The Vanishment!

THE VANISHMENT!

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BEAT! BEAT! BEAT! Boom! Boom! Boom!

And Jakamas of the golden bushy head, pointed eyes, and apple-red cheeks, from Lithuania of the fragrant amber, thus ended his Wonder Stories.

And the Four Ancient Wizards were silent!

See! The Great Nischergurgje with a rolling and a roaring struck his Magic Drum. The tent door-flap lifted of itself. The glaring sun looked in, hot air filled the tent, and clouds of mosquitoes and gnats darted in buzzing and biting.

The Lapp children laughed and sang. They ran shouting out into the green valley, to gather strawberries and flowers, and hear the cuckoos calling. Birds twittered in the boughs, and streams and rivers sang sweet music.

And the Lapp tent grew higher and higher, and Nischergurgje, that tree-tall, tree-straight one, rose up. His white reindeer robe fell from his shoulders, and he was clad all in bright silk embroidered with variegated colors. He lifted his golden drum-hammer and again struck his Magic Drum with a rolling and a roaring.

Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom-i-ty boom!

A clap like thunder! The living speaking Kantele began to play of itself. The Four Ancient Wizards each struck his own Magic Drum--thump!--and vanished in smoke.

Then Nischergurgje, chanting Magic Spells--beat! beat! beat! and striking his Magic Drum, departed. Through the green flowering valley he strode, over mossy tundra, over shaking, quaking bogs, across flowing rivers, gurgling streams, and still lakes. The hot hot sun burned night and day in the Arctic summer sky. And all green things grew, grew, grew, night and day.

Onward and ever onward marched Nischergurgje toward the mountains, beating! beating! beating! chanting! chanting! chanting! whistling! whistling! whistling! Higher yet he climbed to the mountain-peaks from which he came.

And there Nischergurgje, the Great Lapland Wizard, sat him down to wait till the autumn with its gold-brown birch leaves was passed-to wait till the hot summer was gone and the Long Night was returning to Lapland--to wait till the Polar storms threw a veil of smooth white snow over valley and tundra--to wait till the Northern Lights were shooting once more across the dark night sky--flickering, wavering, darting here, darting there, amber-colored, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet flashings!

Boom! Boom! Boom! Beat! Beat! Beat!

In Lapland when the Arctic Storm Wind roars down from the mountains and through the valleys and blows over the plains do you hear the Call of the Magic Drum?

Calling! Calling! Calling!

Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!