Through the gathering gloom he saw something . . . a blur of blackness . . . gathering substance as it approached over the ice.  It moved uncertainly . . . and seemed to be driven toward him by the furious wind.

“Look—­who is it?” he called to Maisanguaq.

For answer, through the din of the elements, a voice called brokenly, sobbingly: 

“Ootah! . . .  Ootah!”

Ootah leaped to his feet.  Out of the snow-driven blackness a frail figure staggered toward him.

“Annadoah,” Ootah murmured, seizing the trembling woman in his arms.  She seemed about to faint.

“Why hast thou come hither?” He hugged her fiercely to his bosom.  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.

“The women came to me,” she panted with difficulty, and Ootah had to bend his ear to her mouth so as to hear.  “They were angry.  They said ‘She stealeth souls!  Annadoah stealeth souls!’ They said, ’Annadoah hath caused the death of many children!’ Ootah!  Ootah!  They came, as they do when thou art absent.  They threatened me—­they called upon the spirits, as they once called to them beneath the sea.  And the curse of the long night—­of darkness—­hunger—­death . . . they invoked . . . of the dead . . . upon me . . .  I was afraid.”  Ootah felt her shuddering in his arms.  “The women came unto my igloo,” she repeated wildly—­“they desired that ravens peck my eyes—­that I rest without a grave—­that my body lie unburied and that my spirit never rest.  And the curse of darkness—­io-o-h-h!—­they called the curse of darkness upon me.  They trampled upon me with their feet, and they tore at my hair . . .  They came unto my igloo as the storm came and called upon the spirits of the skins to strike me; for they said I had again driven thee to thy death, that I had sent the others to their death.  Thou knowest I lay ill when thou didst depart.  But they fell on me one by one and hurt me—­I feared they would kill me.  They were angry and they called upon the dead.  The storm strikes; the spirits of the winds are angry; the ice breaks, and it is the fault of Annadoah.  So they said.”

Her eyes were wild, her hair dishevelled.  Ootah felt her forehead—­it burned with fever.

“How didst thou come hither—­and why?” he asked, his heart bounding in the thought that she had followed him, that of him she sought protection.

“I know not—­methinks I called upon the spirits.  I knew thou didst come this way—­I knew thou wouldst save me from the women.  And I followed.  The way was dark.  The wind held me back.  But I knew thou wert here—­my heart led me; my heart found thee as birds find grass in the mountains.  Ootah!  Ootah!  I fear I shall die!” She collapsed in his arms.  The wind shrieked!  In the distance two icebergs exploded—­there was a flash of phosphorus on the sea as the arctic dinosaurs collided.