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Updated: May 11, 2025
Tyee rubbed his hands gleefully as the dry structure burned and crackled. "Now we have them, brothers! In the trap!" "And no one may gainsay me the gun of Bill-Man," Aab-Waak announced. "Save Bill-Man," squeaked the old hunter. "For behold, he cometh now!"
"I did but look in, and the dead were piled like seals on the ice after a killing!" "Did I not say, mayhap, they were fighters?" cackled the weazened old hunter. "It was to be expected," Aab-Waak answered stoutly. "We fought in a trap of our making." "O ye fools!" Tyee chided. "Ye sons of fools! It was not planned, this thing ye have done.
The keen-eyed ones made out a dense cloud of smoke, which quickly disappeared, and which they averred was directly over the ship of the Sunlanders. Tyee was of the opinion that it was a big gun. Aab-Waak did not know, but thought it might be a signal of some sort. Anyway, he said, it was time something happened.
There are few men in Mandell, and many women; wherefore a wholesome and necessary polygamy is in practice; the women bear children with ardor, and the birth of a man-child is hailed with acclamation. Then there is Aab-Waak, whose head rests always on one shoulder, as though at some time the neck had become very tired and refused forevermore its wonted duty.
The cliff was honey-combed with a labyrinth of subterranean passages which found vent in an opening midway between the pit and where the trench tapped the wall. Thither, and with many exclamations, the tribesmen followed Aab-Waak, and, arrived, they saw plainly where the Sunlanders had climbed to the mouth, twenty and odd feet above. "Now the thing is done," Tyee said, rubbing his hands.
"It is a bad place where lie Bill-Man and his brothers," Aab-Waak explained. "We may come upon them from every side, which is not good. So they aim to get their backs against the cliff and wait until their brothers of the ship come to give them aid." "Never shall they come from the ship, their brothers! I have said it."
"I shall take the gun of Bill-Man for myself," Aab-Waak suddenly proclaimed. "Nay, it shall be mine!" shouted Neegah; "for there is the price of Mesahchie to be reckoned." "Peace! O brothers!" Tyee swept the assembly with his hands. "Let the women and children go to their igloos. This is the talk of men; let it be for the ears of men."
"The time will go before they are aware," he explained to Aab-Waak; "and their minds being busy, they will not think overmuch of the dead that are, nor gather trouble to themselves. And in the dark of night they may creep closer, so that when the Sunlanders look forth in the morning light they will find us very near."
And like a bird I rose up in the air, and the living Mandell Folk, and the dead Sunlanders, the little kayaks, the big ship, the guns, the wealth everything rose up in the air. So I say, I, Ounenk, who tell the tale, am the only one left." A great silence fell upon the assemblage. Tyee looked at Aab-Waak with awe-struck eyes, but forbore to speak. Even the women were too stunned to wail the dead.
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