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Updated: May 22, 2025
This night, when the moon has gone behind the world to look upon the mighty dead, let all the people gather in the blackness before the house of Hooniah. Then shall the evil-doer stand forth and take his merited reward. I have spoken." "It shall be death!" Bawn vociferated, "for that it hath brought worry upon us, and shame." "So be it," Scundoo replied, and shut his door.
"So it would seem, so it would seem," Scundoo answered meekly. "And it would seem strange to those unskilled in the affairs of mystery." "As thou?" Sime queried audaciously. "Mayhap even as I." Scundoo spoke quite softly, his eyelids drooping, slowly drooping, down, down, till his eyes were all but hidden. "So I am minded of another test.
He brushed by Hooniah, and the circle instinctively gave way for him to pass. Sime flung a jeer from the top of the canoe, the women snickered in his face, cries of derision rose in his wake, but he took no notice, pressing onward to the house of Scundoo. He hammered on the door, beat it with his fists, and howled vile imprecations.
Bawn was next chosen, for it well might be that a man should steal his own blankets with intent to cast shame upon his neighbors. Hooniah followed, and other women and children, but without result. "Sime!" Scundoo called out. "Sime!" he repeated. But Sime did not stir. "Art thou afraid of the dark?" La-lah, his own integrity being proved, demanded fiercely. Sime chuckled.
And to make the matter worse, Scundoo, the shaman, was in disgrace, and his known magic could not be called upon to seek out the evil-doer.
"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!
He saw a man stoop for a stone, and a second, and a bodily fear ran through him. "Harm not Scundoo, who is a master!" a woman cried out. "Better you return to your own village," a man advised menacingly. Klok-No-Ton turned on his heel and went down among them to the beach, a bitter rage at his heart, and in his head a just apprehension for his defenceless back. But no stones were cast.
"Now shall all be made clear and plain, and content rest upon us once again," La-lah declaimed oracularly. "Because of Scundoo, the little man," Sime sneered. "Because of the medicine of Scundoo, the little man," La-lah corrected. "Children of foolishness, these Thlinket people!" Sime smote his thigh a resounding blow.
It must surely be he. Hooniah let out a lament to the stars, while the rest drew back from the luckless lad. He was half-dead from fright, and his legs gave under him so that he staggered on the threshold and nearly fell. Scundoo shoved him inside and closed the door. A long time went by, during which could be heard only the boy's weeping.
Let every man, woman, and child, now and at once, hold their hands well up above their heads!" So unexpected was the order, and so imperatively was it given, that it was obeyed without question. Every hand was in the air. "Let each look on the other's hands, and let all look," Scundoo commanded, "so that " But a noise of laughter, which was more of wrath, drowned his voice.
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