Book: The Eternal Maiden

T >> T. Everett Harre >> The Eternal Maiden




There was a yellow flash in the moonlight--a mighty roar went up. The
dogs, with a cyclonic dash, swooped upon the fallen monster, snapping
viciously at it as it roared in its death agony. Frightened, the other
four scattered--one rushed into the shelter of the cave, the other
three, dispersing, soon became diminishing black specks in the
moonlight. The dogs would have followed, but Ootah called them back.
One animal was even more than they could manage.

With quick despatch they fell upon the animal with their knives.
Neither spoke--they worked breathlessly. With marvellous skill they
peeled off the heavy skin, and with amazing dexterity carved great
masses of bleeding meat clean from the bones. When they had finished,
only a great skeleton remained. Outside the cave, eager, whining, the
starving dogs obediently crouched. When they had completed the task of
dressing, Ootah lifted his hand and the canines, with howling avidity,
fell upon the steaming mass of entrails.

Upon the two sledges the hunters loaded and lashed securely their
treasure of meat. In the moonlight the hot steam rose from the
tremulous masses and Ootah's nostrils dilated with eager, anticipatory
delight. The blood dripped upon the snow and Ootah's stomach ached.
He had not dared to think of eating until now. Their hands shaking
with nervous hunger, the two fell upon the remaining meat. They
feasted with that savage hungry joy known only to human creatures who
have faced starvation. When they started on the return journey there
was a new vibrant elasticity in their steps.

Ootah snapped his whip and sang.

And his heart sang, too, of Annadoah.

Looking at the clouds, as they drifted through the valley, Ootah
imagined he saw Annadoah lying upon her couch asleep, and in the faint
light of an oil lamp he saw upon her face a pleased smile.

"Of what doth Annadoah dream?" Ootah asked the winds.

"Of springtime when the flowers bloom," the winds replied.

"And Annadoah will move to a new skin tent with Ootah!" he said,
joyously, exultantly. "Ootah will bring food unto Annadoah and she
will reward him with her love."

"Foolish Ootah," moaned the wind, "love cannot be won with food,
neither with _ahmingmah_ meat nor walrus blubber." Ootah felt his
heart sink; a vague and heavy misgiving filled him. Being very simple,
he had always thought that by securing wealth, in dogs and food, in
guns and ammunition, and by achieving pre-eminence on the hunt, he
should win Annadoah's confidence and love. But now, upon the breath of
the winds, by the voices of nature, doubt came into his heart. The
mistake of many men the world over, and of many wiser than he, he could
not understand just why this was--this thing the winds said, and which
his own heart correspondingly whispered. With food he might possibly
win Annadoah's consent to be his wife, yes, he knew that; but
Annadoah's love--that was another thing. Surely, he now realized, as
he strode along, that by simply giving her food he could not expect to
stir in her heart a response to that which throbbed in his. But why?
Singularly he never thought of the bravery of his seeking food on this
perilous adventure, an act which, had he known it, had indeed touched
the heart of the beautiful maiden.

With the quick atmospheric change of the arctic--a phenomenon common to
zones of extreme temperature--the wind steadily increased in velocity
and warmth. The shallow moon-shot clouds on the ice thickened and
swept softly under the two travellers' feet. Above their waists the
air was clear--they saw each other distinctly in the moonlight. Yet
their dogs, hidden in the low-lying vapor, were invisible. Great
masses of clouds slowly piled along the horizon and the moon was often
obscured. Then the two walked in a darkness so thick it seemed
palpable.

"Hark!" Ootah called, during one of these spells. "What is that?" A
shuddering sound split the air; the ice field on which they travelled
vibrated with an ominous jar. The echoes of splitting ice came like
distant explosions.

"Have we disturbed the spirits of the hills?" asked Koolotah, in a
whisper.

"No, no," answered Ootah, anxiously. "_Huk_! _Huk_!" He snapped his
whip and urged the dogs. They had not gone twenty paces when from the
interior heights of Greenland came a series of muffled explosions.
Undoubtedly the hill spirits had wakened, and, angry, were hurling
their terrible weapons.


They reached, in due course, the top of a mountain ridge down part of
the glassy slopes of which they had to make their way to the entrance
of the cleft in which the trail they had so laboriously hewn lay. The
gorge yawned blackly some five hundred feet below. In anticipation of
their return with loaded sledges, Ootah, on the last reach of their
upland climb, had chopped on the smooth snows of the mountainside a
narrow path that ran backward and forward in the fashion of a gently
inclining elongated spiral. The mountain sloped at an angle of eighty
degrees, but by descending cautiously along this circuitous trail a
safe descent was possible.

While Ootah and his companion stood on the peak, the moon passed behind
a veil of clouds and Ootah felt two soft wraith-like hands pass over
his face--cloud-hands which his simple mind believed were sentient
things. His heart for the moment seemed to stop. Thus the kind
spirits warn men of danger.

At that instant a stinging sound smote the air. The glacial side of
the mountain trembled, and as the moon reappeared, on the icy slopes
Ootah saw narrow black cracks zigzagging in various directions. A
cataclysmic rumbling sounded deep in the earth.

When the echoes died away he turned to Koolotah.

"Be brave of heart. Let us go--there is no time to lose."

"_Huk_! _Huk_! _Huk_!" They urged the dogs gently. Arranging
themselves instinctively in single file, the traces slackening, the
wonderful dogs, with feline caution, crept ahead. Lowering their
bodies, each behind his sledge, Ootah and Koolotah began moving
stealthily downward. With one hand each clung to the rough icy
projections of the slope; with the other they held the rear upstander
of their sleds to prevent them from sliding, with their precious loads
of meat, down the mountainside.

Half way down, Ootah uttered a cry.

His quick ear detected a faint splitting noise, like the crack of young
ice in forming, under his feet. In an instant he realized their danger.

At the time he had reached a hollow in the perilous slope. The dogs
ahead, with quick instinct, retreated and crouched at his feet in the
sheltering cradle.

Ootah saw Koolotah turn and look inquiringly upward. The next moment,
driven downward by the wind, a mass of clouds, glittering with bleached
moonfire, rolled over the slopes and hid Koolotah. Ootah only heard
his voice.

Then the glacial mountainside to which he clung trembled. A terrific
crash, like that of cannon, followed. The very mountain seemed to
shake. For a brief awful spell everything was still--then, with an
appalling thunder, the ice split and began to move. The moon
reappeared and Ootah--in a tense moment--saw chasms widening about him
on the glistening slope. He heard the deafening echoing explosions of
splitting ice in the distance . . . With fierce ferocity he
instinctively fastened one bleeding hand to an icy projection above
him, with the other he held with grimly desperate determination to the
sled . . . In the next dizzy instant he felt the icy floor beneath him
lurch itself forward and downward . . . before his very eyes he saw
Koolotah and his team--not twenty feet below--wiped from existence by
the descending glacier to which he clung and in the hollow crevice of
which he found security . . . In a second's space he caught a clear
vision of tremendous masses of green and purple glaciers being ground
to fine powder in their swift descent on all sides of him, . . . he
saw the feathery ice fragments catch fire in the moonlight, . . . he
heard the elemental roar and grinding crash of ice mountains sundering
in a titanic convulsion . . . then he lost hearing . . . In that same
sick bewildering moment of preternatural consciousness he thought
wildly of Annadoah . . . he saw her appealing wan face amid the blur of
white moonlight . . . he knew she needed food . . . and he felt an ache
at his heart . . . he called upon the spirits of his ancestors. Then
the silvery swimming world of white dust-driven fire became suddenly
black--and the earth seemed removed from under him.


In the village the natives were awakened from their lethargic sleep by
the far-away crash of the avalanche. Their faces blanched as they
thought of the hunters. "The hill spirits have smitten! _Ioh_!
_Ioh_!" they moaned. In her igloo Annadoah, who had waited with
sleepless anxiety, wept alone. Of all in the village only the heart of
one, Maisanguaq, was glad.




VII

"_The utter tragedy of her devotion to the man who had deserted her,
and the utter hopelessness of his own deep passion, blightingly,
horribly forced itself upon him . . . Ootah asked himself all the
questions men ask in such a crisis . . . and he demanded with wild
weeping their answer from the dead rejoicing in the auroral Valhalla.
But there was no answer--as perhaps there may be no answer; or, if
there is, that God fearing lest, in attaining the Great Desire, men
should cease to endeavor; to serve and to labor has kept it locked
where He and the dead live beyond the skies._"


The moon dipped behind the horizon. For five sleeps naught had been
heard from Ootah and his companion. Inetlia, the sister of Koolotah,
followed in turn by some of the other women, visited the igloo of
Annadoah. Upon her couch of moss Annadoah lay, and over her a cover
given by Ootah and lined with the feathers of birds.

"'Twas thou who sent Ootah to the mountains," one complained. "May the
ravens peck thine eyes!" cried another. Annadoah shook her head sadly
and wept.

"'Twas thou who chose Olafaksoah, the robber from the south, that thou
mightest be his wife; and 'twas thou, his wife, who beguiled the men
and robbed thy tribe. Did we not give away our skins, and didst thou
not make garments for Olafaksoah? And do we not now shudder from the
cold? 'Twas thou who put the madness into the head of Ootah, the
strongest of the tribe. Many are the maidens who are husbandless and
yet Ootah pined for thee. Why didst thou not choose Ootah? Then he
would have remained and prevented the thievery of the strangers, we
should not have been robbed, and he would not have had to go far unto
the mountains, where the spirits have struck him in their wrath? Nay,
nay, thou didst make the men of our tribe sick with thoughts of thee.
They have quarrelled among themselves. And before the white men came,
did they not reproach us, their wives and their betrothed, with thy
name and the vaunted skill of thee? Thou art as the woman with an iron
tail, she who killed men when they came to her, their skins flushed
with love. Thou destroyest men! Thou didst send Ootah and Koolotah to
the mountains! And they have perished! _Ioh-h_! _Ioh-h_!"

Entering her igloo two or three at a time they reproachfully recited in
chiding chants to Annadoah the story of her life; how her worthy mother
and august grand-parents had died, hoping she would choose a husband
from the hunters, and how she had refused all who sought her; they
told, with reiterant detail, how she had caused quarrels among the men,
and sent many of the warriors in their competitive hunts to death; and
how, finally, when Ootah, the bravest of the hunters, wanted to wed
her, she had chosen a foreign man, who deserted her and left her a
burden on the tribe. Sometimes they shook her roughly.

To the native women the brutality and virility of the men from the
south exert a potent appeal; and the fact that Olafaksoah had chosen
Annadoah many moons since still made their mouth taste bitter. This
jealousy rankling within them, they now with angry exultation took
occasion to mock and abuse her. The girl lay still and did not reply.
Her heart indeed seemed like a bird lying dead in wintertime.

Then one of three women who stood by Annadoah's couch leaned forward
and whispered a terrible thing. The others looked at the girl and
fear, mingled with hatred, shone in their eyes.

"Thou sayest this thing," said one, "how dost thou know?"

And the other, pointing accusingly to the girl who lay before them, her
face hidden in her arms, replied:

"The night my baby died . . . I heard her voice."

They stood in silence, rigid, implacable, bitter.

During the latter dark days a terrible calamity had made itself felt
among the tribe. This was the death of many of the newly born.
Outside the igloos during the past months, as the babies had come, the
number of tiny mounds had increased, and when the aurora flooded the
skies heart-broken mothers could be seen weeping over these graves of
snow. It is not uncommon in this land for babies to die at birth or
come prematurely; but the number of recent deaths and tragic accidents
to expectant mothers was unprecedented. This was undoubtedly due to
the depleted vitality of the starving mothers--but to the natives there
was some other, some unaccountable, some sinister, cause. In their
hearts they experienced, each time a new mound rose white in the
moonlight, that tremulous terror of a people who instinctively fear
extinction. The grief of a mother was for a personal loss; to the
tribe each death meant an even greater, more significant loss, a thing
of more than personal consequence.

And when, out of the dim regions of her brain, one of the women now
conjured the terrible thing which she whispered concerning Annadoah, it
was little wonder the other two regarded the girl as a thing hateful
and accursed.

"_She stealeth souls!_"

Nothing more frightful could have been said.

"Yea, the night my baby died I heard her voice," repeated Inetlia
angrily.

And the other, among the superstitious voices in her memory, found it
not difficult to recall a similar thing:

"Methinks I heard her sing the night my own little one came--too soon."

And the third whispered:

"She is as the hungry hill spirit who feasts upon the entrails of the
dead. Yea, she carrieth off the souls of the children. _Ioh_!
_Iooh_!"

Their voices rose in a maniacal cry of terror and denunciation.

Annadoah rose. Clasping her hands, she demanded piteously:

"Why . . . sayest ye this of me?"

And they shrieked:

"Thou stealest souls! By the _angakoq_ shalt thou be accursed!"

"No, no! No, no!" the girl pleaded, falling on her knees and weeping.

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.

Ootah lay with his eyes closed; he seemed to float in the auroral skies
without, in the very happy land of the dead. He forgot the pain in his
limbs, the furnace in his forehead. He felt only the soothing touch of
Annadoah's dear hands, and her breath at times very near, fanning his
face; he heard her voice murmuring to the onlooking natives. Not
satisfied with these ministrations, in which they really had little
faith, the others presently brought a young _angakoq_, one better loved
than the dead Sipsu. For being young he had not prophesied many deaths.

All moved away as the magician began beating his membrane drum over
Ootah's body. Working himself into frenzy, he called upon his familiar
spirits. For, according to their belief, illness, and the suffering
resultant from wounds, are actually caused by the spirits of the
various members of the body falling out of harmony. Then the _angakoq_
must persuade his friends in the other world to restore peace among the
spirits of the human hands, feet, head, or whatever limbs may be
affected. The soul, or great spirit, they say resides in one's shadow,
and sometimes this falls out of agreement with the minor spirits of the
body. Then one is in bad shape, indeed.

For half an hour the chant and dance continued. Meanwhile Ootah opened
his eyes and often smiled at Annadoah. He was better, he told them,
and motioned the _angakoq_ to go. He bade Annadoah sit beside him. He
felt unquestionably better.

"You have asked me whether I went far over the mountains? Yea, we
travelled many sleeps, yet we scarcely rested. The world was white
about us. The spirits carried us over dark places in the hills,
wherein _Perdlugssuaq_ makes his home. But he did not strike. We were
borne over abysses. The spirits of one's ancestors are often kind. We
went through the world of the fog, she who was the wife of that hill
spirit who carried the dead from their graves and ate them. Yea, she
passed beneath our feet. We came to the high mountains. We passed
upward where the eyes of strange beasts glared upon us. I was afraid.
But I called upon my father. Then the spirits of the great dead came
down upon us. They wove _kamiks_ and _ahttees_ of fire. Their eyes
burned as the great light of the stars. They did not regard us. We
came unto the _ahmingmah_ . . . But upon our return the hill spirits
who live in the caves wakened and struck with their great harpoons.
They shook the mountains. Then the good ancestors carried me through
_sila_--the world of the air--yea, my dogs, my sledge, and the
_ahmingmah_ meat. I had called upon those who went before me. I woke
at the bottom of the mountain, three of my dogs were crushed, my sledge
was broken . . . I lay there a while . . . I slept again . . .
often . . . Then I lashed the sled, ate a little of the _ahmingmah_
meat, and came . . . hither . . . How . . . Ootah knows not . . . It
was hard at times . . . I could hardly walk . . . the ice moved about
me . . . always . . . so--" He described a circle with his hand. "But
I bethought me of Annadoah--" he smiled--"and I said I go to
Annadoah . . . That is how I came . . . I said Annadoah is
hungry--yea, as I said it when the eyes looked at me on the mountains,
when the hill spirits made my heart grow cold, when Koolotah desired to
return . . . Koolotah--he hath gone . . . Koolotah's dogs are
gone . . . But I called upon my dead father, my dead grandfather, and
the older ones--and I thought of Annadoah." He leaned toward her
yearningly, his voice trembling. Fearfully the girl drew away. "It is
she who brought the _ahmingmah_ meat," he said. "It is she who led me
to the _ahmingmah_. Yea, she brings you the _ahmingmah_ meat. For the
thought of her brings Ootah back after the spirits strike . . . It is
she, who lives in the heart of Ootah, who has done all this . . . But
you are hungry. Come!"

He rose slowly and crept through the underground tunnel leading from
the igloo. The others followed. Without, most of the tribe were
waiting. At Ootah's command the men unlashed the sledge-load of meat,
and the division began. To Annadoah Ootah gave one-eighth of the load,
enough to last by frugal use for more than two moons, or months. Among
the others, of whom there were about twenty-five, the remainder was
proportionately divided. For himself Ootah reserved only as much as he
gave the others.

Outside Annadoah's igloo all engaged in a joyous revel. Hungrily they
feasted upon the raw meat. Then they beat drums and danced. Their
voices rose in hilarious chants. Wild joy shook them. Ootah was
acclaimed hero of the tribe. Although they have no chiefs, he was
accorded the honor of being the bravest and strongest among them. And
to the strongest and most heroic the last word in all things belongs.

Of all who were able to participate in the celebration, Maisanguaq
alone retired. From the seclusion of his igloo entrance he watched the
scene with rancor in his heart.

Over the northern skies the auroral lights played, lighting the scene
of spontaneous rejoicing with magical glory. Great silver coronas--or
rings of light--constantly arose in the north, passed to the zenith and
melted as they descended to the south. Luminous curtain-like films
closed and parted alternately like the veils of a Valhalla drawn back
and forth before the warrior souls of the north. Tremendous fan-shaped
shafts of opalescent fire shot toward the zenith and like search-lights
moved to and fro across the sky. The clouds became illumined with an
interior flame and glowed like diaphanous mists of gold half concealing
the vague faces of the beauteous spirits of the dead. Their billowing
edges palpitated with a tremor as of quicksilver. Within and through
this empyreal web of light marvellous scenes were simultaneously woven.
They lasted a moment's space and vanished. The natives, dancing
unrestrainedly, saw heavenly mountain slopes covered with grass of
emerald fire and glittering with starry flowers. They saw the gigantic
shadows of celestial _ahmingmah_ passing behind the clouds . . . and
here and there were the cyclopean adumbrations of great caribou, and
creatures for which they did not have a name. A tossing sea of
rippling waves of light was presently unfolded, and over it they saw
millions of birds, with wings of fire, soaring with bewildering
rapidity from horizon to zenith . . . This faded . . . Monstrous and
gorgeous flowers of living rainbow tints burst into bloom--fields of
them momentarily covered the heaven. These the natives regarded with
only half accustomed wonder, for they knew there were strange flowers
in the land of the dead.

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