The Greatest Adventures Boxed Set: Jack London Edition. Jack London
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frightful tortures. Even had he found, once, a devil residing within the body of a three-months babe—a most obstinate devil which could only be driven out when the babe had lain for a week on thorns and briers. The body was thrown into the sea after that, but the waves tossed it back again and again as a curse upon the village, nor did it finally go away till two strong men were staked out at low tide and drowned.
And Hooniah had sent for this Klok-No-Ton. Better had it been if Scundoo, their own shaman, were undisgraced. For he had ever a gentler way, and he had been known to drive forth two devils from a man who afterward begat seven healthy children. But Klok-No-Ton! They shuddered with dire foreboding at thought of him, and each one felt himself the centre of accusing eyes, and looked accusingly upon his fellows—each one and all, save Sime, and Sime was a scoffer whose evil end was destined with a certitude his successes could not shake.
“Hoh! Hoh!” he laughed. “Devils and Klok-No-Ton!—than whom no greater devil can be found in Thlinket Land.”
“Thou fool! Even now he cometh with witcheries and sorceries; so beware thy tongue, lest evil befall thee and thy days be short in the land!”
So spoke La-lah, otherwise the Cheater, and Sime laughed scornfully.
“I am Sime, unused to fear, unafraid of the dark. I am a strong man, as my father before me, and my head is clear. Nor you nor I have seen with our eyes the unseen evil things—”
“But Scundoo hath,” La-lah made answer. “And likewise Klok-No-Ton. This we know.”
“How dost thou know, son of a fool?” Sime thundered, the choleric blood darkening his thick bull neck.
“By the word of their mouths—even so.”
Sime snorted. “A shaman is only a man. May not his words be crooked, even as thine and mine? Bah! Bah! And once more, bah! And this for thy shamans and thy shamans’ devils! and this! and this!”
And snapping his fingers to right and left, Sime strode through the onlookers, who made over-zealous and fearsome way for him.
“A good fisher and strong hunter, but an evil man,” said one.
“Yet does he flourish,” speculated another.
“Wherefore be thou evil and flourish,” Sime retorted over his shoulder. “And were all evil, there would be no need for shamans. Bah! You children-afraid-of-the-dark!”
And when Klok-No-Ton arrived on the afternoon tide, Sime’s defiant laugh was unabated; nor did he forbear to make a joke when the shaman tripped on the sand in the landing. Klok-No-Ton looked at him sourly, and without greeting stalked straight through their midst to the house of Scundoo.
Of the meeting with Scundoo none of the tribespeople might know, for they clustered reverently in the distance and spoke in whispers while the masters of mystery were together.
“Greeting, O Scundoo!” Klok-No-Ton rumbled, wavering perceptibly from doubt of his reception.
He was a giant in stature, and towered massively above little Scundoo, whose thin voice floated upward like the faint far rasping of a cricket.
“Greeting, Klok-No-Ton,” he returned. “The day is fair with thy coming.”
“Yet it would seem …” Klok-No-Ton hesitated.
“Yea, yea,” the little shaman put in impatiently, “that I have fallen on ill days, else would I not stand in gratitude to you in that you do my work.”
“It grieves me, friend Scundoo …”
“Nay, I am made glad, Klok-No-Ton.”
“But will I give thee half of that which be given me.”
“Not so, good Klok-No-Ton,” murmured Scundoo, with a deprecatory wave of the hand. “It is I who am thy slave, and my days shall be filled with desire to befriend thee.”
“As I—”
“As thou now befriendest me.”
“That being so, it is then a bad business, these blankets of the woman Hooniah?”
The big shaman blundered tentatively in his quest, and Scundoo smiled a wan, gray smile, for he was used to reading men, and all men seemed very small to him.
“Ever hast thou dealt in strong medicine,” he said. “Doubtless the evil-doer will be briefly known to thee.”
“Ay, briefly known when I set eyes upon him.” Again Klok-No-Ton hesitated. “Have there been gossips from other places?” he asked.
Scundoo shook his head. “Behold! Is this not a most excellent mucluc?”
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