CHAPTER VI THE BLUE G.o.d

As Florence returned from her lectures the following afternoon she pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sing 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 G.o.d. 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 G.o.d."

"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 ash.o.r.e 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 pa.s.s 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 G.o.d is of importance.

"He found that these people worshipped a strange G.o.d, 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 G.o.d.

"So ancient was this G.o.d that not the oldest man in the village could recall the time when it had first been accepted as their G.o.d. 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, pa.s.sing 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 G.o.d. This rock, which proved to be of blue jade, became their G.o.d. 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 G.o.ds, only to find that the rock had vanished.

"Their medicine men explained that, being a G.o.d, the rock had the power of going where it pleased. So there could be only five blue G.o.ds. But the people lived on and prospered.

"As the years pa.s.sed, many cruel practices grew up in connection with the worship of these G.o.ds. 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 G.o.ds 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 G.o.d. 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."