The Eternal Maiden Part 17

"Thy axe!" he shouted. Maisanguaq pa.s.sed the axe. Ootah grappled for it in the darkness. "Hold the harpoon," he directed. Mechanically Maisanguaq groped for the harpoon and held it while Ootah, with his one free hand, lifted the axe and drove it into the ice. With the other hand he still gripped the unconscious woman. Her hair swished about his legs in the howling wind. Maisanguaq planted his own weapon in the ice on the opposite side of the sledge, and Ootah, with unerring strokes, hardly able to see it in the darkness, pounded it firmly into the ice.

"Thy las.h.i.+ngs," he called. Maisanguaq pa.s.sed a coil of skin rope.

About the improvised stakes which secured the sled Ootah whipped the las.h.i.+ngs, then he pa.s.sed them under and over the sled until it was securely pinioned. Very gently he placed Annadoah upon the ma.s.s of walrus meat and lashed her body in turn to the sled and about the stakes. With Maisanguaq's a.s.sistance he tied the cowering dogs to the harpoons. This done, the two men, benumbed and dazed, clung to the anchor for support.

As the severed ice cakes dispersed, a curling wave lifted the floe on which they clung high on its crest and tossed it southward. As it rose on the surging breakers Ootah felt the dread presence of _Perdlugssuaq_ ready to strike. Each time they made swift, sickening descents in the seething troughs he felt all consciousness pa.s.s away. On all sides the waves hissed. Torrents of water swept over the floe. Ootah felt his limbs freezing; he felt his arms becoming numb. He feared that at any moment he should lose his grip and be swept into the raging sea. Then he thought of Annadoah and conjured new courage. For a while the dogs whined--then they became silent. One already was drowned. Ootah bent over Annadoah to protect her from the mountainous onslaughts of icy water. His teeth chattered--he suffered agonies. For a long black hour of horror they were driven over the thundering seas and through a frigid whirlwind of snow, sharp as flakes of steel.

The recoiling impetus of the waters gradually increased under them.

Ootah knew this indicated an approach to land. The waves came in shorter, but quicker swells. The floe b.u.mped into others. Ootah roused himself and hopefully turned toward Maisanguaq.

"We approach the land," he called. "We must bide our time--then jump."

The waves washed the floe toward the distant sh.o.r.e. Land ice steadily thickened about them. Maisanguaq realized that they were actually being carried to the sheltering harbor of the arm-like glacier south of the village. Ootah quickly began unlas.h.i.+ng Annadoah so as to be prepared to seize her and spring, when the opportunity came, from cake to cake, to safety.

Impelled by a warning instinct, Ootah suddenly looked up from his task, and felt rather than saw Maisanguaq near and about to leap upon him.

Maisanguaq's eyes dimly glowered in the dark. Ootah rose quickly.

Maisanguaq drew back and uttered an exclamation of chagrin. Ootah understood. With rescue possible, Maisanguaq had quickly come to a desperate resolution.

The girl lay between them.

Ootah braced himself.

"I hate thee, Ootah," Maisanguaq shouted, no longer able to suppress the baffled jealousy and seething envy endured quietly for many seasons. He moved about, parleying for time and a chance to spring upon Ootah when he was unguarded.

"I hate thee not, Maisanguaq," Ootah replied.

He steeled himself, for he knew Maisanguaq was strong, he knew the ice was treacherous; he waited for the man to strike.

"My heart warms for Annadoah; so doth thine: therefore, thou or I must die." Maisanguaq's deep voice sounded hoa.r.s.e through the storm.

"As thou sayest," Ootah replied, "but why?"

"Annadoah must be thine or mine; dead, she cannot choose thee, and with thee dead, my strength shall cow her. As men did of old I shall carry her away by force. She shall be mine."

"Annadoah hath already chosen--her heart is in the south," Ootah replied, sadly.

"Fool!" the other man shrieked. "Didst thou not go to the mountains to get her food; didst thou not thieve from thine own self to give oil to her; didst thou not fawn upon her and perform the services of a woman?

Thou liest if thou sayest thou wilt not have her for thy wife. No man doeth this unseeking of reward."

"I love Annadoah," Ootah said, bitterly.

"Yea, and thou hast hope."

"Perchance--perchance I have hope."

"And Annadoah looks with favor upon thee--I have seen it in her eyes.

Did she not greet thee as women greet their lovers when thou camest from the mountains, and did she not bind thy wounds with strange ointment?"

"She thought of another--her heart was in the south."

"Hath she not sought thee hither--upon the ice--when the women fell upon her with their curses? Her heart wings to thee, did she not say, as birds to green gra.s.ses in the mountains?"

"Her heart is in the south," Ootah sadly moaned.

"The heart of woman changes always," cried Maisanguaq. "The heart of woman always yields to force. _Pst_?"

Seeing Ootah turn slightly toward Annadoah, Maisanguaq sprang at his throat. Their arms closed about one another. Maisanguaq breathed the wrath of the spirits upon Ootah. He fought with the fierce strength of one insane with jealous, murderous rage. The icy floe rocked beneath them. They slipped to and fro on the treacherous ice. The sharp snow beat their faces. Water washed under their feet. At times they reached, in their frightful struggle, the very edge of the floe, and seemed about to tumble into the seething sea. Ootah felt Maisanguaq trying to force him into the watery abyss--but he fought backward . . .

time and time again . . . They constantly fell over the unconscious woman on the sledge. About them the darkness roared; they felt the heaving sea beneath them. And while they struggled, in their brief terrible death-to-the-death fight, the floe was tossed steadily onward.

Ootah felt his breath giving out. Maisanguaq felt Ootah's hands closing about his throat. He felt the blood pound in his temples.

Desperation filled him--he determined to kill Ootah by any means. A grim suggestion came to him. He endeavored to release himself.

In a lull of the wind both heard something that made them start.

Aroused from her feverish coma by the two men falling against her, Annadoah suddenly cried aloud. The two men stood stone-still, locked in a deadly grip. At that moment Annadoah felt the warmth of their panting breath as they paused near her. Where she was at first she did not realize. She heard a clamor of wind and breaking waters. She imagined herself being tossed through the air in the arms of the _tornarssuit_. At the same time she became vividly aware of the desperate struggle nearby. Subconsciously she realized Maisanguaq and Ootah were engaged in a fight to the death. In the darkness she sensed them moving away from her. Straining her eyes she began, very dimly--as Eskimos can even in pitch darkness--to descry the black outlines of the two men wrestling as they s.h.i.+fted nearer and nearer the edge of the ice. Then it dawned upon Annadoah's mind that they were being carried, in the jeopardy of an awful storm, on a floe that was tossed hither and thither in a maelstrom of angry waters. A frantic desire to save Ootah surged up within her. Behind him she saw the swimming blackness of the heaving waves. She attempted to rise. Her head swam; there was loud ringing in her ears. Her hands were not free, her ankles were bound--she struggled to release herself.

Twisting her wrists and ankles in the tight las.h.i.+ngs until they bled, it suddenly flashed upon her that she was lashed to the sled. She knew that at any moment the floe might crash into a glacier and be crushed to atoms. She knew that Maisanguaq and Ootah were fighting for the possession of her--that both might perish, or, what was worse, that Maisanguaq might win. Chaotic terror filled her. Struggling frantically but ineffectually, she uttered a maniacal scream.

"Ootah! Ootah!"

Ootah did not reply.

The storm howled. The wind lashed the floe--it fell like a whip on her face. Annadoah felt the surging impetus of the angry sea under them.

She felt herself rising on the crests of mighty waves and being swiftly hurled into foaming troughs of water. Frigid spray bathed her face.

Still the two vague shadows, darker than the night, slowly and laboriously moved about her. At times they brushed her lashed body--then she felt the quick gasps of their breath; she sensed the strain of Ootah's limbs twisting in the struggle.

Again she perceived the two s.h.i.+fting away and being merged into the swimming blackness. Presently she saw only the phosph.o.r.escent crest of a mountainous wave . . . rising in the distance . . . She became cold with white fear--she felt her blood turn to ice . . . She screamed and struggled vainly with the las.h.i.+ngs . . . She felt the floe rise, felt herself being steadily lifted into the sheer air, and of paralyzed fright again swooned.

Maisanguaq, by a fierce wrench, managed to release one hand, struck Ootah a heavy blow and broke away. Leaping to the opposite side of the sledge, with a terrific pull, he drew one of the harpoons out of the ice and with his knife speedily cut it loose from the las.h.i.+ngs. Ootah, stunned for a moment, turned upon him. Maisanguaq desperately raised the weapon. Ootah heard it hiss through the air. He reeled backward--the harpoon grazed his arm and struck the ice.

At that very instant the oncoming breaker descended with a rush from behind--a torrent of water washed the floe. Ootah was lifted from his feet and dashed against the sled. When he rose he waited in silence for an attack. There was none. He moved over the floe cautiously, feeling the darkness. Creeping to the edge he saw something dimly white and blurred on the receding wave. "Maisanguaq," he called, softly. There was a pang at his heart, for he was truly gentle. He strained his ears to hear through the din of the elements. The floe suddenly jolted him as it was carried, with a thud, against sh.o.r.e-clinging ice. Ootah peered seaward, and called again, loudly--

"Maisanguaq!"

Only the waves replied.

Hurriedly he cut the leather las.h.i.+ngs and, leaping from floe to floe, carried Annadoah to the shelter of the sh.o.r.e. Returning he loosened the dogs. Only three lived. Biding his time until the floe was ground securely among others, he then dragged his load of meat ash.o.r.e.

Sinking to the earth he rubbed Annadoah's hands and breathed with eager and enraptured transport into her face.

He called her name. Presently she stirred.

"Ootah," she murmured. "It is very dark--very dark--I wonder . . .

whether . . . it will soon . . . be spring."

He chafed her hands. For a lucid moment she nestled to him and in a terrified voice whispered----

"Maisanguaq--where is he?" She heard Ootah's reply.

"He hath gone the long journey of the dead."