The Eternal Maiden Part 12

Presently someone whispered a terrible thing.

"Sipsu hath cursed Ootah."

A low ominous murmur pa.s.sed from lip to lip among the gathered men and women. In the distance a black speck in the moonlight marked the departing hunters.

"Yea, he hath called upon the spirit of the mountains to destroy Ootah."

A low groan followed this.

"Methinks he hath prophesied too many deaths," said Arnaluk.

"He hath declared that Koolotah's mother will die."

"And Koolotah--did he not say two moons ago that Koolotah would depart on a long journey from which he should never return?"

"And the wife of Kyutah--did she not perish after his evil prophesy?

And Piuaitsoq--did not the spirit of the skin tents strike him when he lay asleep? And did not yon evil wretch tell of it long before?"

A dozen voices angrily rose in a.s.sent.

"Verily he hath found hatred in his heart for Ootah. For Ootah hath had no need of his powers. Did not Ootah's mother sew into his cap the skin from the roof of a bear's mouth? And hath he not become as strong as the bear? Did not his father place in his _ahttee_ the feet of a hawk--and have not his own feet the swiftness of the wings of a bird?

And doth not Sipsu hate him for his strength? Yea, as he hateth all who are young, who are brave, and who find joy in their shadow."

Their voices rose threateningly. Maisanguaq, chagrined and bitter at the old man, leered among the crowd.

"Hath he not lived too long," he whispered softly. And the others suddenly shouted:

"Let Sipsu die!"

In a wild rush they bore down upon the _angakoq's_ igloo. Screaming with rage they kicked in the sides. The icy dome shattered about the startled old man. They leaped upon him as hungry dogs upon a dying bear. A dozen hands ferociously gripped his throat. They moved to and fro in a mad struggle over the uneven ice. They seized hold of one another in the blood-thirsty desire to lay their hands upon the old man. He made no struggle. Finally all drew away. Amid the wreck of his igloo Sipsu lay, motionless, his face sneering evilly in the moonlight. His dead lips seemed to frame a curse.

They secured a rope of leather lashings and placed a noose about the old man's neck. Then they dragged his body from the wrecked igloo.

Weak from lack of food, they still forced themselves to dig up the frozen snow at a spot where they knew there were stones, for according to their belief they had to bury the old man--otherwise, his spirit would haunt them. To this spot they brought the rotted skins of his bed, and on them placed the body, fearful lest they touch it. By the body they placed the old man's lamp, stone dishes, membrane-drum and instruments of incantation. Over the corpse they piled the ice encrusted stones, and over these in turn weighty ma.s.ses of frozen snow.

Then they turned in silence and entered their respective shelters.

Thenceforth, until a child should be born to whom it could be given, the name of Sipsu might not pa.s.s their lips.

VI

"_As he looked upon the descending wraiths, Koolotah saw they had the spirit-semblance of gleaming faces, and that their eyes burned, through the enveloping cloud-veils, like fire . . . 'The dead--the dead . . .'

he said, 'we have come into a land of the dead.' . . .

"Then the glacial mountainside to which he clung trembled . . . the silver-swimming world of white dust-driven fire became suddenly black--and the earth seemed removed from under him . . ._"

Leaving the low-lying sh.o.r.e, Ootah's path led up through a narrow gorge between two great cliffs. Since he had returned from the mountains the path had been covered by many successive falls of snow. At places the path sloped abruptly downward at a terrible angle, and the ice cracked and slid beneath the hardy hunters' feet. With the agility of cats, the dogs fastened their claws into the ice and climbed upward.

Constantly the two men had to hold to the jagged rocks to their right, otherwise, time after time, they would have slipped into the perilous abyss below. Through the chasm the moon poured its liquid rays. At certain points towering crags shut off the light--then Ootah and his companion had to feel their way slowly upward in the dark. Finally Ootah's dogs, with a loud chorus of barking, leaped ahead. Seizing an overhanging ledge of rock Ootah lifted himself to the top of the precipice. Koolotah's team followed.

For interminable miles a vast icy plateau stretched before them--a plain glistening with snow and reflecting like a burnished mirror the misty silveriness of the moon. Over the glacial expanse an eerily greenish phosph.o.r.escence, which palpitated and shifted at times with vivid splashes of opal and deeper tones of burning blue, hung low.

The upland was split with thousands of canyons that writhed over the white expanse like snakes in tortuous convulsions. From these bottomless abysses arose a luminous amethystine vapor. In the depths jutting icicles took fire and glowed through the l.u.s.trous mists like burning eyes. Where the chasms joined with others or widened, ominous shapes, swathed in wind-blown blackish-purple robes, with extended arms, took form. As Ootah and Koolotah dashed forward, great s.p.a.ces of clear ice palpitated on all sides of them with interior opaline fires.

Neither spoke. Holding the rear framework of their sleds, they trusted to the instinct of their dogs. Mile after mile swept under their feet.

Their road often lay along the very edges of purple-black abysses. The echoes of their sharp gliding sleds cutting the ice, of the very patter of their dogs' feet, were magnified in volume in the clear air, and it seemed as though, in the hollow depths on every side, ghostly teams were following. Koolotah was white with fear. But Ootah encouraged him onward.

They paced off twenty miles. They reached an alt.i.tude of more than a thousand feet above the sea.

The great moon slowly circled about the sky; the scurrying clouds contorted like grotesque living things.

The two hunters made precipitous descents over unexpected frozen slopes--at times it seemed as though they were about to be hurled to instantaneous death. Yet Ootah steeled his heart. His teeth chattered but he gritted them firmly.

"Annadoah needeth food," he murmured, "and----"

His eyes shone, a new pity not unmingled with a taint of bitterness filled his heart. Annadoah must live; she must have food. For a strange thing, he observed, had come upon her. Her inexplicable moods, her brief moments of tenderness, her riotous griefs, and other prefigurements of maternity--these made her dearer to Ootah. So he vigorously cracked his whip and urged the dogs.

The chasms twisted with lifelike motion all around him. Behind, as in a dream, Ootah heard the whip of Koolotah, and the barking of Koolotah's dogs. For hours his feet moved swiftly and mechanically under him. Once his foot slipped. He swerved to the right. A vast black mouth yawned hungrily to receive him; then it closed behind him.

The leaping team of dogs had pulled him forward. Luckily he maintained a tenacious hold to the rear upstander of his sled.

Narrow chasms constantly cut their trail. With sharp howls the dogs leaped over these, the sleds pa.s.sed safely, and by instinct Ootah would bound forward. Narrower than a man's stride in width, Ootah knew these slits in the glacial ice were hundreds of feet in depth, that a slip of the foot might plunge him to immediate death. Now and then he lost his footing on the uneven ice; his heart leaped for fear, but he held grimly to the sledge and the lithe, lean but strong dog-bodies carried him to safety. These faithful animals bounded over the glimmering ice field with amazing speed. They snapped and barked with the joy of the race. In the white moonlight the vapor of their breathing enveloped them like a silvery cloud.

For hours the hunters continued the trail. Their mighty purpose fought off fatigue. The moon pa.s.sed behind c.u.mulous mountains of clouds along the horizon, and periods of darkness blotted the world from Ootah.

Then they traveled in darkness. A chill dampness rising from the gaping abysses that sundered the ice field told them of their danger; then Ootah's heart chilled, his teeth were set chattering; but he thought of Annadoah and the grim need of food, and he gripped the upstander of his sled more determinedly. When the moon again unclosed its pearly sheen over the ice, the serpentine chasms moved their tortuous backs and writhed about them, the icy hummocks billowed, and the glittering ice-peaked horizon swam in a dizzy circle of diamonded light.

As their trail ascended higher the penetrating cold dampness somewhat moderated. In the taut air the sound of their whips was like that of splitting metal. Shuddering and sepulchral echoes answered the barking of their dogs. The faithful ghosts of the dogs of fallen hunters were following their departed masters in the amethystine mists of the canyons about them. Ootah and Koolotah trembled with the thought of the dreadful nearness of the dead. Believing other animals to be ahead, the dogs set up a wilder, shriller howling. Then the echoes came back with more startling and terrifying proximity. Ootah's flesh crept. Finally, with an explosive sound, Koolotah let his whip fall.

"_Aulate_--halt!" he called.

They came to a dead standstill.

"_Pst_!" he whispered. He hit the snapping, whining dogs. "_Pst_!"

They crouched to the ground and whined mournfully.

"Dost thou hear?" Koolotah asked in a hushed voice. In the moonlight Ootah saw that the lad's face was as white as the face of the dead, and that in his eyes was a wild fear. From the mountain ridges, which loomed beyond, came an ominous noise--resembling a low wind. Ootah bent his head and listened to the sobbing monotone, then whispered:

"The breathing of the spirits of the hills who sleep."

"Perchance we waken them," Koolotah ventured.

"That would be bad," Ootah replied.

"I have left my mother forever," Koolotah wailed.

"Be brave, lad; they need food; beseech the spirits of those who lived when men's sap was stronger, thy ancestors, for strength. Come!"

Koolotah raised his head--then uttered a low cry of alarm. He drew back, fearfully, pointing with a trembling arm to the mountain pa.s.s ahead.