The Magnetic North Part 29

The voice of the white man, the call for light, reached the Shaman. He seemed to s.h.i.+ver and shrink under the folds of the Kamlayka. But instead of getting up and looking his enemy in the face, he wriggled along on his belly, still under cover of the Kamlayka, till he got to the bear-skin, pushed it aside with a motion of the hooded head, and crawled out like some snaky symbol of darkness and superst.i.tion fleeing before the light.

"Brother Paul!" sobbed the girl, "don't, _don't_ tell Sister Winifred."

He took no notice of her, bending down over the motionless bundle in the corner.

"You've killed him, I suppose?"

"Brother Paul--" began Nicholas, faltering.

"Oh, I heard the pandemonium." He lifted his thin white face to the smoke-hole. "It's all useless, useless. I might as well go and leave you to your abominations. But instead, go _you_, all of you--go!" He flung out his long arms, and the group broke and scuttled, huddling near the bear-skin, fighting like rats to get out faster than the narrow pa.s.sage permitted.

The Boy turned from watching the instantaneous flight, the scuffle, and the disappearance, to find the burning eyes of the Jesuit fixed fascinated on his face. If Brother Paul had appeared as a spectre in the ighloo, it was plain that he looked upon the white face present at the diabolic rite as dream or devil. The Boy stood up. The lay-brother started, and crossed himself.

"In Christ's name, what--who are you?"

"I--a--I come from the white camp ten miles below."

"And you were _here_--you allowed this? Ah-h!" He flung up his arms, the pale lips moved convulsively, but no sound came forth.

"I--you think I ought to have interfered?" began the Boy.

"I think--" the Brother began bitterly, checked himself, knelt down, and felt the old man's pulse.

Nicholas at the bear-skin was making the Boy signs to come.

The girl was sobbing with her face on the ground. Again Nicholas beckoned, and then disappeared. There seemed to be nothing to do but to follow his host. When the bear-skin had dropped behind the Boy, and he crawled after Nicholas along the dark pa.s.sage, he heard the m.u.f.fled voice of the girl praying: "Oh, Mary, Mother of G.o.d, don't let him tell Sister Winifred."

CHAPTER VI

A PENITENTIAL JOURNEY

"... Certain London parishes still receive 12 per annum for f.a.gots to burn heretics."--JOHN RICHARD GREEN.

The Boy slept that night in the Kachime beside a very moody, restless host. Yagorsha dispensed with the formality of going to bed, and seemed bent on doing what he could to keep other people awake. He sat monologuing under the seal lamp till the Boy longed to throw the dish of smouldering oil at his head. But strangely enough, when, through sheer fatigue, his voice failed and his chin fell on his broad chest, a lad of fourteen or so, who had also had difficulty to keep awake, would jog Yagorsha's arm, repeating interrogatively the last phrase used, whereon the old Story-Teller would rouse himself and begin afresh, with an iteration of the previous statement. If the lad failed to keep him going, one or other of the natives would stir uneasily, lift a head from under his deerskin, and remonstrate. Yagorsha, opening his eyes with a guilty start, would go on with the yarn. When morning came, and the others waked, Yagorsha and the lad slept.

Nicholas and all the rest who shared the bench at night, and the fire in the morning, seemed desperately depressed and glum. A heavy cloud hung over Pymeut, for Pymeut was in disgrace.

About sunset the women came in with the kantaks and the lard-cans.

Yagorsha sat up and rubbed his eyes. He listened eagerly, while the others questioned the women. The old Chief wasn't dead at all. No, he was much better. Brother Paul had been about to all the house-bound sick people, and given everybody medicine, and flour, and a terrible scolding. Oh yes, he was angrier than anybody had ever been before.

Some natives from the school at Holy Cross were coming for him tomorrow, and they were all going down river and across the southern portage to the branch mission at Kuskoquim.

"Down river? Sure?"

Yes, sure. Brother Paul had not waited to come with those others, being so anxious to bring medicine and things to Ol' Chief quick; and this was how he was welcomed back to the scene of his labours. A Devil's Dance was going on! That was what he called it.

"You savvy?" said Nicholas to his guest. "Brother Paul go plenty soon.

You wait."

I'll have company back to camp, was the Boy's first thought, and then--would there be any fun in that after all? It was plain Brother Paul was no such genial companion as Father Wills.

And so it was that he did not desert Nicholas, although Brother Paul's companions failed to put in an appearance on the following morning.

However, on the third day after the incident of the Shaman (who seemed to have vanished into thin air), Brother Paul shook the snow of Pymeut from his feet, and with three Indians from the Holy Cross school and a dog-team, he disappeared from the scene. Not till he had been gone some time did Nicholas venture to return to the parental roof.

They found Muckluck subdued but smiling, and the old man astonis.h.i.+ngly better. It looked almost as if he had turned the corner, and was getting well.

There was certainly something very like magic in such a recovery, but it was quickly apparent that this aspect of the case was not what occupied Nicholas, as he sat regarding his parent with a keen and speculative eye. He asked him some question, and they discussed the point volubly, Muckluck following the argument with close attention.

Presently it seemed that father and son were taking the guest into consideration. Muckluck also turned to him now and then, and by-and-by she said: "I think he go."

"Go where?"

"Holy Cross," said the old man eagerly.

"Brother Paul," Nicholas explained. "He go _down_ river. We get Holy Cross--more quick."

"I see. Before he can get back. But why do you want to go?"

"See Father Brachet."

"Sister Winifred say: 'Always tell Father Brachet; then everything all right,'" contributed Muckluck.

"You tell Pymeut belly solly," the old Chief said.

"Nicholas know he not able tell all like white man," Muckluck continued. "Nicholas say you good--hey? you good?"

"Well--a--pretty tollable, thank you."

"You go with Nicholas; you make Father Brachet unnerstan'--forgive.

Tell Sister Winifred--" She stopped, perplexed, vaguely distrustful at the Boy's chuckling.

"You think we can explain it all away, hey?" He made a gesture of happy clearance. "Shaman and everything, hey?"

"Me no can," returned Nicholas, with engaging modesty. "_You_--" He conveyed a limitless confidence.

"Well, I'll be jiggered if I don't try. How far is it?"

"Go slow--one sleep."

"Well, we won't go slow. We've got to do penance. When shall we start?"

"Too late now. Tomalla," said the Ol' Chief.

They got up very early--it seemed to the Boy like the middle of the night--stole out of the dark Kachime, and hurried over the hard crust that had formed on the last fall of snow, down the bleak, dim slope to the Ol' Chief's, where they were to breakfast.