"Present in every crash and thunder of the gale was a growing undertone, which the miser well knew to be the voice of Tamanous. A deadly shuddering shook him. Heretofore that potent Unseen had been his friend and guide; there had been awe, but no terror, in his words. Now the voice of Tamanous was inarticulate, but the miser could divine in that sound an unspeakable threat of wrath and vengeance. Floating upon this undertone were sharper tamanous voices, shouting and screaming always sneeringly, 'Haha, hiaqua,--ha, ha, ha!' "Whenever the miser essayed to move and continue his descent, a whirlwind caught him and with much ado tossed him hither and thither, leaving him at last flung and imprisoned in a pinching crevice, or buried to the eyes in a snowdrift, or gnawed by lacerating lava jaws. Sharp torture the old man was encountering, but he held fast to his hiaqua. "The blackness grew ever deeper and more crowded with perdition, the din more impish, demoniac, and devilish; the laughter more appalling; the miser more and more exhausted with vain buffeting. He determined to propitiate exasperated Tamanous with a sacrifice. He threw into the black cylinder storm his left-handful, five strings of precious hiaqua." "Somewhat long-winded is thy legend, Hamitchou, Great Medicine-Man of the Squallyamish," quoth I. "Why didn't the old fool drop his wampum--shell out, as one might say,--and make tracks?" "Well, well!" continued Hamitchou, "when the miser had thrown away his first handful of hiaqua, there was a momentary lull in elemental war, and he heard the otters puffing around him invisible. Then the storm, renewed, blacker, louder, harsher, crueller than before, and over the dread undertone of the voice of Tamanous, tamanous voices again screamed, 'Ha, ha, ha, hiaqua!' and it seemed as if tamanous hands, or the paws of the demon otters, clutched at the miser's right-handful and tore at his shoulder and waist belts. "So, while darkness and tempest still buffeted the hapless old man, and thrust him away from his path, and while the roaring was wickeder than the roars of tens and tens of bears when a-hungered they pounce upon a plain of kamas, gradually wounded and terrified, he flung away string after string of hiaqua, gaining never any notice of such sacrifice, except an instant's lull of the cyclone and a puff from the invisible otters.