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Truly she was my woman, my mate-woman, fighting with me and for me as the mate of a caveman would have fought, all the primitive in her aroused, forgetful of her culture, hard under the softening civilization of the only life she had ever known. "Dear woman!" I cried, scrambling to my feet. The next moment she was in my arms, weeping convulsively on my shoulder while I clasped her close.
The whole sordid story over again, over and over again, as old as Eve and young as the last new love-light. "My man! My man! My man!" she was reiterating vehemently, her face passionately dark, and the ruthless tenderness of the Eternal Woman, the Mate-Woman, looking out at him from her eyes.
Their fatness came from the rice. Why should I and mine not be fat from the rice in the same way? And I thought it out in camp, silent, morose, while the children squabbled about me unnoticed, and while Arunga, my mate-woman, vainly scolded me and urged me to go hunting for more meat for the many of us. Arunga was the woman I had stolen from the hill-tribes.
But she caught at her husband's name and cried out in Eskimo: "Yes! Yes! Fairfax! My man!" "Poor little fool, how could he be your man?" But she could not understand his English tongue, and deemed that she was being trifled with. The dumb, insensate anger of the Mate-Woman flamed in her face, and it almost seemed to the man as though she crouched panther-like for the spring.
That had been eliminated by the harsh necessity of labour which circumstances had thrust upon her; and the life of the wilderness had developed in her elemental powers. She was now the strong mate-woman, quick in judgment, resourceful in action, and of swift courage in danger. His eyes glowed as he watched her, and a soft look came on his face. As it happened Helen turned and saw it.
And as I died them at the end of the fighting, there were death songs and singing about me, and the songs seemed to sing as these the words I have written when I was Ushu, the archer, and Igar, my mate-woman, leg-twining, arm-clasping, would have held me back from the battle.
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