Page:Life with the Esquimaux - 1864 - Volume 1.djvu/221

200 "How intently I watched each change in Nukertou! One, two, three, four, five, six, seven did I slowly count in the intervals of her breathing, and these increasing to even double that number. At last I could count nineteen between her inspirations, but her respirations were short and prolonged—irregular. At length Nukertou ceased to live. I exclaimed, 'She's dead! Receive back her spirit, I pray Thee, O God, for she is Thine.'

"I placed the lamp before her face. She breathed not. And there I sat on the platform of snow by her side, her dishevelled locks matted and tangled with reindeer hair,

falling in wild disorder over her tattooed brow. I called to her, 'Nukertou! Nukertou!' but no response came back. The silence of the dead alone remained. "I now left for another part of the island, to call her cousin Koodloo. He was asleep in an igloo, and, on awaking him, he accompanied me back. But I could find no one willing to lend a helping hand; no one would touch the dead. I