They all began to laugh, the old man no less than the rest.
A general conversation was started, at first about different countries and customs, but soon reverting to burning local questions.
"What"s wrong with Andshay? He"s in trouble. There"s no trace of his boy."
"None?"
"A pity! He was a st.u.r.dy lad!"
"Have they found nothing?"
"No. All the neighbours have been out to search; they"ve searched the lakes, they"ve searched the wood, they"ve been searching for a whole week. But there"s nothing,--nothing."
"Ah!--sure to be a bear. They say one appeared in the valley; Kecherges saw him," muttered the fisherman, who had arrived with me.
At the word, "bear," Chachak, who was standing by the fire, silently playing with his fingers, suddenly looked up. Everyone stopped talking, and involuntarily turned towards him. His old wife nervously tried to change the subject.
"A bear! Where was he seen?" Chachak asked quickly in a low tone, sitting down on the bench.
"Oh! Who can tell? Perhaps it wasn"t one either," the fisherman answered hesitatingly.
"A bear,--depend upon it!" Chachak said slowly. "They have found neither flesh nor clothes:--"He" usually buries the remains of his prey in the ground,--"He" even sc.r.a.pes the blood off. That"s just what "He" does. You say Kecherges saw "Him?"" he again asked the fisherman.
"Lies!" the latter answered evasively.
"Oh! "He""s clever, "He""s sly and revengeful! Andshay must have done something to "Him" in order to be able to boast of it, or to have something to talk about. "He" remembers insults a long time, that"s why "He" has carried the boy off. Although "He" lives far away, "He"
hears in the mountains and forest quite well what we are saying here, and understands like a man,--better than a man! Who knows what "He"
is? Skin "Him," and you will see how like a woman "He" is. But "He""s revengeful,--and terribly fierce," Chachak added, looking down. ""He"
doesn"t forgive!"
"You Russian,"--he turned to me suddenly,--"be ready for "Him" on the road. Take care! Take care! Though a bear is big, "He" can go as quietly as a shadow when "He" wants to fall upon a man unawares. I advise you to stay the night with us; there"s no joking with "Him"!
Once I was not afraid either, but now;--there--look!" He undid his shirt sleeve. It was a terrible sight. The left shoulder, which, as I had previously noticed, the old man could make little use of, was shrunk and thin to the elbow, like a mere bone covered with skin, and those veins and muscles which were unscathed, wound round the bone close to the surface. There was a ma.s.s of white scars, crossing in different directions.
"I have killed many,--many!" he continued, "and now I know that they will eat me for it,--eat me because I"m afraid. It happened like this.
It was rather later in the season than this; it was freezing. I got ready my spring-gun for elk-shooting, and G.o.d gave me one of these big beasts. To have carted its flesh, skin, and inside along a bad road would have needed seven or eight horses. So I decided to build a larder on the spot, and to lay the elk in it for a time, till the road became frozen. I and my boy set out early to work. The lad was lingering a little way behind me, and I was walking quite quietly along the road, and had just pa.s.sed the willow which grows on the hill not far from here, when "He" came upon me. He ran towards me like a dog, and before I could look round "He" was already standing on his hind-legs. I reached out for my knife, but tried in vain to drag it from the sheath. There was a night frost, and on coming out of the house I had not wiped my knife, as I should, after eating, so it had frozen to the sheath. It was G.o.d"s hand!--So the "Black One" knocked me down. Finding myself overpowered, I seized him by the throat with my right hand, and laid the left on his jaws, and called to the boy to run for help. The silly boy jumped on him, and--whack!--went his pocket knife into the bear;--he had a little knife that size," and Chachak measured with his finger. ""You want to eat my father!" he shouted. The Black One was frightened, and jumped into the bushes. But the boy had hit me in the chest with his knife, and I should have been killed, had it been able to pierce the stag"s hide. They could scarcely bring me round again."
"And you see from that time, when "He," sitting on me, looked into my eyes, my mind has been troubled. I am afraid," he added quietly, "very much afraid."
Not long after I took leave of my kind hosts, and went home. The moon was shining brightly, the mist had disappeared, and the well-known foot-path shone white before me. I had gone along it a thousand times without fear or thought of evil, but this time when I neared the place where Chachak had been attacked I involuntarily fingered my knife-handle, and for a moment I seemed to see the monster lying in the shadow of the bushes, its s.h.a.ggy muzzle on its outstretched paws.
A few years later I heard that Chachak had disappeared without trace in the wood: the "forest lords" had doubtless accomplished their revenge.
FOOTNOTES:
[14] "Talaki," Yakut for "water-willow."
[15] "Yurta" = Yakut hut.
[16] "Kyrsa" = white fox.
[17] Native name for this forest.
[18] "Taiga" = primeval forest in Siberia.
[19] A large lake to the N.E. of the Kolymsk district.
IN SACRIFICE TO THE G.o.dS
WACLAW SIEROSZEWSKI
Close to where the river Sheroka issues from a rocky gorge into a broad valley, there is a wooden column, ornamented with carving. At this column, which stands in the middle of a small meadow near the water, the nomad Tungus a.s.semble annually from the neighbouring mountains. Hundreds of reindeer in the midst of a crowd of human beings make a charming picture as the caravans travel thither together. When the merry crowd enters the valley the splash of the river is lost in a ringing echo of voices.
Their camp-fires, scattered in a semi-circle in the wood at the foot of the mountains, twinkle against the background of eternal shadows like a shining girdle, in which the delicate spring green and the grey diaphanous tissue of stems and branches are interlaced.
This is the most agreeable season in the mountain valleys; gnats and other insects have not yet begun to be worrying, the air is delightfully cool, everything is unfolding and blossoming, and only the winter snow on the summits of the mountains lies untouched by the warmth. The pale, transparent sky above the snow neither darkens at night nor glitters with stars, but shines with the Northern light which joins the sunset of the fading day to the sunrise of the next.
The people remain near the column in the clearing for a whole week.
The family elders, grave old men, meet here and discuss their common needs, collect the tribute of hides, and settle all important matters.
But the young men use the time for love and merry-making, dancing and races. The valley rings with laughter and shouting, with the strokes of the hatchet and the echoes of songs; the ground trembles under the cloven hoofs of the furiously driven reindeer; the leather la.s.soes swish through the air as they are thrown on to the antlers of the animals destined for slaughter. And where work is most active, where life is at its fullest the jingle of the women"s gla.s.s and silver ornaments is sure to be heard.
So it has been time out of mind. But one year it happened differently.
Numbers of people a.s.sembled in the valley, as usual, but the noise of their talking did not drown the roar of the river. The youths did not dance at the meeting place, no reindeer were to be seen racing. There was no laughter, no singing.
Nor did the counsels take place in common. The men a.s.sembled in small groups in separate tents, with a dull look on their sad faces. They talked without animation; jokes and laughter, so beloved by the Tungus, were checked by a general sense of depression, and only rarely indulged in.
However, they did not disperse, but waited impatiently for the coming of old Seltichan, without whom they would not have dared to have settled any important matters. But the old man did not arrive.
"The old man doesn"t come, he doesn"t come,--and he won"t come,"
muttered one of the group, sitting among his companions, who were circling round the fire. He was a stout man of possibly fifty years of age, unlike a Tungus, and dressed like a Yakut, with a silver Yakut belt. He had the puffed-up air of a rich man knowing his own importance. "Who cares to visit the dying?" he added, sulkily.
"_You_ didn"t try to escape your fate," gloomily answered a poorly dressed old man, as tawny as copper, and as wrinkled as moss, who was sitting on the opposite side of the fire.
"That is true!" a third repeated. "You don"t try to escape, you don"t hide. Didn"t I run away, didn"t I hide? And what came of it?" and, with emotion, he began for the hundredth time to relate the story of his misfortune. Each time it was received with equal attention.
"When the news of the disaster came I was on the summit of Bur-Janga, and was just getting ready to go down; but I hesitated, and delayed my start. For a long while the G.o.d had mercy on me;--I know that!--till one night I awoke terrified, with a beating heart. I listened:--I heard what seemed like a shot, and loud calling. I drew my head from under the cover, and again I seemed to hear a noise in the wood, like distant shooting. The dogs whined and howled, as if they had noticed a bear. I went out of the tent, and looked. The moon was shining, and an immense shadow pa.s.sed into the wood from the bottom of the valley, avoiding the hills. The dogs fell at my feet, and I covered my eyes with my hand, unable to look. My heart beat in my breast like a frightened bird, my feet were rigid with terror."
"O-oh!" echoed the sighs of the listeners.
"And what happened next?--A hundred reindeer fell dead at once. Not waiting for dawn, we pushed on that very night. We fled, not halting anywhere, but our herds became smaller every day. So I divided them, and sent them in three directions; yet in a few days" time my son,--and later my daughter,--returned empty-handed. Then I made up my mind to flee to the end of the world, where no one ever goes. But is there a place anywhere, to which no one has ever yet been? I took nothing belonging to the dying animals, not even the halters; I left everything. And when the leader fell I did not even take the figured band from his head, which had come down to me from my ancestors."
"A-ah!" responded the listeners.