“You wouldn’t care to hear of his life among these natives. Only the part relating to the blue god is of importance.
“He found that these people worshipped a strange god, or idol. This idol was a very ugly face carved out of a block of solid blue jade. When being worshipped it was always illumined by some strange light which caused it to appear to smile and frown at alternating intervals.”
Lucile leaned over and gripped the speaker’s arm. “See how the faces in the candlestick smile and frown,” she shuddered.
Florence smiled and nodded, then proceeded with her story:
“Little by little, as these people who called themselves Negontisks, who lived in skin tents and traveled in skin boats as the Eskimos do, and are considered by some to be the forefathers of the Eskimos, came to have confidence in the seaman, they told him the story of the blue god.
“So ancient was this god that not the oldest man in the village could recall the time when it had first been accepted as their god. They did know, however, that one time when there were but five villages of their tribe, and when all these villagers had joined in a great feast of white whale meat and sour berries, on a slope at the foot of a great mountain a huge rock had come rattling down from the cliffs above and, passing through their midst, had crushed to death five of their number.
“As is the custom with most barbaric tribes, these people considered that anything which had the power to destroy them must be a god. This rock, which proved to be of blue jade, became their god. And that they might have it ever with them as they traveled, that it might protect them and bring them good fortune, they carved from it five hollow faces, like masks. One of these was taken by each village. Then they went their way.
“From that day, so the story goes, the Negontisk people were greatly prospered. They found food in abundance. No longer were there starving times. They had children in numbers and all these lived to grow to manhood.
“As the tribe grew, they wished to create new villages. They returned to the place of the rock for new gods, only to find that the rock had vanished.
“Their medicine men explained that, being a god, the rock had the power of going where it pleased. So there could be only five blue gods. But the people lived on and prospered.