Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 69).djvu/160

 lying like a grey monster below him. Stationary it appeared at first, but as his eyes grew accustomed to the murky light it became a thing of horrid life, heaving, quivering, forming itself into grotesque shapes with a slowness that was as sinister and relentless as death.

He felt puny, insignificant, cruelly at the mercy of that tremendous wind which was blowing the ice-pack down from the Pole and maliciously grounding it in the shallow waters of the Strait.

Far out on the pack where death was certain a dark thing moved. It drew near the village—a great bull walrus scouting vainly for leads of open water that meant life to the small herd wallowing along in its wake. The scout rolled its three thousand pounds from side to side over the moving ice, dexterously fastening its tusks into the base of each berg and pulling itself to the top. On the pinnacle it reared still higher on its flippers, sniffing the air, tusked head swaying, short-sighted eyes trying to pierce the thick atmosphere. A moment of decision, and through the stridor of the elements a bellowing grunt rumbled deep and lone, signalling the advance of the herd. The valiant creature wallowed on from point to point of vantage, progressing through the zone of constant and terrible danger with a courageous dignity that won admiration even from the hungry missionary who saw it as food, heat, life itself.

Opposite the village the walrus escaped the buckling of the ice by a hair's breadth, and, drawing itself up to the top of a moving berg, paused longer than usual to toss its mighty tusks in nervous apprehension of a new danger. Just as the berg began to topple it sensed the presence of human beings and sent its wild trumpetings to warn the herd. The gallant animal, too late to take any thought for itself, plunged recklessly. A patch of black in the gaping angle between two floes, a slow closing of the frigid trap, and a long-drawn despairing roar wove itself through the hissing of the wind and the booming of the devil-drum. As it died away the ice was marked by a seeping red stain.

The herd, panic-stricken at the loss of their leader, flung themselves forward to destruction, leaving crushed bodies to mark a spotted trail of death across the ice-field.

The last terror-driven creature was disappearing in the haze of the blizzard when a bent Eskimo battled his way down from the kashim to the edge of the heaving ice. He sheltered himself in the lee of a floe, looking long at the evidences of tragedy before him. Three wolf-dogs, scenting the blood, came out from under the snow and sat on their haunches to send their hunger-cry keening through the glimmering twilight. Starving though they were, neither man nor beasts dared venture over the few feet that lay between them and the meat tantalizing them on the crecping ice.

"Oh, God! Father! Change the wind!" prayed the missionary.

"O-o-m oom-oom. O-o-m  oom-oom. O-o-m  oom-oom" propitiated the devil-drum of Ah-king-ah.

the white man saw the Eskimo he started. Then, tightening the hood of his parka against the stinging ice-dust, he began creeping cautiously away towards the sound of the drum. With every backward glance he quickened his progress. At last he would be able to enter the tunnel of the kashim while the guard was absent from his post, for, though the missionary's presence had been tolerated in the igloos, he had never yet succeeded in forcing his way into the council-house. He had convinced himself that once in the kashim, where he could address the assembled village, he could persuade them to abandon their heathen incantations and fling themselves on the mercy of God.

He pressed forward eagerly until a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel guided him to the opening in the floor of the kashim above. With a gasp of relief he clutched the ladder that led upwards and mounted. He was not observed as he thrust his head into the dim room, hot and rank with ammoniacal smells and the reek of close-packed bodies. Miak, the witch-woman, huddled in one corner tending the wick of the medicine-man's stone lamp. Its smoky light barely revealed the skin-covered shelf about the walls where hunters, stripped to the waist, sat cross-legged and cross-armed, their Mongolian faces set in earnest concentration. On the floor below them squatted the women and the old men and the quiet children, naked as fishes.

All eyes were on Ah-king-ah, the medicine-man; Ah-king-ah, who had successfully defied the christianizing efforts of two former missionaries. Many were the tales told of the man's cunning and of his strength, not only among the Eskimo tribes, but among the whalers and the white traders of the Arctic. Ah-king-ah was a son of the Wind. Ah-king-ah flew to the Moon on the rays of the ice-blink. Once he flew to Siberia and challenged Nan-kum, the one eyed shaman of the Chuckchees, to battle for the supremacy of the North. Had not all the village seen them fighting over the Strait one morning—two great black crows whose raucous screams sent chills to the hearts of the bravest hunters? Mightiest shaman of the North was Ah-king-ah! With