by Roy J. Snell
CHAPTER VI THE BLUE GOD
As Florence returned from her lectures the following afternoon she passedacross the end of the lagoon.
Once she had found her skate, lost on the previous night, and thrust itinto the bag with her books, she glanced up at the ragged giant of abuilding which lay sleeping there on its blanket of snow. She felt analmost irresistible desire again to enter and roam about its desertedcorridors.
Walking to the corner beneath the broken windows, she glanced to theright 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 ofthe wall, scaled the grating with the agility of a squirrel, tumbled overthe upper window sill and found herself once more inside.
In spite of the fact that it was now broad daylight and would be for anhour, she found her heart fluttering painfully. The experiences of theprevious 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 themain floor below, the unpleasant sensations left her. She found herselfwalking, as she had some years before as a child, in the midst of athrong, exclaiming at every newly discovered monster or thing of delicatebeauty. The treasures had long since been removed to newer and moremagnificent 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 aboutto bestow upon it only a passing 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 clothof a peculiar blue tint. Florence knew, however, that it was more thanthat, for when her toe had struck it, she had thought it some solidobject.
With trembling fingers she tore away the silk threads which bound it, touncover a curious object of blue stone shaped like a short, squatcandlestick. Indeed, there were traces of tallow to be seen in thecuplike hollow at the top of it.
"Looks like it might be blue jade," she told herself. "If it is, it'sworth something--"
The whisper died on her lips. A thought had come to her, one which madeher afraid of the gathering darkness, and caused her to hastily thrustthe thing into the pocket of her coat and hurry from the building.
That night, after the dinner dishes were washed, Florence, who had beenfumbling with something in the corner, suddenly turned out the lights.Scratching a match, she lighted the half of a candle which she had thrustinto 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 strangeblue god. It is told best while seated in the floor as the Negontiskssit, with legs crossed. It is told best by the dim and flaring light of acandle."
"Oh! Good!" exclaimed Lucile, dropping down beside her.
"But where did you get the odd candlestick?" asked Marian as she followedLucile. "What a strange thing it is; made of some almost transparent bluestone. And see! little faces peer out at you from every angle. It is asif a hundred wicked fairies had been bottled up in it."
All that Marian had said was true, and even Florence stared at it a longtime before she answered:
"Found it in the old museum. Probably left behind when the displays weremoved out. I ought to take it down to the new museum and ask them, Iguess."
There was something in Florence's tone which told Lucile that she herselfdid not believe half she was saying but she did not give voice to thosethoughts. Instead she whispered:
"Come now, let us have the story of the blue god."
"As the old seaman told it to me," said Florence, "it was like this: Hehad been shanghaied by a whaler captain whose ship was to cruise thecoast of Arctic Siberia. So cruel and unjust was this captain that thesailor resolved to escape at the first opportunity. That opportunity cameone day when he, with others, had been sent ashore on the Asiaticcontinent somewhere between Korea and Behring Straits.
"Slipping away when no one was looking, he hid on the edge of a rockycliff 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 placeappeared to be uninhabited. It was summer, however, and there were solmanberries on the tundra and blueberries in the hills. There were anabundance of wild birds' eggs to be gathered on the ledges. The meat ofyoung birds was tender and good; so he fared well enough.
"But, not forgetting that summer would soon pass and his food supply begone, he made his way southward until at last he came within sight of thecamp fires of a village.
"It was with much fear that he approached these strangers. He found themfriendly enough, ready to share food and shelter with him providing hewas willing to share their labor.
"You wouldn't care to hear of his life among these natives. Only the partrelating to the blue god is of importance.
"He found that these people worshipped a strange god, or idol. This idolwas a very ugly face carved out of a block of solid blue jade. When beingworshipped it was always illumined by some strange light which caused itto appear to smile and frown at alternating intervals."
Lucile leaned over and gripped the speaker's arm. "See how the faces inthe 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, wholived in skin tents and traveled in skin boats as the Eskimos do, and areconsidered by some to be the forefathers of the Eskimos, came to haveconfidence in the seaman, they told him the story of the blue god.
"So ancient was this god that not the oldest man in the village couldrecall the time when it had first been accepted as their god. They didknow, however, that one time when there were but five villages of theirtribe, and when all these villagers had joined in a great feast of whitewhale meat and sour berries, on a slope at the foot of a great mountain ahuge rock had come rattling down from the cliffs above and, passingthrough their midst, had crushed to death five of their number.
"As is the custom with most barbaric tribes, these people considered thatanything which had the power to destroy them must be a god. This rock,which proved to be of blue jade, became their god. And that they mighthave it ever with them as they traveled, that it might protect them andbring them good fortune, they carved from it five hollow faces, likemasks. One of these was taken by each village. Then they went their way.
"From that day, so the story goes, the Negontisk people were greatlyprospered. They found food in abundance. No longer were there starvingtimes. They had children in numbers and all these lived to grow tomanhood.
"As the tribe grew, they wished to create new villages. They returned tothe place of the rock for new gods, only to find that the rock hadvanished.
"Their medicine men explained that, being a god, the rock had the powerof going where it pleased. So there could be only five blue gods. But thepeople lived on and prospered.
"As the years passed, many cruel practices grew up in connection with theworship of these gods. Some of them are so terrible that the old seamanwould not tell me of them. One, however, he did tell; that was that allthe illuminations of the gods were held in a tent made of manythicknesses of skins. Only men were permitted to be present during theillumination. The life of a woman or child who chanced to look into thetent at such a time must be sacrificed. Their blood must be spilledbefore the face of the blue god. Very strange sort of"--she broke offabruptly, 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 blueface illumined and I am a girl, so--"
"Nonsense! Pure nonsense!" exclaimed Marian. "You are in America,Chicago. This story comes from Sib
eria. Probably not one of thosetribesmen has ever set foot on the American continent, let alone inChicago. And if they did, do you suppose for a moment that ourauthorities would allow them to continue to perform these terriblereligious 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 clockin the wall disturbed the stillness. Then, faintly from outside theresounded a sort of metallic jingle.
"Someone out there, below," whispered Marian. "He has kicked that tin canI 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 scratchingsound, seemingly upon the side of the yacht.
"Last time," said Marian, setting her teeth tight, "he got away with hisnote tacking. This time he shall not."
Tiptoeing down the room without the least sound, she climbed upon herberth, which was made up for the night. By propping herself upright onher knees she could just see through a small, circular window. Thiswindow was directly opposite the opening made by propping up the canvas.
Florence had placed herself between Marian and the candle. No light fellupon Marian to betray her presence. When one is in a dark room at night,he may peer into the moonlit outer world without being seen. Marian hadpoised there motionless for a full moment when, without altering herposition other than turning her head, she whispered:
"Lucile, bring me that bottle of gas."
Understanding at once what bottle was meant, Lucile tiptoed down thelength of the room, managed to open the laboratory door without noise,then put her hand to the shelf where the "Quick Action Gas" was kept.
With this in her hand she returned to Marian. She whispered as she passedit up to her:
"Be careful not to drop it in here. It would drive us all out and we'rehardly dressed for that."
Shrugging her shoulders beneath her dressing gown, Marian placed thebottle on the blankets, then reached for the catch which kept the windowclosed. This window was seldom opened and she was not sure but that theunused hinges would give out a rusty squeak. In this case her purposewould be thwarted. She could but try.
Catching her breath, she turned the handle, then gave a slight pull. Toher immense relief, there came no sound as the window swung inward.Seizing the bottle, she brought her hand even with her head, then satpoised there quite motionless as if impersonating the statue of ahand-grenade thrower.
Then, suddenly, her whole body became tense. The hand holding the bottleflew back. It shot forward.
