Then for a second time that day it seemed to him as though a rope were drawing him, this time not to the glacier face but to the ridge of rock and that which lay upon its farther side. Supposing that there was a manor womanyonder? It seemed impossible because no other men or women lived except those upon the beach of whom he was chief. What he saw was some drift log splintered white by rolling upon stones, or perhaps a great fish dead and rotten. And yet how could he say that there were no other men and women, he who had just looked upon the corpse of a man who must have lived thousands of years ago when the ancient ice that wrapped him round was born in the womb of the distant mountains whence it had flowed? How could he be sure that he and his people were the only twolegged creatures on the earth, which perhaps was bigger than they knew?
Then for a second time that day it seemed to him as though a rope were drawing him, this time not to the glacier face but to the ridge of rock and that which lay upon its farther side. Supposing that there was a manor womanyonder? It seemed impossible because no other men or women lived except those upon the beach of whom he was chief. What he saw was some drift log splintered white by rolling upon stones, or perhaps a great fish dead and rotten. And yet how could he say that there were no other men and women, he who had just looked upon the corpse of a man who must have lived thousands of years ago when the ancient ice that wrapped him round was born in the womb of the distant mountains whence it had flowed? How could he be sure that he and his people were the only twolegged creatures on the earth, which perhaps was bigger than they knew?
Oh! he would go to look, for if he did not he would be sorry all his life. Should he be cramped in the cold water and drowned, or should the pack ice strike him so that he sank, after all it would not matter very much. Then, doubtless, Pag would become chief, or perhaps he would make Moananga chief, which would please the people better, and be the whisperer in his ear. Either of them would look after Foh, or if they did not, Aaka would, especially when he was gone and she could no more be jealous because the boy loved him better than he did her. Probably, too, there at the bottom of the sea was peace without fears or hopes, questionings, or disappointments. Also fate was always behind them as the huge Sleeper was behind that wild, hairy creature that was once a man.
So thought WI, and as he thought he threw off his cloak and laid it on a rock, hiding the ax beneath it so that, if he returned no more, Pag and the others might learn that the sea had taken him. Then he plunged into the water very swiftly, lest his courage should desert him, and struck out for the reef. At first that water was bitterly cold but, as he swam with great strokes, stopping now and again to push aside the blocks of floating ice or to feel them with his hand beneath the surface lest on them should be sharp points that would cut him, he grew warmer.
Also, the joy of the quest, the hope of adventure, caused his blood to flow more quickly than it had done there upon the beach, where he was filled with so many sad thoughts and haunted by the memory of the strange and hideous man with whom he had come face to face in the ice of the glacier. Now he felt as he had done when as a boy he had climbed the mountain crag on which none had ever dared to set foot, to rob the great eagle's nest, and had brought down its young one in a basket on his back, while the parent eagles screamed round him striking at this head and tearing him, which young one he had pinioned and kept for years, till at last the dogs killed it. Yes, once more he was a fearless boy, untroubled by memories of yesterday or fears for tomorrow, and seeking only what the hour might bring him.
At length Wi reached the reef, uncramped and unhurt. Crawling onto it, he shook himself as a dog does, then very cautiously picked his way among its stones and peered down at the spot, where from the height of the shore he had seen that strange, sharppointed thing in which a figure seemed to be lying. It was gone! No, there it was right beneath him, lifted up toward him by the send of the surf. It was something made by man to float upon the water, much larger than he had thought, for five or six people could have sat in it, hollowed it would seem from a great tree, thicker than any that he knew, for there were ax marks in the redhued wood. Moreover, his eyes had not deceived him, for, behold! within this shaped log lay a figure covered with a cloak or blanket of white fur which hid it all, even the head that rested at the raised end of the log. No, not quite all, for outside of the cloak lay a tress of hair, long hair, yellow as the marsh flowers that came in spring, also a white arm and hand, which hand grasped a wooden implement, that from its shape, he guessed, must be used to drive the hollowed log through the water.
Wi stared and stared, and while he stared became aware that this hand was not that of a dead woman, for from its delicate shape he knew it to be a woman's, because, although blue with cold, presently the little finger moved, bending itself inward. Noting this, he pondered for a moment. What could he do? To swim to the beach bearing a senseless woman was impossible; moreover, she would die in the icy water. If she might be brought there at all, it must be in that in which she lay. Yet to drag that heavy log across the reef was behind his strength. Therefore there was but one thing to be done. It had come ashore but a little distance from the western channel, by which the sea flowed in and out of the bay. The tide had turned, he noted it as he swam, and was now running shoreward. If he pushed the log to the channel, it would float to the beach. He leapt into the surf and thrust it forward; being light, it moved easily, and as it drew but very little water, not more than four handbreadths, it would seem, he could guide it through the surf and shallows out of reach of the breaking waves.
Pushing it in front of him, presently he came to the lip of the race down which the tide began to run strongly shoreward. Here he paused a moment, proposing to take to the water once more and swim behind the hollow tree, guiding it with his hand. Then he remembered that the water was dreadfully coldthat the way was long and that, before he covered it, cramp might seize him so that he would sink and go to find out the truth about the gods and many other matters.
Perhaps this might be well for him, but if he were drowned, what would happen to her who lay there? Without doubt, she, who must already be near to death, would die also, for except to kill seals, of which as yet there were not any, no one came to this lonely faroff bay, or if perchance some did and saw a strange woman lying in a hollow tree, they would run away, thinking that she was a witch of the sea, such as was told of in legends. Or perhaps they would kill her lest she should be the bearer of a curse.
Then he thought to himself, why should he not get into the log and guide it ashore with that which lay in the stranger's hand? Often when the sea was calm and the weather warm he, like others of the tribe, would bestride a piece of wood and paddle it by the help of a bough to a certain sand bank that swarmed with fish, there to catch them on a line. Therefore, he could guess the use of what she held and knew how it should be handled.
Taking the paddle very gently from her hand, Wi entered the canoe, for such it was, and seating himself at the woman's feet, pushed it off into the centre of the race. Here the tide took it and bore it forward, so that all he need do, at any rate at first, was to keep the bark straight and after they were out of the race and in the bay, with gentle strokes of the paddle that he dipped into the water first on one side and then on the other, as he was accustomed to do when out fishing on a log, to drive it shoreward, avoiding the lumps of floating ice.
Thus this naked savage man and the shrouded woman upon whose face he had not yet dared to look, partly because he was naked and partly because he feared what he might behold beneath that cloaka sea witch, perhaps, who would drag him into the deep watercame safely to the shore. When a while before Wi had looked upon the sleeper in the ice and the hairy one who seemed to flee in front of it, in his heart he had compared these two to man being hunted of Fate in a most fearful form. He did not know that Fate has many shapes and that some of them are very fair. He did not guess that there stretched senseless before him, lay his fate, a fate as deadly as the monstrous Sleeper would have been to the hairy man who had lived and died thousands of years ago.
Chapter XI
Laleela
Wi leapt to the beach, and seizing the canoe by a hide rope which was attached to its prow, dragged it over the hard, wet sand, as, being very strong, he could do easily enough, till it was well above high water mark. Then he ran to the rock and clothed himself swiftly in his girdle of dressed seal fur and his hooded cloak of gray wolfskin which he wore when out hunting, slipping his hand through the loop of the ax, for, after all, who knew what might lie beneath that covering? Also, about his shoulders he hung the bag in which when he went abroad he kept food for a day or two and his tools for making fire. Then he returned to the canoe and, with a beating heart, for like all savages he was frightened of the unknown, drew off the fur wrapping from her who lay senseless, and stared down.
Next instant he staggered back, for never had he seen and never had he dreamed of a woman so beautiful as this that the sea had brought to him. Tall she was, and shapely. Young, too, and all about her hung the matted masses of her yellow hair. Though somewhat blue with cold and reddened where the weather had caught it, her skin was of the whiteness of snow; her face was oval and her features were fine and well cut. Her eyes he could not see because they were shut, at which he rejoiced, for had they been open he would have known that she was dead; but he noted the long curling eyelashes which lay upon her cheek, also that they were not yellow like her hair, but dark, indeed, almost black in hue.