They had children in numbers and all these lived to grow to
manhood.
"As the tribe grew, they wished to create new villages. They returned to
the place of the rock for new gods, only to find that the rock had
vanished.
"Their medicine men explained that, being a god, the rock had the power
of going where it pleased. So there could be only five blue gods. But the
people lived on and prospered.
"As the years passed, many cruel practices grew up in connection with the
worship of these gods. Some of them are so terrible that the old seaman
would not tell me of them. One, however, he did tell; that was that all
the illuminations of the gods were held in a tent made of many
thicknesses of skins. Only men were permitted to be present during the
illumination. The life of a woman or child who chanced to look into the
tent at such a time must be sacrificed. Their blood must be spilled
before the face of the blue god. Very strange sort of"--she broke off
abruptly, to exclaim:
"Why, Lucile, what makes you tremble so?"
"Nothing, I guess." Lucile tried to smile but made a poor attempt at it.
"It--it's ridiculous, I know," she stammered, "but you know I saw a blue
face illumined and I am a girl, so--"
"Nonsense! Pure nonsense!" exclaimed Marian. "You are in America,
Chicago. This story comes from Siberia. Probably not one of those
tribesmen has ever set foot on the American continent, let alone in
Chicago. And if they did, do you suppose for a moment that our
authorities would allow them to continue to perform these terrible
religious rites?"
Florence was silent.
Suddenly Lucile whispered:
"Listen! What was that?"
For a moment the room was silent. Only the faint tick-tick of the clock
in the wall disturbed the stillness. Then, faintly from outside there
sounded a sort of metallic jingle.
"Someone out there, below," whispered Marian. "He has kicked that tin can
I threw out there; the third can of corn, remember?"
The answer was a faint "Ah." Then again all was silence.
Two or three moments had elapsed when there came a faint scratching
sound, seemingly upon the side of the yacht.
"Last time," said Marian, setting her teeth tight, "he got away with his
note tacking. This time he shall not."
Tiptoeing down the room without the least sound, she climbed upon her
berth, which was made up for the night. By propping herself upright on
her knees she could just see through a small, circular window. This
window was directly opposite the opening made by propping up the canvas.
Florence had placed herself between Marian and the candle. No light fell
upon Marian to betray her presence. When one is in a dark room at night,
he may peer into the moonlit outer world without being seen. Marian had
poised there motionless for a full moment when, without altering her
position other than turning her head, she whispered:
"Lucile, bring me that bottle of gas."
Understanding at once what bottle was meant, Lucile tiptoed down the
length of the room, managed to open the laboratory door without noise,
then put her hand to the shelf where the "Quick Action Gas" was kept.
With this in her hand she returned to Marian. She whispered as she passed
it up to her:
"Be careful not to drop it in here. It would drive us all out and we're
hardly dressed for that."
Shrugging her shoulders beneath her dressing gown, Marian placed the
bottle on the blankets, then reached for the catch which kept the window
closed. This window was seldom opened and she was not sure but that the
unused hinges would give out a rusty squeak. In this case her purpose
would be thwarted. She could but try.
Catching her breath, she turned the handle, then gave a slight pull. To
her immense relief, there came no sound as the window swung inward.
Seizing the bottle, she brought her hand even with her head, then sat
poised there quite motionless as if impersonating the statue of a
hand-grenade thrower.
Then, suddenly, her whole body became tense. The hand holding the bottle
flew back. It shot forward.