"What'll you take—a gun, fire-powder?"
Ootah shook his head.
Olafaksoah had recourse to his stock-in-trade of oaths, and told his men to bring a gun, two hatchets, ammunition.
Ootah was still obdurate. The natives' voices arose murmurously, for they felt it was not well to offend the strangers. During future seasons they might not come again, as they threatened, with ammunition and guns. This the natives feared as a calamity.
"Bring some crackers—tea," Olafaksoah paused. Ootah watched Annadoah nestling near the "white trader." He had forgotten all about the sledges of meat. He did not hear Olafaksoah. He still continued shaking his head.
"I'll be liberal with you, son," Olafaksoah indulgently increased his offer.
Six more boxes of ammunition, more tea and crackers were added to the pile.
Ootah again mechanically shook his head. Amid all of those about him, he saw only the face of Annadoah, golden as sunlight and pink as the lichen blossoms of spring. Through her open ahttee, or fur garment, he saw her breasts as tender as those of eider-feathered birds. The sight of her melted his heart, the streams of spring were loosened within him. Yet, with an agonized pang, he observed her gaze adoringly and eagerly at the tall stranger's hard face; he saw her quiver at the sound of his harsh, gruff voice. Olafaksoah's brutal masculinity for the time dominated the shrinking femininity of the girl. Ootah saw Annadoah beseechingly, almost fawningly, touch the white chief's horny hand and nestle it close against her cheek.
Olaf, the trader, was oblivious to this.
"Greedy, eh? Well, we need the meat! If we're goin' to stay here to chance hunting our dogs got to be fed!" More supplies were brought. Still Ootah did not speak.
The white chief presently gazed hard at Ootah. Then his eyes brightened with amused mirth. He saw the despairing, yearning gaze of the youth toward the girl he had selected to favor.
"Ha, ha, ha!" he laughed good-naturedly. "I see. I've keel-hauled your Romeo stunt, eh? Want the stuff?" He kicked the supplies interrogatively.
Ootah sadly shook his head. He dully heard the vulgar gibes of the white men and the mocking laughter of Maisanguaq.
One of the natives began beating a drum. Ootah giddily caught an evanescent vision of women dancing with reeling traders. He heard Olafaksoah as he entered Annadoah's tent laughing heartily.
The thought of Annadoah in the embrace of the big blond man, of her face pressed to his in the white men's strange kiss of abomination, aroused in Ootah a sense of violation, an instinctive repugnance akin to the horror a native feels for the dead. All the ardent hopes of his life for many moons had centered upon his bringing the results of a successful hunt to Annadoah and asking her to share his igloo, to become his wife. And now, in his hour of high victory, after everyone had acclaimed him, he was crushed.
A fervid fever seemed to take fire in his forehead and flush his veins, yet his heart was colder than ice, his hands and feet were cold. He felt as though someone were strangling him; he felt giddy, suddenly sick. At that moment he was too stunned to realize fully the blighting tragedy which had annihilated his hopes.
Nearby in her tent he heard Annadoah's voice, sweet as the song of buntings.
"Olafaksoah, Olafaksoah," he heard her murmur tenderly, "thou art a great man. Thou art strong. Thy arms hurt me, thy hands make me ache." Then Ootah heard the man's hard voice and Annadoah's repressed murmurs of mingled pain and delight. The day became black about him. He felt that he must get away; a wild madness to run seized him. He felt the impetus of the winds in his feet. Turning on his heel, his face to the northwest, he fled.
In the sky overhead the black guillemot screamed.
III
"Her lips are red—red as a wound in the throat of a deer."
For seven weeks Ootah lived in the mountains. The violence of his bitterness and grief scared away the wild hawks in whose high nesting place he found shelter. At the door of that icy cave above the clouds, he called upon the spirits of the mountains for vengeance.
"Ioh—ioh!" he wailed. "Spirits of the glaciers, lift your hands—strike! Descend and smite Olafaksoah! carry him to the narwhals; let the whales feed upon his body. May the soul of his hands, and the soul of his feet, and the soul of his heart, and the soul of his head struggle with one another. May he never rest! Ioh—ioh—ioh—ioh!"
The boom of sliding avalanches answered him. The sound was like that of muffled thunder. Wild cries arose from the mountain birds. They sounded demoniacal in the taut air.
Far below soared the black vultures of the arctic. In a fit of anger Ootah shook his arms frantically at the shrieking birds. For they seemed to mock him.
"Spirits of the clouds," he wailed, "Ioh—ioh—ioh-h! Ye that wander to the south! Ye that fly to the north! Ye that struggle hither and yon, from the east to the west. Bear my curses to Annadoah. Tell her that the heart of Ootah is bitter. Tell her Ootah would that her voice become as harsh as the winds of ookiah (winter). Tell her Ootah would that her face become withered as frozen lands in winter. Tell her Ootah would that her heart rot within her, that the wild beasts feed upon her breasts. Ioh-h—ioh-h-h! Sing unto her the curses of Ootah, and may she not rest!"
Below him the clouds, burning with vivid fire, moved in the varying strata of air currents—to Ootah they were conveying his messages. The sun, circling low about the horizon, shifted its rays, and within the nebulous cloud-masses in the valleys, fountains of prism light played. In this radiant phantasmagoria messages in turn came to Ootah.
He saw the figuration of Annadoah's tent, and within, reclining upon her couch, the form of Annadoah. At the mirage picture of the beauteous and beloved maiden his heart throbbed violently. In the high altitude he found respiration difficult, and now he almost suffocated for lack of breath. He felt a pang at his heart as he saw the white chief enter the tent. The winds wailed sibilant and agonizing messages into the ears of Ootah:
"Thou hast cursed Annadoah. Foolish Ootah! For thou lovest Annadoah! Yea, her voice is as sweet as the sound of melting streams in springtime. Lo, she whispers into the ears of Olafaksoah: 'Thou art strong, Olafaksoah; Ootah hath the heart of a woman. Thou hurtest me, Olafaksoah; thy arms bruise me, thy hands make me ache; but thou art strong, thou art great, Olafaksoah; the heart of Annadoah trembles for joy of thee.' Thus saith Annadoah!"
And in the winds Ootah heard Olafaksoah's coarse laughter.
"Ioh—ioh-h-h!" Ootah moaned.
"Thou wouldst that Annadoah's face be blighted as frozen land in winter," laughed the winds, mockingly. "Thou dotard Ootah! Thou lovest the face of Annadoah. It is very fair. It is golden as the radiant face of Sukh-eh-nukh. Her eyes are as bright as stars in the winter night. Oh-h-h, Ootah! Into the eyes of Olafaksoah Annadoah gazes, yea, she faints with joy, thou silly Ootah!"
"Ioh—ioh-h-h!" wailed Ootah.
"Her lips are red, Ootah—-red as a wound in the throat of a deer."
And in the cloud vision Ootah saw the blond chief take the head of Annadoah between his two palms and press her lips fiercely upon his own. Ootah's heart trembled as water.
"Ioh—io-h-h!" he sobbed, and tears coursed from his eyes.
The constant haunting thought of Annadoah's face pressed close to that of Olafaksoah somehow made his face burn and his bosom ache.
"Ootah, Ootah, thou wouldst that Annadoah's heart might wither, yea, as a frozen bird in the blast of winter, foolish Ootah, who lovest Annadoah! Soft beats the heart of Annadoah upon the bosom of Olafaksoah; yea, for very joy it flutters as a mating bird in summer time. Thou wouldst that beasts might rend her little breasts—safe are they now in the embrace of the strong man from the south. Ootah! Ootah!"
Ootah wrung his hands.
"Thy curses fall dead upon the ears of Annadoah, she who hears only the voice of Olafaksoah."
In the winds Ootah heard the whisper of Olafaksoah in the dim tent. He heard Annadoah's rapturously murmurous replies.
"Olafaksoah shareth the igloo of Annadoah," whispered the winds suggestively. And Ootah knew the Eskimo custom.
Annadoah, by sharing her simple habitation with him, had by choice formally become the wife of Olafaksoah. And according to the unwritten law of ages she was now as much his property as his dogs. He might abuse her, and desert—and thus divorce—her whenever he chose. She might, at his pleasure, be loaned as a wife to another, and in this she would have no word. Or she might be given away, and dare not protest. Ootah felt that she was lost to him irretrievably.
For hours Ootah stood at the mouth of his mountain eyrie in dumb agony. All that he suffered it is beyond me to tell you. For days he crouched there, motionless, stark dumb, every fibre of him aching.
In the valleys below, as the hours of the burning days and golden nights passed, the sunlight constantly shifted. In the palpitating mists Ootah read of the days' doings at the camp. He saw the white men bartering for the meagre remaining furs and ivories gathered by the tribe. With the natives he saw them going on long fruitless hunts. Finally one day he witnessed them harpoon a half dozen walrus on the sea. They laboriously towed the catch ashore and rejoiced over the unexpected wealth of oil and blubber. But the white men claimed the entire prize, loaded their extra sledges, liberally fed their dogs, and doled out but a penurious allotment of meat and blubber to the tribe.
But in all this Ootah had no concern. Day by day the cloud-swimming valleys below blazed with crimson-shot conflagrations . . . Ootah knew the dead were lighting their monstrous camp fires—but even in this he found no interest. Daily he became fainter and fainter from lack of food, and daily, constantly, the winds whispered:
"The mouth of Annadoah is very red—red as a wound in the throat of a deer . . ." and then sibilantly—"softly beats the heart of Annadoah against the bosom of Olafaksoah." Then every fibre of him burned and ached.
One day the radiant valley darkened . . . Out of the sky, as if rising from worlds beyond the horizon, a cyclopean phantasm of clouds took form. Rising higher and higher toward the zenith, ominous and sinister, it gathered substance and spread across the glowing heavens like a film of smoke . . . It took upon itself the awful semblance of a mighty thing, half-beast, half-man. As if to strike, it slowly lifted the likeness of a gigantic arm shrouded with tattered clouds . . . The baleful shade shut off the sunlight from the earth . . . Ootah's heart quailed . . . Terror gripped him . . . For he saw—what few men had ever beheld—the shadow of Perdlugssuaq, the Great Evil. Finally he found voice.
"O most dreadful of the tornarssuit (spirits)," he called, grovelling on his knees, "smite me! Smite me!"
During the tragic days of his isolation the full realization of all that he had lost had come to Ootah. He fed upon the memory of Annadoah's face. He remembered how, with the vision of that face before him, he had excelled in the hunts and games, and for many moons had felt confident of winning her. He dwelt for hours upon her stunning rejection, of how she clung to the white man; he visioned with heart corroding bitterness her days with Olafaksoah, and he burned with unnameable anguished pangs as he conjured her nights. Now, the violence of his grief exhausted, he invoked death.
Expectant, fearful, with closed eyes, he waited.
In the valley a storm gathered, and the low whine of the winds Ootah believed to be the breath of the descending terror. The air became unbearably colder as the dreaded creator of death, darkness and ice descended. The taut suspense was terrible. Finally Ootah reached the limits of human endurance—merciful unconsciousness blotted out the long agony.
When he recovered the storm had passed. Scores of birds, driven against the rocks by the terrible winds, lay dead at the entrance of the cave. Surely the Great Evil had struck, but he lived. Hunger stirred within him and he fell upon the birds.
Later he sought game in the lower valleys. He had lances and bows and arrows with him. He found an inland vale, where a patch of green grass was exposed despite a recent fall of snow—there a herd of musk oxen grazed. He drew his bow of bone and sinew. One fell after the first quiver of his arrow. His skill was marvellous. He had struck a vital spot. He finished his killing of the fallen animal with a lance. He feasted upon the raw meat, and carried away with him up to his eyrie enough to last for many days.
The sun meanwhile sank lower and lower; there were long hours of twilight; snow storms came; the cold increased. Ootah felt the first whip of approaching winter. Ootah's spirit melted. Disquieting messages came in the cold winds and darkening clouds. His heart beat quickly at what the frightened birds told him. Olafaksoah, they said, struck Annadoah. As she lay on the ground he kicked her. In the snow-driven wind Ootah heard the echo of her heart-broken weeping. He revoked the curses he had uttered; he cursed his own weakness whereby he had invoked harm to her. Then in the winds Ootah heard the beat of drums. In the clouds he saw the white men dancing with the Eskimo maidens. Day after day they danced—day after day Annadoah wept. Olafaksoah had become wearied. Disappointed in the failure to secure greater supplies, he vented his impatience upon Annadoah. Cruelly he bruised her little hands, he mocked and jeered her when she pleaded with him. In fits of anger he often struck her. Finally, one day, in the cloud phantasmagoria, Ootah saw Olafaksoah reeling from the strange red-gold water the white men drank. He entered Annadoah's tent. She crouched, terrified, in a corner. With him were three of his rough blond companions. They staggered—and in the winds they sang. Olafaksoah pointed consentingly to Annadoah. One of the men attempted to embrace her. Then she rose defiantly and did what few Eskimo women ever dared. She smote the man's leering face and, sobbing, sank on her knees before Olafaksoah. He roared out things the Eskimos do not understand. "Goddlmighty!" and more awful words. His fist descended. In the winds Ootah heard Annadoah scream and call his name.
That day he descended from the mountains.
Much that Ootah conjured in his mind, or imagined he saw in the clouds, really happened. Whether he actually sensed these things by some wonderful power of clairvoyance, which the natives themselves believe—or whether he just accurately guessed what occurred, I do not know. But of this I can tell:
By that strange contradictoriness of the feminine—much the same all the world over—by that inherent, inborn desire of subjugation to the brutal and domineering in the male, Annadoah had given herself unreservedly to Olafaksoah. At the sound of his firm step she trembled. His hard, brutal embraces caused her heart to flutter with joy. At first he told her he would take her with him to the south. Annadoah believed him. Then he changed his mind, and said she must wait until the next season for him. She silently acquiesced. She called upon all her simple arts to please him. Carefully she oiled her face and made the golden skin soft by rubbing it with the fur of animals; with a broken comb, left with her mother years before by a party of explorers, she combed her long, black and wonderful hair and elaborately arranged it behind her. About her forehead she bound a narrow fillet of fine, furry hares' skin. She donned new garments; her ahttee was made of the delicate skins of birds, her hood of white fox hides. To all this Olafaksoah seemed blind; at times, with coarse, half-maudlin tenderness, he caressed her, called her his "little girl" and promised to "come back next spring." But Annadoah was useful to him otherwise.
During the days when Olafaksoah and his men were hunting or gathering furs and ivory at nearby villages along the coast, Annadoah sewed skins into garments for Olafaksoah and his men. Sometimes she went with Olafaksoah on his expeditions and employed her coquetry upon the susceptible men of the migrating tribes to secure bargains for him. For a box of matches she would cajole from her people ivories worth hundreds of dollars. She persuaded them to rob themselves of the walrus meat and blubber they had gathered for winter and give them to her master in exchange for tin cups and ammunition, all of which would be useless when the night came on. To Ootah she gave no thought until one day the white man struck her. As he vented his rage at not securing more riches upon her during the ensuing days, her heart more and more instinctively turned to the youth "with the heart of a woman" whom she had rejected. When Olafaksoah brought his companions to the tent her soul rose in rebellion. In the camp there was an orgy. None of the married men, who for a slight consideration were willing to permit their wives to dance with the traders, objected to the drunken carousal. Ribald songs sounded strange in this region of the world. Yet after Olafaksoah had kicked her and left her lying in the tent, high above the sound of the sailors' doggerel songs, Annadoah frantically called aloud:
"Ootah! Ootah!"
For a long time she lay in a stupor. Her face was bleeding. When she regained consciousness the white chief and his men had left. They had taken with them all available furs, ivories and provisions in the village.
At the door of her tent Annadoah stood, dry-eyed, her hair dishevelled. To the south she yearningly extended her arms. Her heart still ached toward the man who had lied to her and deserted her. She was left, a divorced woman, alone among her people, with no one to care for her during the long winter night.
As she stood there the light of the descending sun, which was now far below the rim of the horizon, paled. Driven by a frigid wind, howling raucously from the mountains, great snow clouds piled along the sky line. Out at sea the tips of the waves became capped—leprous white arms seemed reaching hopelessly for help from the depths of the sea. The sky blackened. The increasing gusts tore at the frail tents. The wolf-dogs crouched low to the ground and whined. A tremor of anxiety filled the hearts of the tribe. Presently the clouds were torn to shreds and whipped furiously over the sky. In the thickening grey gloom Annadoah watched the men of the tribe fastening their sleds and belongings to the earth . . . mere dark shadows. Above her tent, tossed by the wind in its eddying flight, a raven screamed.
Annadoah finally entered and threw herself upon the rocky floor of her dwelling. As the furies were loosed outside her voice rose and fell with the wailing grief and wrath of the wind. "Olafaksoah! Olafaksoah!" But only the hoarse evil call of the black bird answered during lulls in the storm. And Annadoah heard it, with a sinking of her cold heart, as the voice of fate.
IV
"'Do the gulls that freeze to death in winter fly in springtime?' she asked, simply. . . 'The teeth of the wolves are in my heart' . . ."
Desolate and alone, Annadoah walked along a crevice in the land-adhering ice of the polar sea.
The prolonged grey evening of the arctic was resolving into the long dark, and the Eskimo women, as is their custom at this time of the year, had gathered along the last lane of open water—which writhed like a sable snake over the ice—to celebrate that period of mourning which precedes the dreadful night, and to give their last messages and farewells to the unhappy and disconsolate souls of the drowned, who, when the ice closed, should for many moons be imprisoned in the sea.
An unearthly twilight, not unlike that dim greenish luminescence which filters through emerald panes in the high nave of a great cathedral, lay upon the earth. The forms of the mourning women were strangely magnified in the curious semi-luminance and, as their bodies moved to and fro in the throes of their grief, they might have been, for all they seemed, shadowy ghosts bemoaning their sins in some weird purgatory of the dead.
In the northern sky a faint quivering streak of light, resembling the reflection of far away lightning, played—the first herald of the aurora. To the south a gash of reddish orange, like the tip of a bloody-gleaming knife-blade, severed the thick purple clouds. There was a faint reflected glimmer on the unfrozen southern sea.
Snow had fallen on the land, igloos had been built. Over the village and against the frozen promontories loomed a majestic yet fearful shadowy shape—that of a giant thing, swathed in purple, its arm uplifted threateningly—the spectre of suffering and famine.
This wraith, brought into being by the gathering blackness in the gulches and crevices of the mountains, filled the hearts of the natives with unwonted foreboding.
Profound silence prevailed.
Already the sea for miles along the shore was frozen. The open water lay at so great a distance from the land that the sound of the waves was stilled. The birds had disappeared. Even the voices of the sinister black guillemots and ravens were heard no more.
Annadoah's sobs rose softly over the ice.
"Spirit of my mother, thou who wast carried by the storm-winds into the sea! Hear me! Annadoah loved one Olafaksoah, a chief from the south; for him the heart of Annadoah became very great within her. And now the heart of Annadoah aches. For he hath gone to the south. And not until the birds sing in spring will he return. And Annadoah is left alone. Ookiah comes with the lash of wicked walrus thongs, and there is no blubber buried outside Annadoah's shelter. Neither is there oil. And the couch of Annadoah is cold—so very cold. Yea, listen, spirit of my mother, and bring Olafaksoah back, that he may bruise Annadoah's hands, that he may cast Annadoah to the ground and crush Annadoah if he wills with his feet! Io-oh-h!"
She moaned this in a curious sing-song sort of chant. Over the ice the voices of the other women rose, and each, to her departed relatives and friends who had died in the sea, told about the important incidents of the year and the misgivings for the winter, in a varying crooning song.
Annadoah passed Tongiguaq, who jumped and danced in a frenzy of grief. Tongiguaq had lost three children; two had been drowned, and a new-born baby, three months before, was born maimed. According to the custom of the people, a fatherless defective child is doomed to death. So rigorous is their struggle to survive, so limited the means of existence, that a tribe cannot bear the burden of a single unnecessary life. So in keeping with this Lycurgean law, worked out by instinct after the stern experience of ages, a rope had been twisted about the neck of Tongiguaq's baby and it had been cast into the sea.
All this the weeping woman told in her chant to the departed. When she saw Annadoah approaching, she paused.
"Here cometh the she-wolf that hath devoured the food of our tribe," she wailed, intense bitterness in her voice. "Yea, by her cajolery she persuaded our men to give unto the traders from the south our precious food. And now we starve! Yea, she hath robbed us. She is as the breath of winter, as the blackness of the night."
Along the line of wailing women Tongiguaq's reproach was suddenly taken up. As Annadoah walked by them they did a strange thing. The natives fear their dead—they never even mention their names. For possessed of great power are the dead, and they can wreak, as befits their moods, unlimited good or ill. Believing they could persuade the dead to array themselves against Annadoah, the women took up Tongiguaq's denunciation and reviled Annadoah in their weird chant to the departed. Annadoah wrung her hands and wept. Bitter and jealous because the white chief had selected her during his stay, their bosoms full of the harbored ill will and envy of years because she had been the most desired by the young men of the tribes, the women now invoked curses upon the deserted and unprotected girl through the medium of the incorporeal powers.
The dread of it filled poor Annadoah's heart. She quailed at the bitter execrations called upon her head. Instinctively her hand reached through the opening of her ahttee and she clutched at a piece of old half-decayed skin. This was a remnant of her mother's father's clothing, a amulet given her as a child, when saliva from the maternal grandfather's mouth had been rubbed on her lips, and which she believed protected her from ill fortune.
"Io-ooh! io-oh!" Annadoah moaned in pain.
The women forgot their own tragedies. They forgot the messages they were imparting to the dead. Directly they might not be able to invoke any effective curse upon Annadoah; but well they knew, indeed, the awful power of the disembodied. And to the dead in the cold shuddering sea they told how Annadoah had played with the men, how she had betrayed them to the white traders, cajoling them to rob themselves of food, and how, because of her, famine now confronted the tribe; they told of the long devotion of Ootah, the desired of all the maidens, and how Annadoah had rejected him.
Possessed by a frantic contagion of released rage, their voices rose and fell in a frightful chanting malediction. In the weird gloom their vague forms leaped about, their arms writhing like black things in the air as they called the names of their individual dead to hear.
As their voices approached a crescendo they danced with increasing hysteria. Some shrieked and fell to the ice groaning, their bodies twisting in convulsions. Others laughed madly—laughed at the dreadful horrors with which the dead would smite Annadoah. Losing all control they were carried away by their delirious malevolence; their voices reached a high shrill pitch. Their arms clawed the air. Through the dead curses were invoked upon Olafaksoah, the great trader, who had cowed them and robbed them. They begged of the tornarssuit that he might be rended by wolves, that his body might rot unburied, and that the spirits of his limbs might be severed and be compelled to wander in restless torment forever. They called anathemas upon his unborn children; and of their dead, who should be imprisoned in darkness in the depths of the sea, they furiously invoked upon Annadoah's offspring the curse of the long night . . . Their voices shuddered over the ice as they demanded that most dreadful of all dreaded evils—that Annadoah's child might be born as blind to light and the joy of light as the dead in the sea.
Annadoah crouched in frantic terror upon the ice. From the Greenland highlands a moaning echo answered the women. To Annadoah the hill spirits had joined in cursing her—all nature seemed to upbraid her. Tremblingly, with a last lingering hope, she crept on her knees to the edge of the lane of lapping black water. She whispered a pathetic plea to Nerrvik, the gentle queen of the sea, whose hand had been severed by those she loved, and who felt great tenderness for men. Annadoah listened.
"Thou art cold of heart to him who loves thee, Annadoah," a voice seemed to whisper in the lapping waves. "Thou art beautiful as the sun, but as Sukh-eh-nukh shall thou be eternally sad. Thou shalt lose because of thine own self the greatest of all treasures. That is fate."
Far out on the open ocean spectral fire-flecks flashed like mast-lights on swinging ships. These mysterious jack o' lanterns of the arctic are caused by the crashing together of icebergs covered with phosphorescent algae.
To Annadoah the dead were lighting their oil lamps for the long night. As she watched the weird illuminations a paralyzing fear of the vague unknown world beyond the gate of death filled her, and her blood ran cold. She felt utterly crushed, utterly helpless, and utterly deserted, both in the affection of the living and that of the dead. She uttered a despairing cry and fell back in a cold faint. The women drew about as if to leap upon her.
A momentary wavering of the northern lights revealed her face grown sad and wan. The women stood still, however, for approaching in the distance they heard a man's voice calling:
"Avatarpay—avatarpay,
akorgani—akorgani,
anagpungah . . ."
Those mystic words, believed to give magic speed to the one who utters them, came in the well known tones of Ootah. A joyous cry went up from the women.
When Annadoah opened her eyes Ootah was bending over her.
"I was held in the mountains, Annadoah. The hill spirits were at war. The snow came, the storm spirits loosed the ice. I fell into an abyss . . . I lay asleep . . . for very long. It seemed like many moons. I could barely walk when I awoke. I had no food. I became very weak, but I uttered the serrit (magic formula;), those words of the days when man's sap was stronger, and the good winds bore me hither."
A mystical silver light had risen over the horizon, and in the soft glimmer Annadoah saw that the face of Ootah was haggard and drawn. His voice was weak.
"The sun hath gone," murmured Ootah. "The long night comes. Ootah heard thy cry and has come to care for thee, Annadoah."
His voice was a caress. His face sank dangerously near the face of the girl. She panted into full consciousness and struggled to free herself. Ootah helped her to her feet.
"The winter comes . . . and famine," muttered Annadoah, hopelessly. She pointed to the gaunt, hollow-eyed shadow, empurpled-robed, against the frozen cliffs. "My heart is cold—I am resigned to death."
"But I have come to give furs for thy couch," murmured Ootah, a beseeching look in his eyes. "Thou wilt need shelter—I shall build thee an igloo. Thou wilt need food—I shall share all that I have with thee and seek more. Thou wilt need oil for heat. I shall get this for thee."
Annadoah made a passionate gesture. A curious perverse resentment for the youth's insistent devotion rose in her heart.
"Nay," she said, warding him away. "My shadow yearns only to the south . . . the far, far south."
"Thy soul yearns to the south—forsooth, will I all the more cherish thee. Thou art frail, and the teeth of ookiah (winter) are sharp."
"The teeth of ookiah are not so sharp as the teeth in my heart," sobbed Annadoah.
Ootah felt a great pity for her—a pity and tenderness greater than his jealousy.
"But I shall teach thee to forget, Annadoah."
"I cannot forget. Even as the ravens in their winter shelter dream of the summer sun, so my soul grows warm, in all my loneliness, in the memory of Olafaksoah."
Ootah groaned with an access of misery. Frenziedly he caught her hands and pressed them. Annadoah struggled. His words beat hotly in her ears:
"But I want thee. My blood burns at the thought of thee. It is against the custom of the tribe that thou shouldst be alone. Thou must take a husband."
"No—no," she shook her head.
"But some one must care for thee. I love thee. Thou wilt forget
Olafaksoah. Thy hurt will heal."
Annadoah shook her head piteously.
"Do the gulls that freeze to death in winter fly in springtime?" she asked, simply.
Ootah did not reply.
"He was strong," she murmured. "His hands bruised me. He was cruel. He hurt me. Yet he gave my heart joy. My heart is dying—dying as the birds die. I feel the teeth of the wolves in my heart."
Ootah pointed to the women. The soft crooning of their voices reached him as they resumed the dismal dirge of their own woes.
"They hate thee," he said. He pointed to the constellation of the Great Bear which glittered faintly in the sky. "Yonder qiligtussat (the barking dogs) would rend the gentle bear. Thou rememberest the old men's tale. A woman ran away from her family. She was false at heart. The good mother bear protected her and gave her food. But yearning for her husband, she returned and to gain his favor betrayed the hiding place of the mother-bear and her young. Then the husband drove out with sledges. His dogs attacked the bear. But they all became stars and went up into the sky. Even as the bear was good to the false woman so hast thou made clothing for those yonder, and now they would as the dogs rend thee. Thou needest a husband."
"They would be bitter to thee," she argued.
"Perchance, but I would protect thee. I love thee."
Annadoah shook her head. "The teeth of the wolves are in my heart," she said. "And I no longer care."
"Yonder Nalagssartoq (he who waits and listens) bends to hear thy reply." Ootah pointed to Venus, the brightest of the stars—to the Eskimos an old man who waits by a blow-hole in the heavenly icefloes and listens for the breathing of seals. "Thou wilt come to Ootah, who loves thee? Answer, Annadoah! Ootah listens."
He soothed her little hands. A wondrous light burned in his eyes. Every fibre of his being yearned for her. But Annadoah's hands were cold, her eyes were sullenly turned away. In her heart a vague fear of him, a resentment of his very love, stirred.
"My shadow yearns to the south," she repeated pathetically. "I shall wait. Perhaps he will come as he said when the spring hunting sings." In her heart she feared that he would not.
Ootah in utter anguish dropped her hands. Annadoah sadly turned away. Falling to his knees on the ice, he covered his face with his arms. The sound of his heartbroken sobbing was drowned in the funereal chant of the women as, in a long procession, they passed near him on their way to the shore.
When he raised his head, the rim of the moon, a great quarter-disc of silver, peeped above the horizon. A mystical melancholy light flooded the gloriously gleaming desolate white world. The ice floes glistened as with the dust of diamonds. The ice covered faces of the promontories glowed with the sheen of burnished metal. The clouds became tremulous masses of argent phosphorescence. Far away the women's chants subsided. One by one they joined the men in their grotesque dances in the distant igloos. Ootah was left alone.
He gazed long upon the pearly lamp of heaven. The subtle sorrow of this world of magical moonlight filled his soul. Then the hopelessness and tragedy of all it symbolized were unfolded to him, and, extending his arms in a vague wild sympathy, in a vague wild despair, he moaned:
"Desolate and lonely moon! Oh, desolate and unhappy moon! . . .
Desolate and unhappy is the heart of Ootah!"
Far away, in her shelter, Annadoah heard the sobbing voice of Ootah. And nearer, in an igloo where the men beat drums and danced, she heard the voice of Maisanguaq laughing evilly. Of late Maisanguaq had gibed her with her desertion; he was bitter toward her. But nothing mattered to Annadoah. She thought of the blond man in the south, and the pleading of Ootah. As she heard his weeping, she shook her head sadly. She beat her breast and muttered over and over again:
"Do the gulls that freeze to death in winter fly in springtime?"
V
"What they heard was, to them all, the Voice of the Great Unknown, . . . He who made the world, created the Eternal Maiden Sukh-eh-nukh, and placed all the stars in the skies . . . Whose voice, far, far away, itself comes as the faintly remembered music of long bygone dreams preceding birth . . . And now, out of the blue-black sky, great globes of swimming liquid fire floated constantly, and dispersing into feathery flakes of opal light, melted softly . . ."
Ootah began work on an igloo for Annadoah. None of the tribesmen had offered to do this for her, and, as only the men develop the architectural skill required to construct a snow shelter, Annadoah, until Ootah's return, was forced to continue to live in her seal-skin tent, where she suffered bitterly from the cold. His back aching, scarcely pausing to rest, Ootah constructed an icy dome of more than usual solidity. This completed, he went many miles, through the darkness, to the south, where, in the shelter of certain rocks, he knew there was much soft moss. Digging through the frozen blanket of ice he secured a quantity, and returning, made with it a soft bed for Annadoah over a tier of stones. This he covered in turn with the soft skin of caribou. Inside the immaculate house of snow he fashioned an interior tent of heavy skins to retain the heat of the oil lamps. Of his own supplies of blubber and walrus meat, which he had secretly buried early in the hunting season and which had thus escaped the rapacity of the white men, he gave more than half to Annadoah. He fixed her lamps with oil, and arranged them solicitously in positions where they would give most heat. He placed supplies in the house, and buried the rest outside so that Annadoah might readily reach them. Meanwhile Annadoah sat alone in her tent, her sad face buried in her hands, "her shadow yearning toward the south." Many of the tribe, emerging from their igloos, had paused to taunt Ootah at his labors.
"A-ha—a-ha!" they laughed. "Thinkest thou that Annadoah will let thee share her igloo when the snow closes in?" They laughed again. Ootah seriously shook his head.
"I would that Annadoah be protected from the storm," he said simply.
"A-ha—ha! No man buildeth a house wherein he may not have shelter; no man layeth a bed of soft moss whereon he doth not expect to lie. Idiot Ootah, as well mayest thou expect the willows to sprout in the long night—Annadoah thinketh naught of thee. Why seekest thou not a sensible maiden?"
"He hath given Annadoah half of his meat and fuel," the women murmured complainingly among themselves.
"He hath given her his skins; he hath thieved upon himself."
"Why hath he not taken another to wife? Verily men are few; women are many. And all gaze favorably upon Ootah."
"Yea, his arm is strong."
"There is courage in his heart."
"He feareth not the night."
"He should press his face upon the face of one who is fair; his wife should bear children."
When Annadoah passed from her tent into her new home the women scolded her bitterly. The men goodnaturedly jeered Ootah. Annadoah huddled near Ootah and gazed gratefully into his eyes. In the thought that he was there to protect her the heart of Ootah pulsed with joy. Annadoah's heart was cold. Annadoah sat inside the new little house of snow, the oil lights flickering fitfully. In the dancing shadows Annadoah saw the semblance of the form of the blond chief. Joylessly Ootah built his own home.
And in their houses, in celebration of the fall of night, the natives continued their grotesque dances. Beating membrane drums, and singing jerky chants, they danced frenziedly, forcing a false hilarity. They felt the overwhelming approach of the dread spectre of famine. In their dances some sobbed, others passed into uncontrollable hysteria.
Ootah alone did not indulge in the fierce ceremonies. His own igloo built, day after day, night after night, he sat alone. His heart ached with the unrequited and eternal desire of all the loveless and lonely things of the world. Outside, the moon increased in fulness and soared in a low circle about the sky. The dogs crouched low on the ground, howling dismally.
During the first days of the long night the natives held a series of dog fights inside the snow and stone houses. Ordinarily Ootah would have attended these, for a dog fight is of keenest interest to a tribesman, and the Eskimos' most exciting form of sport.
To a hunter with healthy blood in his veins the dog encounter affords the same thrills as other men, in more southern lands, find in bull fights, horse racing, card playing and other games of chance. Two lovers, both desirous of a maiden, may hold a fight between their king dogs, each hoping that success may determine the girl's favor. Pieces of blubber, animal skins, ivory carvings and less valuable objects are often bet by the contestants and the onlookers.
By all logical assumptions, one might naturally suppose that the Eskimos—whose night is many months long—through many dark and rigorous ages, would have developed into a taciturn and moody people, just as the denizens of sunny climes are joyful, effervescent and pleasure loving. However, this is not so. Troublous as is their existence, they preserve until old age that playful joy of life, that carefree ignoring of danger, which we find in our children—which, alas, we lose too soon. Each day brings to them its novel delights; in their monotonous foods they find a constant variety of pleasure; in their simple games of muscle-tapping, throwing of carved ivories, and fighting of dogs they experience the exultant and exuberant fun of our schoolboys. Constant experience with jeopardous tasks has eliminated the human fear of danger, and even death, in its most tragic shapes, by long association has lost its terrors. When the long night falls, and an ominous depression makes heavy the heart of the lover or fills with anxiety the heart of the father, they turn, with a delightful spontaneity, to play.
Now great interest was aroused by the news that Papik was to fight his king dog with the magnificent brute owned by Attalaq. Both Papik and Attalaq were paying evident attentions to Ahningnetty, the chubby and ever smiling maiden, who, while she showed a certain leaning toward Papik, had misgivings as to his eligibility as a husband because of his long fingers.
Born of noted fighters, a dog attains the position of "king" or chief dog of a team by whipping all the dogs in the team of his particular master. When he has asserted his supremacy over the dogs of his own team, he is successively set before the rulers of other teams. And by a process of elimination of those which lose, the two final victors in a village are finally aligned against one another.
In the series of fights held between the king dogs of the various teams, both Papik's and Attalaq's had come off with final honors. The immediate contest between the two most distinguished canines in the village was an event of exciting importance, and to the women there was a romantic zest in it, for all believed that victory would determine Ahningnetty's favor.
At the time of the event all who could do so crowded into Attalaq's stone house. In the centre of a tense group of onlookers the two dogs were placed before each other. They were handsome animals, with long keen noses, denoting an aristocracy of canine birth, and long shaggy coats, mottled brown and white, as soft as silk. A long line of victories lay to the credit of each.
A sharp howl announced the fight—the two lithe bodies leaped together—the air within the little circle became electric. The dogs snapped, tumbled over each other. Their sharp teeth sank into each other's shanks. The natives cheered whenever a favorite secured an advantage. Bets were made. Papik's eyes gleamed as he alternately watched his dog and the face of Ahningnetty as she peered interestedly over the onlookers' shoulders. Attalaq's countenance was grim—not a muscle moved.
Finally Attalaq's dog, with a chagrined growl, unexpectedly rushed from the enclosure and crouched in a corner of the igloo.
The natives effusively gathered about Papik, who bent over his dog with proud affection. In the excitement Ahningnetty quickly left the igloo, and standing outside gazed meditatively at the stars. They hung in the sky above like great pendulous jewels, palpitant with interior name—there were purple stars, and blue stars, and orange-colored stars; some resembled monstrous amethysts, some emeralds fierily green, some rubies spitting sparks vindictively red; others globular sheeny pearls, creamy of lustre but shot with faint gleams of rose; and fugitively sprinkling the firmament here and there were orbs that glistened like diamonds, wonderfully and purely white. Saturn, distinct among all the heavenly bodies, throbbed with a van-colored changing glow like a bulbous opal, and about it, with a strange shimmer, visibly swirled its iridescent rings.
"Thou standest alone—thou wouldst leave me?" Papik, eager, triumphant, questioning, emerged from the stone entrance to the house and approached the girl. The other natives, homeward bent, followed.
The girl was silent.
"Methought thou wouldst be glad——"
"Thy dog is strong," the girl replied.
"Dost thou love that dotard Attalaq?"
"No," the maid replied. "He is clumsy as the musk ox."
They turned, walking toward the igloo occupied by Ahningnetty and her aged father.
"Wilt thou not be Papik's wife?" Papik pleaded. "My shelter is cold—little meat have I. The white men robbed the tribe. But perchance the bears come—then I shall kill them; valiant is my dog." He patted the animal's shaggy head.
"But thy fingers, Papik—Papik! No—no!"
"But Papik loves thee," he protested; "his skin flushes with the thought of thee."
"That thou didst also say to Annadoah, whom thou didst seek before me."
Papik was silent; it was true that Ahningnetty was only a second choice.
At that moment an ominous noise was heard on the sea. The tide, in moving, caused the massive floe-ice to grate against that adhering to the shore. To the simple natives, the noise indicated something more sinister.
"Hearest that?" Ahningnetty asked.
"Yea," replied Papik, "Qulutaligssuaq, the monster who lives in the sea, cometh with his hammers."
"He cometh to steal the children. In winter he is very hungry."
"They say he frightens people to death when a baby which is fatherless screams."
"And after he heats his ladles, the babies often die."
Again the grating noise shuddered along the shore, and Ahningnetty, frightened, fled to her house. Papik, pursuing his way, accosted Ootah.
As they were speaking they saw Otaq and his wife emerge from their house. Between them they carried a small stark body. The woman was weeping piteously. It was their child, which a brief while before had died. The sea monster had again claimed its human toll.
Papik and Ootah disappeared—Papik to his shelter, Ootah to Annadoah's igloo. The parents, left alone, dug up stones and ice and buried the child. Then beneath the stars they stood in silent grief. Other natives, emerging from their houses and seeing them, understood and disappeared, for while relatives weep over their dead none dare disturb their mourning. For five days, in commemoration of the death, the parents would visit the grave of their child, During this time no native dare cross the path leading from their igloo to the silent resting place, and while they stood beneath the stars all alien to their sorrow must remain within their houses. Only the Great Spirit, who lives beyond the golden veils of the boreal lights, may hear the sobbing of a stricken human creature over the thing of which it has been bereft.
In the course of ten sleeps—as days are called—the first moon of the long night sank below the horizon and the colorful stars fierily glittered over a world of black silence. The cold increased to an intolerable bitterness. Ootah, venturing from his igloo to dig up walrus meat, found the earth frozen so solid that it split his steel axe.
It was not long before many white mounds appeared beneath the liquid stars. The old and the very young, unable to endure the rigorous cold and dearth of food, passed into the mysterious unknown of which the long dark of earth is only the portal. After the passing of the first moon the storms came; the sky blackened; the winds voiced the desolate woe of millions of aerial creatures. Terrific snow storms kept the tribe within their shelters for days. Often the winds tore away the membrane windows of their snow houses, and blasts of frigid cold dissipated the precious warmth within. In the lee of circular walls of ice, right at the immediate entrance of the houses, the natives kept their dogs. Inside they had only room for the mother dogs, which at this period brought into being litters of beautiful little puppies with which the Eskimo children played. Outside, scores of splendid animals, which could not be sheltered, were frozen to death in great drifts. These, during the following days, were dug out and used as food both for men and the living animals.
During a quiet period between storms, Ootah, venturing from his shelter, heard a shuffling noise near his igloo. In the northern sky a creamy light palpitated, and in one of the quick flares he saw a bear nosing about the village. He called his dogs and they soon surrounded the animal. Fortunately the incandescent light of the aurora increased—now and then a ribbon of light, palpitant with every color of the rainbow, was flung across the sky. Ootah lifted his harpoon lance—the sky was momentarily flooded with light—he struck. In the next flare he saw the bear lying on the ice—his lance had pierced the brute's heart. Attracted by the barking of Ootah's dogs, several tribesmen soon joined him in dressing the animal. During their task, one suddenly beckoned silence, and whispered softly:
"The Voice . . . the Voice . . ." And they paused.
A weird whistling sound sang eerily through the skies. The air, electrified, seemed to snap and crackle. It was the voice that comes with the aurora.
The knives fell from the natives' hands. The howling of the hungry dogs was stilled. In hushed awe, in reverence, with vague wondering, they listened. Ootah was on his knees. An inspired light transfigured his face. His pulses thrilled. For what they heard was, to them all, the Voice of the Great Unknown, He whose power is greater than that of Perdlugssuaq, He who made the world, created the Eternal Maiden Sukh-eh-nukh, and placed all the stars in the skies, who, never coming Himself earthward, instead sends in the aurora His spirits with messages of hope and encouragement to men, and Whose Voice sometimes, far, far away, itself comes as the faintly remembered music of long by-gone dreams preceding birth . . . Yea, it was the Voice . . . the Voice . . .
And now, out of the black-blue sky, as if released from invisible hands, great globes of swimming liquid fire floated constantly, and dispersing into millions of feathery flakes of opal light, melted softly . . . Along the lower heavens there was a fugitive flickering of a rich creamy light, as of the reflection of celestial fires far beyond the horizon.
Speechless, Ootah viewed the flameous wonder, and, although he knew no prayer, he felt in his soul an instinctive love, a profound awe . . . In the silent sanctity of that auroral-shot and frigidly glorious region he seemed to feel the pulsing of an Unseen Presence—a presence of which he was a part, of which, with a glow, he felt the soul of her he loved was a part, to which all nature, everything that lives and breathes, was vitally linked . . . He felt the drawing urge, the thrilling tingling impetus, as it were, of the terrific currents of vital spirit force that sweep vastly through the universe, keeping the earth and all the planets in their orbits . . . He felt, what possibly the primitive and pure of heart feel most keenly . . . the presence of the Great Unknown, He who is the fountain source of love, and whose hands on the sable parchment of the northern skies perchance write, in irid traceries of fire, mystic messages of hope which none, of all humanity, during all the centuries, has ever learned entirely to understand.
Not until the wonder lights were fading did the tribesmen take up the precious bear meat, and according to Ootah's instructions divide portions among the community. His arm full of meat, Ootah joyously entered Annadoah's igloo.
Annadoah, sad and lonely, sat by her lamp. Her igloo was like that of all the others. Inside, so as to retain the heat and carry off the water which dripped from the melting dome of snow, there was an interior tent of seal skin. In a great pan of soapstone was a line of moss, which absorbed the walrus fat, and served as a wick for the lamp. This emitted a line of thin, reddish blue flame. Over the light, and supported by a framework, was a large soapstone pot in which bits of walrus meat were simmering. By the side of the pot a large piece of walrus blubber hung over a rod. In the heat of the lamp this slowly exuded a thick oil which, falling into the pan below and saturating the moss wick, gave a constant and steady supply of fuel.
Like the other women, Annadoah sat by her lamp day after day. When she could endure hunger no longer she would eat ravenously of the meagre food in the pot. Regular meals are unknown in the arctic—a native abstains from food as long as he can in days of famine, but when he eats he eats unstintedly.
As Ootah entered the low enclosure Annadoah's eyes lighted.
Ootah told her of the bear encounter, and, with the joy of children, they placed bits of the meat in the pot and sat by, delightedly inhaling the odor as it cooked.
Several days later, while they were eating the last remainder of the meat, both heard an uproar outside. They crept from the igloo and discovered most of the village assembled without.
"Attalaq hath carried off Ahningnetty," one told them.
"He broke into her father's house and seized her with violence!"
Not far away they heard Ahningnetty's screams.
"Attalaq is strong," said one.
"Yea, as a boy did he not kill his brother?" All remembered the brutal encounter of the two brothers years before, when, throwing him to the ground, Attalaq jumped on his brother's body and striking his head with stones beat him to death. Attalaq was a type of the older warriors; unlike his more gentle tribesmen he possessed the atavistic savagery of his forebears of centuries ago when it was customary to abduct brides.
An excited crowd gathered outside of Attalaq's house. Soon Attalaq himself appeared. He was exultant.
"Ha! Ha!" he laughed. "Methinks that is the way to treat a woman!" Then with swollen-up gusto he told them all about it. Tiring of being alone he determined to carry off Ahningnetty. "A woman's mind is as the wind—it constantly changeth," he said. "Women should be driven as the dogs." Ahningnetty, still weeping, still protesting, came to the door. Attalaq turned fiercely upon her and struck her in the face. Then he laughed again. The girl screamed.
"Well," he said, turning to her. "I carried thee here—if thou wouldst return thou canst walk back. Eh?" The girl cowered away, but on her face there was the semblance of a pleased expression. The other women regarded her with a tinge of envy.
"'Tis not often in these days a lover careth sufficiently to carry a maid away," said an aged crone.
"In the days of old there were men like Attalaq," said a younger woman, admiringly.
"Where is Papik?" one asked. He was not to be seen.
"Dost thou not wish to return to thy father?" Annadoah asked
Ahningnetty, approaching her.
The girl shook her head. Much as she had protested, she was unquestionably pleased by the forcible abduction.
One of the gossips, desiring to impart the unpleasant news to Papik, had gone to his house.
"Papik sits alone," she called, on her return. "And when I told him
Ahningnetty hath been carried away by Attalaq, he replied, ''Tis well!
'Tis well!' And then he showed me his hands—they were frozen—frozen!
Verily, he would now be a sorry husband to provide for a wife."
"Papik's fingers frozen!" took up the others. "Unhappy Papik."
"He sobs and weeps—he sobs and weeps," said the old woman. "He saith the dreaded misfortune hath come, and the days of his skill on the hunt are over!"
"Long fingers, short hunt; long nose—short life," remarked Maisanguaq, sententiously.
Attalaq, happy in his conquest, was broad enough to be generous. He declared that Papik should never want as long as he could shoot the arrow. Generous-hearted, many of the others joined in and bits of blubber were soon offered the lonely Papik, as he sat, nursing his frozen members, in his house. The mishap was tragic, for, his hands injured, he had lost not only his skill in the hunt but his ability to protect himself in case of accidents. And from the experience of ages all knew that, sooner or later, he was doomed to a comparatively early death.
During the first period of the night, and after Ootah's first capture, several prowling bears were shot. The howl of occasional wolves was heard in the mountains; then all the bears disappeared, the hunger of the wolves was stilled.
When the third moon rose not a thing stirred outside the igloos. A glacial silence gripped the northern world. In their shelters the natives clustered together, warming one another with their breathing and the heat of their bodies. They lacked the courage even to speak.
Day by day their supply of food had run low. Day by day they decreased their portions; their cheeks sunk, hunger burned in their eyes. To save the precious fuel they burned only one lamp in their houses; they were unable to sleep because of the intense cold. Finally their food gave out. From his store Ootah silently doled out allotments until starvation confronted him. One by one the dogs were eaten. And this caused a dull ache, for the men loved their dogs only a little less than they did their wives and children. The quaking fear of the long hours slowly gave way to a dull lethargy. In their igloos, where single lamps smoked, they sat, and to keep up their circulation and to prevent themselves from falling into a coma, they rocked their bodies like things only half alive.
The black days and black nights slowly, tediously, achingly passed. One day was like another—one night seemed to mark no progress of time. Only the children, to whom parents gave the last bits of food, showed some animation. They played listlessly with one another. For toys they had crude carvings of soapstone—tiny soapstone lamps and pots with which they made pitiful mimicry of cooking. The little girls played with crude dolls just as do little girls in more southern lands—but they were grotesque effigies, made of skin roughly sewn together. The boys found brief zest in a game which was played by sticking ivory points in a piece of bone, hanging from the roof of the igloo, and which was perforated with holes. Finally, as the night wore on, the children lost interest in their games, and with aching stomachs, lay silent by the fires. Starvation steadily claimed its toll. Death, slowly, surely, laid its grim and terrible hands upon that pitiful fringe of earth's humanity on the desolate star-litten roof of the world. One by one a stark body would be carried from an igloo into the black, bitter cold silence without and buried under blocks of snow. And above, intense and incandescent, the Pole Star—that unerring time mark of God's inevitable and unerring laws—burned like an all-seeing, sentient and pitiless eye of fire in the heavens.
Annadoah lay upon her couch of furs. Her face was thin, and white as the snows without. The flame in her stone lamp was about to flicker into extinction.
Ootah, entering the igloo, sprang quickly to her side. Her breath came very faintly. He seized her hands. He breathed on her face. He opened her ahttee and rubbed her little breasts. He felt something very strange, and wonderful, stirring within him. And with it a ghastly fear that the thing he loved was dying.
Into the lamp he placed the last meagre bits of remaining blubber. Then he again set to chafing the tender little hands. Cold and hunger had wrought havoc upon Annadoah. Ootah's heart ached.
Finally her eyelids stirred. Her lips parted. A smile brightened her face. Ootah leaned forward, breathlessly. Her lips framed an inaudible word:
"Olafaksoah . . . Olafaksoah . . ." She opened her eyes. The smile faded. "Thou . . . ?" she said.
"Yea, Annadoah, I have brought thee food," Ootah said. It was his last.
"I hunger," she breathed. "It is very cold . . . I was in the south . . . where the sun is warm . . . it is very cold here."
Eagerly he pressed her hands. She drifted again into a stupor and for a long while was silent. Ootah's warm panting breath finally brought blood to her cheeks.
"Thou art so big . . . and strong . . ." she smiled again. "Thy arms hurt me . . . as the embrace of nannook (the bear). . . ." Her smile deepened . . . her breath came more quickly. "Oh, oh, it is pleasant . . . here . . . in . . . the south."
"Annadoah!" Ootah's wail of hurt recalled her.
Her eyes sought the igloo wonderingly.
"Thou?" she repeated, dully. "Yea, it is cold here. I am hungry . . . Are there not ahmingmah in the mountains, Ootah? Didst thou not tell me there were ahmingmah in the mountains . . . why do not the men of the tribe seek the musk oxen in the mountains?"
With a sudden start Ootah remembered having told Annadoah of the herd he had found in the inland valley—it was strange, he thought, he had not remembered the herd before. And it was stranger still that now she should remind him. But the improbability of ever reaching the game, the obvious impossibility of such a journey at this time of winter, had prevented any such suggestion.
"Many musk oxen are there in the mountains," he said, soothing her hands. She drew them away. "And thou art hungry . . ."
"I am hungry," she replied, faintly.
After he had given her the last bit of meat he left her igloo. Above him the stars burned, the air was clear and still. Not a thing moved, not a sound was heard—the earth was gripped in that unrelenting spell of wintry silence. Above the imprisoned sea the January moon was rising and for ten sleeps—ten twenty-four hour days—it would circle about the horizon of the entire sky. Already the sky above the sea was bright as a frosted globe of glass, and pearly fingers of light were stealing upward over the interior mountains.
"She is hungry," Ootah repeated over and over again. "And the tribe starves . . . and there may be ahmingmah in the mountains." Behind him they loomed, gigantic and precipitous. That such a journey meant almost certain death he knew; but that did not deter him in the resolve to essay a feat no native had ever dared in many hundreds of years.
The face of Sipsu, the angakoq, as I have said, resembled dried and wrinkled leather. He had been an old man when the eldest of the tribe were children. He had seen hard times, he had suffered from starvation during many winters; yet never even in his experience had the lashes of ookiah struck so blastingly upon the tribe. Yea, they had even lost their fear of the tornarssuit and no longer brought propitiatory offerings of blubber to him. Yet being wise with age, early in the summer he had buried sufficient supplies beneath the floor of his house to keep him from starving. He scowled maliciously as he heard someone creeping through the underground entrance of his igloo. Presently the cadaverous face of Maisanguaq appeared.
The interior was heavy with the stench of oil. The room hung with soot from the lamp. A thin spiral thread of black smoke rose from the taper. In the dim light the leering face of Sipsu appeared like the face of the great demon himself. His small half-closed eyes blazed through their slits.
"The spirits are wrathful. The tribe is forgetful. What wilt thou have?"
Maisanguaq, with unconcealed hesitation, placed a bit of blubber before the magician.
"The last I have," he mumbled. Sipsu seized it avidly.
"Ootah goeth to the mountains," Maisanguaq said, panting for breath.
The old man sneered bitterly:
"He cannot brave the spirits. No man can live in the mountains. The breath of the spirits is death."
"Yea, he goeth. He says that he knows where the ahmingmah abound. The air is still; the moon rises for ten sleeps. By then, so he saith, he can return with meat."
"No man hath ever ventured there. The shadow of Perdlugssuaq is very dark."
"Yea, may he smite Ootah!" exclaimed Maisanguaq.
Sipsu laughed harshly.
"Couldst thou cause the hill spirits to strike?" Maisanguaq asked eagerly.
Sipsu faced Maisanguaq fiercely.
"In my youth I went unto the mountains and I heard the hill spirits sing. Thereupon I became a great magician. They spoke to me; I was silent; thereafter, when I called they answered. What wouldst thou?"
Maisanguaq indicated the blubber.
"I would thou call them now; that they release the glaciers, that Ootah may be carried to his death. I hate Ootah, I would that he die." He shook his fist.
Sipsu's body quivered from head to foot. "Ootah hath never consulted my familiar spirits," he rejoined bitterly. "He despiseth them."
Rising from his sitting posture Sipsu seized his drum and began moving his body. He groaned with extreme pain. By degrees his dance increased. He improvised a monotonous spirit song. His face grimaced demoniacally. As his conjuration approached the climax, his voice rose to a series of shrieks. He shuddered violently; he seemed to suffer agonies in his limbs. Finally he fell to the floor in a writhing paroxysm.
"Pst!" Maisanguaq's eyes lighted.
Outside he heard the sharp barking of dogs. "Huk! Huk!" Ootah's voice called. Others joined in the clamor. The entire tribe seemed to wake as from a sleep of the dead.
"He starts for the mountains," said Maisanguaq. "Thinkest thou the spirits will strike?"
Sipsu opened his eyes—and glared wildly at Maisanguaq.
"Speak," Maisanguaq demanded. "Hast thou not the power?"
"Did I not once go to the bottom of the sea to Nerrvik, she who rules over the sea creatures? Hath she not only one hand, and is she not powerless to plait her hair? Doth she not obey me? For did I not plait her hair? Did I not carry wood for weapons to the spirits of the mountains? And have they not answered for nigh a thousand moons?"
"Yet there is doubt in thy voice, Sipsu!"
"Yea, to be truthful with thee, Maisanguaq, there is dispute among the spirits. I cannot determine what they say." He bent his head as if listening. Then he asked:
"Doth Ootah not go that Annadoah may have food?"