The Death of Ligoun
Blood for blood, rank for rank.
--Thlinket Code.
"Hear now the death of Ligoun--"
The speaker ceased, or rather suspended utterance, and gazed upon me
with an eye of understanding. I held the bottle between our eyes and
the fire, indicated with my thumb the depth of the draught, and shoved
it over to him; for was he not Palitlum, the Drinker? Many tales had
he told me, and long had I waited for this scriptless scribe to speak
of the things concerning Ligoun; for he, of all men living, knew these
things best.
He tilted back his head with a grunt that slid swiftly into a gurgle, and the shadow of a man's torso, monstrous beneath a huge inverted bottle, wavered and danced on the frown of the cliff at our backs. Palitlum released his lips from the glass with a caressing suck and glanced regretfully up into the ghostly vault of the sky where played the wan white light of the summer borealis.
"It be strange," he said; "cold like water and hot like fire. To
the drinker it giveth strength, and from the drinker it taketh away
strength. It maketh old men young, and young men old. To the man
who is weary it leadeth him to get up and go onward, and to the man
unweary it burdeneth him into sleep. My brother was possessed of the
heart of a rabbit, yet did he drink of it, and forthwith slay four of
his enemies. My father was like a great wolf, showing his teeth to all
men, yet did he drink of it and was shot through the back, running
swiftly away. It be most strange."
"It is 'Three Star,' and a better than what they poison their bellies
with down there," I answered, sweeping my hand, as it were, over the
yawning chasm of blackness and down to where the beach fires glinted
far below--tiny jets of flame which gave proportion and reality to the
night.
Palitlum sighed and shook his head. "Wherefore I am here with thee."
And here he embraced the bottle and me in a look which told more
eloquently than speech of his shameless thirst.
"Nay," I said, snuggling the bottle in between my knees. "Speak now of
Ligoun. Of the 'Three Star' we will hold speech hereafter."
"There be plenty, and I am not wearied," he pleaded brazenly. "But the
feel of it on my lips, and I will speak great words of Ligoun and his
last days."
"From the drinker it taketh away strength," I mocked, "and to the man
unweary it burdeneth him into sleep."
"Thou art wise," he rejoined, without anger and pridelessly. "Like all
of thy brothers, thou art wise. Waking or sleeping, the 'Three Star'
be with thee, yet never have I known thee to drink overlong or
overmuch. And the while you gather to you the gold that hides in our
mountains and the fish that swim in our seas; and Palitlum, and the
brothers of Palitlum, dig the gold for thee and net the fish, and are
glad to be made glad when out of thy wisdom thou deemest it fit that
the 'Three Star' should wet our lips."
"I was minded to hear of Ligoun," I said impatiently. "The night grows
short, and we have a sore journey to-morrow."
I yawned and made as though to rise, but Palitlum betrayed a quick
anxiety, and with abruptness began:--
"It was Ligoun's desire, in his old age, that peace should be among
the tribes. As a young man he had been first of the fighting men and
chief over the war-chiefs of the Islands and the Passes. All his days
had been full of fighting. More marks he boasted of bone and lead and
iron than any other man. Three wives he had, and for each wife two
sons; and the sons, eldest born and last and all died by his side in
battle. Restless as the bald-face, he ranged wide and far--north to
Unalaska and the Shallow Sea; south to the Queen Charlottes, ay, even
did he go with the Kakes, it is told, to far Puget Sound, and slay thy
brothers in their sheltered houses.