’The last noise had not died away when the chief of the sea wanderers came in by the door.  And he had with him black bottles, from which we drank and made merry.  You see, I was only a stripling, and had lived all my days on the edge of the world.  So my blood became as fire, and my heart as light as the froth that flies from the surf to the cliff.  Unga sat silent among the skins in the corner, her eyes wide, for she seemed to fear.  And he with the mane of the sea lion looked upon her straight and long.  Then his men came in with bundles of goods, and he piled before me wealth such as was not in all Akatan.  There were guns, both large and small, and powder and shot and shell, and bright axes and knives of steel, and cunning tools, and strange things the like of which I had never seen.  When he showed me by sign that it was all mine, I thought him a great man to be so free; but he showed me also that Unga was to go away with him in his ship.

’Do you understand?—­that Unga was to go away with him in his ship.  The blood of my fathers flamed hot on the sudden, and I made to drive him through with my spear.  But the spirit of the bottles had stolen the life from my arm, and he took me by the neck, so, and knocked my head against the wall of the house.  And I was made weak like a newborn child, and my legs would no more stand under me.

’Unga screamed, and she laid hold of the things of the house with her hands, till they fell all about us as he dragged her to the door.  Then he took her in his great arms, and when she tore at his yellow hair laughed with a sound like that of the big bull seal in the rut.

’I crawled to the beach and called upon my people, but they were afraid.  Only Yash-Noosh was a man, and they struck him on the head with an oar, till he lay with his face in the sand and did not move.  And they raised the sails to the sound of their songs, and the ship went away on the wind.

’The people said it was good, for there would be no more war of the bloods in Akatan; but I said never a word, waiting till the time of the full moon, when I put fish and oil in my kayak and went away to the east.  I saw many islands and many people, and I, who had lived on the edge, saw that the world was very large.  I talked by signs; but they had not seen a schooner nor a man with the mane of a sea lion, and they pointed always to the east.  And I slept in queer places, and ate odd things, and met strange faces.  Many laughed, for they thought me light of head; but sometimes old men turned my face to the light and blessed me, and the eyes of the young women grew soft as they asked me of the strange ship, and Unga, and the men of the sea.