ah's heart stirred. Once she had said that his heart was as soft as
that of a woman; this was, indeed, to him reward for all the frightful
terrors he had endured on the storming sea.

"And do the wings of thy heart not stir, Annadoah?" he asked softly, a
world of pleading in his voice. "Wilt thou not be mine in the spring?"

"In the spring," she said, dreamily, and her voice quavered . . . "in
the spring . . ."

A far-away look came into her eyes, and Ootah felt an infinite ache at
his heart.

"I am afraid, Ootah," she said presently, in a trembling voice . . .
"Afraid . . . my head burns--the igloo is black . . . Dost thou
remember what the women told their dead? . . . They invoked the dead
to curse me . . . as I stood by the open sea . . . when the moon
rose . . . Ootah! Ootah! 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.

IX

"_Turning softly, she found a tiny naked baby . . . Annadoah leaned
forward, gazing at it intently, wildly--then uttered a scream as though
she had been stabbed to the heart . . ._"

The sun rose above the horizon and flooded the earth with liquid gold;
again the sea ran with running light; the melting glaciers shimmered
with burning amethystine hues; the snow-covered mountains took fire and
glowed with burning bars of chrysoberyl and sapphire, while on the
limpid sea the moving bergs glittered like monstrous diamonds
electrically white. On the sequestered slopes of the low mountain
valleys green mosses once more carpeted the earth, buttercups and
dandelions peeped pale golden eyes from the ground, in the teeming
crevices of the high promontories delicate green and crimson lichens
wove a marvellous lacery, and wherever the sun poured its encouraging
springtime light beauteous small star- and bell-shaped flowers burst
into an effulgence of pale rose and glistening white bloom. The
suggestion of a very faint, sweet aroma pervaded the air.

Above the promontories millions of auks again made black clouds against
the sky,--eider ducks floated on the molten waters of sheltering
fjords,--along the icy shores puffins, with white swelling breasts, sat
in military li