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Page 58
Along the horizon Annadoah saw the clouds moving to the south. Higher
up they moved to the west, and toward the zenith stray flecks moved to
the north. The spirits of the air were not at peace among themselves.
And dire things were brooding. From the inland highlands of Greenland
now came a series of swift explosions, and in the brief succeeding
interval there was an unearthly silence. Then a grinding crash rent
the air. The spirits of the mountains had engaged in combat. And in
the swift downward surge of the glacial avalanches Annadoah saw tribes
wiped from existence and villages swept into the sun-litten sea. But
Annadoah knew that the sun-litten sea was a treacherous sea; she knew
that _Koyokah_, whose face in the mist was wan, whose lips were golden,
had no love for men, and she knew that the spirits of the air, who
moved in the diversely soaring clouds, were engaged in some fell
conspiracy against her helpless race.
A vague realization of the impotence of humanity against fate, against
the forces that weave the loom of life within and without one's heart,
weighed crushingly upon her.
Radiant indeed was the sky and softly molten golden the glorious sea,
but yet, grim and grisly, behind this smiling face of nature, Annadoah,
primitive child of the human race, shudderingly felt the malevolent and
evil eyes of _Perdlugssuaq_, the spirit of great evil, he who brings
sickness and death. Annadoah felt that instinctive fear which humanity
has felt from the beginning--the superstitious terror of tribes who
confront extinction, in the face of famine; the quiet white tremor of
the hard working hordes of modern cities in the face of poverty and
starvation; the dread of savage and civilized races alike of the
incomprehensible factor in the universe which wreaks destruction, that
original and ultimate evil which all the world's religions recognize,
interpret, and offer to placate--the force that is hostile to man and
the happiness of man.
On the smooth tossing waters, reflecting the glory of the sky, there
was no sign of those who had perished.
Then, after the first crushing sense of helplessness, an instinctive,
insurgent hope that would not be defeated asserted itself. Annadoah
called upon _Nerrvik_, for surely _Nerrvik_ was kind to men. She
pleaded with _Kokoyah_. She importuned the spirits of the sea and air
to return her beloved ones to her.
"_Nerrvik_! _Nerrvik_!" Annadoah supplicated persuasively, "gentle
spirit of the sea, lift Ootah unto me! Thou who art kind to man and
givest him fishes from the deep for food, give unto Annadoah's arms
Little Blind Spring Bunting."
She swayed her frail body to and fro, and in a tremulous, plaintive
chant told unto the gentle and gracious spirit of the waters all that
Ootah had been, all that he had done for the tribe; of his prowess, of
his love for her, of her own hardness, and how she had turned a deaf
ear to his pleading. Incident after incident she recalled. She told
of the long night, when Ootah went by moonlight into the mountains, how
he had braved the hill spirits, how they struck him in the frigid
highlands, and how the beneficent _quilanialequisut_ had brought him
home. Her exquisite voice rose to a splendid crescendo as she
described that valorous adventure, and in the chant ran the _motifs_ of
the hill spirit's anger, the brave leaping steps of Ootah, the tremor
of the mountains as they were struck, and the deep tenderness of
Ootah's love. In that customary chanting address to the spirits,
Annadoah told of Ootah's return from the mountains, of the suffering he
endured, and how, when she soothed him, she thought of the great trader
from the south. She recalled how he had staggered from the igloo, the
agony in his eyes, and how she heard him sobbing his heart-break in the
auroral silence without her igloo through the long sleep.
Extending her arms over the sea, Annadoah reiterated, after each
statement of Ootah's bravery, her plea to _Nerrvik_ that Ootah be given
back to her.
"_Nerrvik_! _Nerrvik_!" she called, "surely thou art kind! O thou
whom, when the great petrel raised a storm, wast cast into the depths
by those thou didst love, thou whose heart achest for affection--hear
me, hear me, and Annadoah will surely come to thee very soon and comb
thy hair in the depths of the cold, cold sea." [2]
Tears fell from her eyes. With self-reproach she told of her old
longing for Olafaksoah, the blond man from the south, whose grim,
fierce face had cowed her, yet whose brutality had thrilled her, to
whose beast-strength and to whose beast-passion all that was feminine
in her had surrendered itself. But he had left her--he said that he
would come back in the spring. Now, she knew he would not come
back--and she did not care. As if to convince the spirit of this, she
compared Olafaksoah with Ootah; she knew now that he had used her to
rob her people, that his heart was as stone. Ootah, she had once said,
had the heart of a woman; but now she realized the difference between
them. She knew the arms of Ootah were strong, that the words of Ootah
were true, that the heart of Ootah was kind. And she felt stirring in
her bosom things she could not express; a vague comprehension of the
pure spirituality of the man who had died to save her child, a response
to the love that had stirred in the bosom now cold beneath the sea.
All the primitive deep profundity of the devotion of that wild-hearted
man who had brought a wealth of food to her from over the mountains,
who had faced death for her on the frozen seas, who had tended her in
her time of trial with the gentleness of a woman, his indomitable
heroism, the splendor, the dauntless unselfishness and bravery of his
offering to father her sightless child--all this--all this, and
more--welled up in the heart of Annadoah.
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