Book-bot.com - read famous books online for free

Legends of Vancouver by E. Pauline Johnson
page 69 of 107 (64%)
He gave a swift glance at my dark skin, then nodded. "You are
one of us," he said, with evidently no thought of a possible
contradiction. "And you will understand, or I should not tell
you. You will not smile at the story, for you are one of us."

"I am one of you, and I shall understand," I answered.

It was a full half-hour before we neared the island, yet neither of
us spoke during that time; then, as the "grey gull" shaped itself
into rock and tree and crag, I noticed in the very centre a
stupendous pile of stone lifting itself skyward, without fissure or
cleft; but a peculiar haziness about the base made me peer narrowly
to catch the perfect outline.

"It is the 'Grey Archway,'" he explained, simply.

Only then did I grasp the singular formation before us: the rock
was a perfect archway, through which we could see the placid
Pacific shimmering in the growing colors of the coming sunset at
the opposite rim of the island.

"What a remarkable whim of Nature!" I exclaimed, but his brown hand
was laid in a contradictory grasp on my arm, and he snatched up my
comment almost with impatience.

"No, it was not Nature," he said. "That is the reason I say you
will understand--you are one of us--you will know what I tell you is
true. The Great Tyee did not make that archway, it was--" here his
voice lowered--"it was magic, red man's medicine and magic--you
savvy?"
DigitalOcean Referral Badge