Mount Rainier, a Record of Exploration. Various

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ proud grandeur among the dwellers by Whulge. He plunged his arm deep as he could go; there was still nothing but the precious shells. He smiled to himself in triumph; he had wrung the secret from Tamanoüs. Then, as he withdrew his arm, the rattle of the hiaqua recalled him to the present. He saw that noon was long past, and he must proceed to reduce his property to possession.

      "The hiaqua was strung upon long, stout sinews of elk, in bunches of fifty shells on each side. Four of these he wound about his waist; three he hung across each shoulder; five he took in each hand;—twenty strings of pure white hiaqua, every shell large, smooth, unbroken, beautiful. He could carry no more; hardly even with this could he stagger along. He put down his burden for a moment, while he covered up the seemingly untouched wealth of the deposit carefully with the scale stones, and brushed snow over the whole.

      "The miser never dreamed of gratitude, never thought to hang a string from the buried treasure about the salmon and kamas tamanoüs stones, and two strings around the elk's head; no, all must be his own, all he could carry now, and the rest for the future.

      "He turned, and began his climb toward the crater's edge. At once the otters, with a mighty puff in concert, took up their line of procession, and, plunging into the black lake, began to beat the water with their tails.

      "The miser could hear the sound of splashing water as he struggled upward through the snow, now melted and yielding. It was a long hour of harsh toil and much backsliding before he reached the rim, and turned to take one more view of this valley of good fortune.

      "As he looked, a thick mist began to rise from the lake centre, where the otters were splashing. Under the mist grew a cylinder of black cloud, utterly hiding the water.

      "Terrible are storms in the mountains; but in this looming mass was a terror more dread than any hurricane of ruin ever bore within its wild vortexes. Tamanoüs was in that black cylinder, and as it strode forward, chasing in the very path of the miser, he shuddered, for his wealth and his life were in danger.

      "However, it might be but a common storm. Sunlight was bright as ever overhead in heaven, and all the lovely world below lay dreamily fair, in that afternoon of summer, at the feet of the rich man, who now was hastening to be its king. He stepped from the crater edge and began his descent.

      "Instantly the storm overtook him. He was thrown down by its first assault, flung over a rough bank of iciness, and lay at the foot torn and bleeding, but clinging still to his precious burden. Each hand still held its five strings of hiaqua. In each hand he bore a nation's ransom. He staggered to his feet against the blast. Utter night was around him—night as if daylight had forever perished, had never come into being from chaos. The roaring of the storm had also deafened and bewildered him with its wild uproar.

      "Present in every crash and thunder of the gale was a growing undertone, which the miser well knew to be the voice of Tamanoüs. A deadly shuddering shook him. Heretofore that potent Unseen had been his friend and guide; there had been awe, but no terror, in his words. Now the voice of Tamanoüs was inarticulate, but the miser could divine in that sound an unspeakable threat of wrath and vengeance. Floating upon this undertone were sharper tamanoüs voices, shouting and screaming always sneeringly, 'Ha, ha, hiaqua!—ha, ha, ha!'

      "Whenever the miser essayed to move and continue his descent, a whirlwind caught him, and with much ado tossed him hither and thither, leaving him at last flung and imprisoned in a pinching crevice, or buried to the eyes in a snowdrift, or bedded upside down on a shaggy boulder, or gnawed by lacerating lava jaws. Sharp torture the old man was encountering, but he held fast to his hiaqua.

      "The blackness grew ever deeper and more crowded with perdition; the din more impish, demoniac, and devilish; the laughter more appalling; and the miser more and more exhausted with vain buffeting. He determined to propitiate exasperated Tamanoüs with a sacrifice. He threw into the black cylinder storm his left-handful, five strings of precious hiaqua."

      "Somewhat long-winded is thy legend, Hamitchou, Great Medicine-Man of the Squallyamish," quoth I. "Why didn't the old fool drop his wampum—shell out, as one might say—and make tracks?"

      "Well, well!" continued Hamitchou; "when the miser had thrown away his first handful of hiaqua, there was a momentary lull in elemental war, and he heard the otters puffing around him invisible. Then the storm renewed, blacker, louder, harsher, crueller than before, and over the dread undertone of the voice of Tamanoüs, tamanoüs voices again screamed, 'Ha, ha, ha, hiaqua!' and it seemed as if tamanoüs hands, or the paws of the demon otters, clutched at the miser's right-handful and tore at his shoulder and waist belts.

      "So, while darkness and tempest still buffeted the hapless old man, and thrust him away from his path, and while the roaring was wickeder than the roars of tens and tens of tens of bears when ahungered they pounce upon a plain of kamas, gradually wounded and terrified he flung away string after string of hiaqua, gaining never any notice of such sacrifice, except an instant's lull of the cyclone and a puff from the invisible otters.

      "The last string he clung to long, and before he threw it to be caught and whirled after its fellows, he tore off a single bunch of fifty shells. But upon this, too, the storm laid its clutches. In the final desperate struggle the old man was wounded so sternly that when he had given up his last relic of the mighty treasure, when he had thrown into the formless chaos, instinct with Tamanoüs, his last propitiatory offering, he sank and became insensible.

      "It seemed a long slumber to him, but at last he awoke. The jagged moon was just paling overhead, and he heard Skai-ki, the Blue-Jay, foe to magic, singing welcome to sunrise. It was the very spot whence he started at morning.

      "He was hungry, and felt for his bag of kamas and pouch of smokeleaves. There, indeed, by his side were the elk-sinew strings of the bag, and the black stone pipe-bowl—but no bag, no kamas, no kinni kinnik. The whole spot was thick with kamas plants, strangely out of place on the mountain-side, and overhead grew a large arbutus-tree, with glistening leaves, ripe for smoking. The old man found his hardwood fire-sticks safe under the herbage, and soon twirled a light, and, nurturing it in dry grass, kindled a cheery fire. He plucked up kamas, set it to roast, and laid a store of the arbutus-leaves to dry on a flat stone.

      "After he had made a hearty breakfast of the chestnut-like kamas-bulbs, and, smoking the thoughtful pipe, was reflecting on the events of yesterday, he became aware of an odd change in his condition. He was not bruised and wounded from head to foot, as he expected, but very stiff only, and as he stirred, his joints creaked like the creak of a lazy paddle upon the rim of a canoe. Skai-ki, the Blue-Jay, was singularly familiar with him, hopping from her perch in the arbutus, and alighting on his head. As he put his hand to dislodge her, he touched his scratching-stick of bone, and attempted to pass it, as usual, through his hair. The hair was matted and interlaced into a network reaching fully two ells down his back. 'Tamanoüs,' thought the old man.

      "Chiefly he was conscious of a mental change. He was calm and content. Hiaqua and wealth seemed to have lost their charms for him. Tacoma, shining like gold and silver and precious stones of gayest lustre, seemed a benign comrade and friend. All the outer world was cheerful and satisfying. He thought he had never awakened to a fresher morning. He was a young man again, except for that unusual stiffness and unmelodious creaking joints. He felt no apprehension of any presence of a deputy tamanoüs, sent by Tamanoüs to do malignities upon him in the lonely wood. Great Nature had a kindly aspect, and made its divinity perceived only by the sweet notes of birds and the hum of forest life, and by a joy that clothed his being. And now he found in his heart a sympathy for man, and a longing to meet his old acquaintances down by the shores of Whulge.

      "He rose, and started on the downward way, smiling, and sometimes laughing heartily at the strange croaking, moaning, cracking, and rasping of his joints. But soon motion set the lubricating valves at СКАЧАТЬ