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Page 40
Although they suddenly ceased their reviling, hearing outside the
barking of dogs, the women thereafter in secret often assembled
together; there were ominous whisperings; and each time a child died
visits were paid to the _angakoq_, and the unseen powers were invoked
to bring misfortune to Annadoah.
Outside the silenced women detected the barking of dogs approaching the
village from the distance. They heard the excited calls of tribesmen
and the chatter of other women. One by one they crept from the igloo.
A strange light in her eyes, Annadoah followed.
Over the mountains to the north a soft and wondrous light began to
palpitate tremulously . . . While the men of the tribe rushed to meet
the oncoming team of dogs in the distance, the women stood and gazed
with awe upon the increasing wonder in the skies . . . The northern
lights, seen nowhere else so splendidly in all the world, had begun the
weaving of their glorious and eerie imagery. A nebulous film of
silvery light wavered with incredible swiftness over the heavens . . .
The snow-blanketed land took instantaneous fire in the sudden
flares . . . In the torridly tropic heaven of the virtuous dead an
Unknown God, so the tribes believe, makes fire--just as in the nether
regions beneath the earth the Great Evil, who has revealed himself with
a more terrible reality than the Great Benign, creates cold and forges
ice. In that land of the happy dead, disclosed in the aurora, there is
never any night, nor is it ever cold. So the souls there are always
happy. Sometimes in their revels they troop earthward to cheer the
mortals who suffer from _Perdlugssuaq's_ frigid breath as it comes
during winter from hell . . . The women looked at one another. The
augury was good.
"The spirits of the dead," one whispered, "are happy . . . They are
playing ball."
Into their midst, surrounded by the glad cheering men of the tribe,
Ootah staggered. His face was cut and covered with black clotted
blood. His legs dragged with utter exhaustion. His features were
gaunt and marked by lines of frightful suffering. His eyes were bright
with the light of fever. When he saw Annadoah a faint but very glad
smile passed over his countenance; he made an effort to forget the
anguished throes of pain in his limbs and the intermittent shudderings
of cold and flushes of intense fever. He tried to speak, but then
shook his head sadly. Instead, he pointed to the dilapidated sledge.
Three of his dogs had perished--five had been saved. The sled had been
battered, but was lashed together. Upon it, however, the precious load
of meat was intact. The subtle aroma of it sent a wave of gladness
through the crowd. They danced about Ootah, asking questions. Ootah
staggered backward and sank helpless against the sledge. After a while
he found voice.
"I am very weak," he managed to say.
Several of the women disappeared and soon returned with a bit of walrus
blubber. This, having undergone a process of fermentation in the
earth, possessed the intoxicating qualities of alcohol. It is used by
the natives for purposes of stimulation in such cases and in their
celebrations. Ootah with difficulty ate this.
He felt stronger, and rose.
"Thou art ill," said Annadoah, approaching him, and gently touching his
wounded face. "Enter, Annadoah will care for thee."
Her face was perilously near him; it was very wan and beautiful in the
auroral light--Ootah felt his heart beat wildly. But it was pity, not
love, that shone softly from Annadoah's eyes.
"Thy igloo is cold, thy lamp unlighted," Annadoah insisted. "Come!
The others will prepare thy couch and light thy lamps. Until then my
bed is thine. It is warm within."
With difficulty Ootah bent low and followed Annadoah through the
underground entrance of her igloo. His dogs, which the men had
unhitched, and as many as could enter the small enclosure, followed.
The stench of the oil lamp at first almost suffocated him. He sank to
Annadoah's couch from sheer weakness, and his dogs, licking his face
and hands, crept about him.
Meanwhile Annadoah began melting snow over her lamp. The others plied
Ootah with questions. Did he go far into the mountains? Were there
many _ahmingmah_? Did Koolotah perish? Was he in the mountains when
the spirits struck? To all of this he could only move his head in
response. While he sipped the warm water gratefully, Annadoah cut away
his leather boots and bathed his injuries. His flesh was torn and one
ankle was sprained--by a miracle not a bone had been broken in the
fall. With unguents left years before by white men, Annadoah treated
his many cuts and bruises and bound them securely with clean leather.
After he lay back on the couch she bathed his face, and rubbed into the
wounds salves which her father had given to her mother and which for
years had been preciously preserved.
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