Brown Wolf and Other Jack London Stories - Chosen and Edited By Franklin K. Mathiews by Jack London
page 95 of 219 (43%)
page 95 of 219 (43%)
|
foot afloat and one ashore. Again his throat writhed and wrestled as he
grappled after forgotten words. And when the words came forth they were strange of sound and a spluttering of the lips accompanied the gutturals. "Greetings, O brothers," he said, "brothers of old time before I went away with the off-shore wind." He stepped out with both feet on the sand, and Opee-Kwan waved him back. "Thou art dead, Nam-Bok," he said. Nam-Bok laughed. "I am fat." "Dead men are not fat," Opee-Kwan confessed. "Thou hast fared well, but it is strange. No man may mate with the off-shore wind and come back on the heels of the years." "I have come back," Nam-Bok answered simply. "Mayhap thou art a shadow, then, a passing shadow of the Nam-Bok that was. Shadows come back." "I am hungry. Shadows do not eat." But Opee-Kwan doubted, and brushed his hand across his brow in sore puzzlement. Nam-Bok was likewise puzzled, and as he looked up and down the line found no welcome in the eyes of the fisherfolk. The men and women whispered together. The children stole timidly back among their elders, and bristling dogs fawned up to him and sniffed suspiciously. "I bore thee, Nam-Bok, and I gave thee suck when thou wast little," |
|