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He felt a greater joy than that the natives feel when the sun dawns after the long night. In his heart pulsed the sweet song of spring's first ineffable bird. Not far from Annadoah's tent he paused. About him the natives, wondering, admiring, had gathered. He turned to them; he felt a strength, a dignity, an assertion he had never experienced before.
I cannot see thee . . . It is very . . . dark." Ootah laid his hand upon Annadoah's head. "The spirits do not fare well within thee," he said. "But I will care for thee." For nearly a moon Annadoah lay ill with a strange fever. And in her disturbed dreams, as Ootah watched through the long hours, she murmured vaguely, but longingly, for the spring.
She could hear her heart throb. She feared the natives might detect it. Five hundred feet to the north a group were engaged in excited conversation. Annadoah's brain whirled with the fragments of what they said. She knew the moment had come to depart. She emerged and on all fours crept to the protecting lee of her igloo where she was hidden from their view.
The constant haunting thought of Annadoah's face pressed close to that of Olafaksoah somehow made his face burn and his bosom ache. "Ootah, Ootah, thou wouldst that Annadoah's heart might wither, yea, as a frozen bird in the blast of winter, foolish Ootah, who lovest Annadoah!
In her igloo Annadoah lay alone for with spring the time of her trial had come. In the customary preparations for the coming of Annadoah's unborn child Ootah had entered with rare tenderness and solicitude.
He felt a throb of ecstatic delight; for the first time she had surrendered to his arms; for the first time he held her close to him; death for the moment lost its terrors he felt that he would be willing to die, in that storming darkness, with her heart beating, so that he felt its every pulse, close, close to his. The wild winds almost drowned Annadoah's words.
Having returned from the mountains Ootah had learned of Annadoah's flight and the pursuit; and with an unselfish determination to save the child he had immediately followed. At the very edge of the cliff the natives paused. In his hands, Attalaq, the leader of the pursuit, held the crying babe. Their voices were raised to an uproar; the women were chattering fiercely.
Not until the wonder lights were fading did the tribesmen take up the precious bear meat, and according to Ootah's instructions divide portions among the community. His arm full of meat, Ootah joyously entered Annadoah's igloo. Annadoah, sad and lonely, sat by her lamp. Her igloo was like that of all the others.
Already the sea for miles along the shore was frozen. The open water lay at so great a distance from the land that the sound of the waves was stilled. The birds had disappeared. Even the voices of the sinister black guillemots and ravens were heard no more. Annadoah's sobs rose softly over the ice. "Spirit of my mother, thou who wast carried by the storm-winds into the sea! Hear me!
During the tragic days of his isolation the full realization of all that he had lost had come to Ootah. He fed upon the memory of Annadoah's face. He remembered how, with the vision of that face before him, he had excelled in the hunts and games, and for many moons had felt confident of winning her.
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