Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 69).djvu/161

 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.

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 fervour 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 finger 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 your starving village!"

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 favoured 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