| |
|
XVIII
Far
and wide among the nations
Spread the name and fame
of Kwasind;
No man dared to strive with Kwasind,
No man could compete with Kwasind.
But the
mischievous Puk-Wudjies,
They the envious Little
People,
They the fairies and the pygmies,
Plotted
and conspired against him.
"If this hateful Kwasind,"
said they,
"If this great, outrageous fellow
Goes
on thus a little longer,
Tearing everything he
touches,
Rending everything to pieces,
Filling all
the world with wonder,
What becomes of the
Puk-Wudjies?
Who will care for the Puk-Wudjies?
He
will tread us down like mushrooms,
Drive us all into
the water,
Give our bodies to be eaten
By the
wicked Nee-ba-naw-baigs,
By the Spirits of the water!
So the angry Little People
All conspired against the
Strong Man,
All conspired to murder Kwasind,
Yes,
to rid the world of Kwasind,
The audacious,
overbearing,
Heartless, haughty, dangerous Kwasind!
Now this wondrous strength of Kwasind
In his crown
alone was seated;
In his crown too was his weakness;
There alone could he be wounded,
Nowhere else could
weapon pierce him,
Nowhere else could weapon harm
him.
Even there the only weapon
That could wound
him, that could slay him,
Was the seed-cone of the
pine-tree,
Was the blue cone of the fir-tree.
This
was Kwasind's fatal secret,
Known to no man among
mortals;
But the cunning Little People,
The
Puk-Wudjies, knew the secret,
Knew the only way to
kill him.
So they gathered cones together,
Gathered seed-cones of the pine-tree,
Gathered blue
cones of the fir-tree,
In the woods by Taquamenaw,
Brought them to the river's margin,
Heaped them in
great piles together,
Where the red rocks from the
margin
Jutting overhang the river.
There they lay
in wait for Kwasind,
The malicious Little People.
`T was an afternoon in Summer;
Very hot and still the
air was,
Very smooth the gliding river,
Motionless
the sleeping shadows:
Insects glistened in the
sunshine,
Insects skated on the water,
Filled the
drowsy air with buzzing,
With a far resounding
war-cry.
Down the river came the Strong Man,
In
his birch canoe came Kwasind,
Floating slowly down
the current
Of the sluggish Taquamenaw,
Very
languid with the weather,
Very sleepy with the
silence.
From the overhanging branches,
From the
tassels of the birch-trees,
Soft the Spirit of Sleep
descended;
By his airy hosts surrounded,
His
invisible attendants,
Came the Spirit of Sleep,
Nepahwin;
Like a burnished Dush-kwo-ne-she,
Like a
dragon-fly, he hovered
O'er the drowsy head of
Kwasind.
To his ear there came a murmur
As of
waves upon a sea-shore,
As of far-off tumbling
waters,
As of winds among the pine-trees;
And he
felt upon his forehead
Blows of little airy
war-clubs,
Wielded by the slumbrous legions
Of the
Spirit of Sleep, Nepahwin,
As of some one breathing
on him.
At the first blow of their war-clubs,
Fell
a drowsiness on Kwasind;
At the second blow they
smote him,
Motionless his paddle rested;
At the
third, before his vision
Reeled the landscape Into
darkness,
Very sound asleep was Kwasind.
So he
floated down the river,
Like a blind man seated
upright,
Floated down the Taquamenaw,
Underneath
the trembling birch-trees,
Underneath the wooded
headlands,
Underneath the war encampment
Of the
pygmies, the Puk-Wudjies.
There they stood, all armed
and waiting,
Hurled the pine-cones down upon him,
Struck him on his brawny shoulders,
On his crown
defenceless struck him.
"Death to Kwasind!" was the
sudden
War-cry of the Little People.
And he
sideways swayed and tumbled,
Sideways fell into the
river,
Plunged beneath the sluggish water
Headlong, as an otter plunges;
And the birch canoe,
abandoned,
Drifted empty down the river,
Bottom
upward swerved and drifted:
Nothing more was seen of
Kwasind.
But the memory of the Strong Man
Lingered
long among the people,
And whenever through the
forest
Raged and roared the wintry tempest,
And
the branches, tossed and troubled,
Creaked and
groaned and split asunder,
"Kwasind!" cried they;
"that is Kwasind!
He is gathering in his fire-wood!"
|
|
|
