True Tales of Arctic Heroism in the New World Part 22

When Petersen said that he could do nothing with her, as she obstinately declared that she was going on for her husband, Dodge, greatly disturbed, was perplexed as to what action he should take. Fortunately there came to his mind a thought, kindred to that so forcefully and beautifully expressed by Tennyson in his lines, "Home they brought her warrior dead," and he continues:

"Finding that Christian's arguments were likely to prove unavailing, I stepped up to Mertuk, lifted up a corner of the reindeer skin that she had thrown over her seal-skin hood, and pointed to the tiny baby who was sleeping quietly, and said [in English]: '_If you go on the child will die._' She could not understand my words, which the Dane did not translate, but something in her heart must have disclosed their meaning.

For the first time she showed signs of irresolution, and her eyes filled with tears. Carefully covering the child's face, I brushed from the mother's hair and eyebrows the frost-feathers that had already formed through the awful cold. Looking steadily into her eyes, and talking in a low, firm voice, I told her that I would look faithfully for Hans, and bring him back to her if he could be found.

"I shall never forget the expression of her countenance, the moonbeams streaming down on her eager, upturned face. Her lips were slightly parted, and her whole soul seemed to be s.h.i.+ning through her expressive eyes, which were fastened fixedly on mine.

"When I ceased speaking, she answered, talking in an eager, impa.s.sioned strain, which made her meaning plain enough, though her speech was in an unknown tongue. Finally she pointed to the south and said that she _would_ go on, but the trembling tones of her voice did not show the same firmness as it had done before. Christian would have interpreted, but it was unnecessary; the woman and I understood one another, and I felt that the victory was won.

"Again I spoke to her in the same tone as before, and as she listened her eyes were once more dimmed by tears. I was sure that her determination was wavering. Now pointing first to the child, and then in the direction of the s.h.i.+p, I told her that she _must_ go back.

Though she felt my meaning she stood for a moment, most resolute in her att.i.tude, gazing intently into my eyes, until she must have seen something forbidding in my unrelenting face."

Dodge later writes: "To fully appreciate the impressive effect of this most dramatic incident, the conditions under which it occurred should be remembered. We were far out of sight of the s.h.i.+p, were some distance off sh.o.r.e on the main ice-pack of Smith Sound, the moon was shedding a dim, ghost-like glare upon us, and it was the coldest day of the winter, the thermometer indicating seventy-five degrees below the freezing point."

He humorously adds regarding his forceful language in ordering Mertuk back to the s.h.i.+p: "I will not swear that the vigorous words froze as they came from my mouth, but after I finished there were pendant icicles an inch long to my whiskers and mustache."

As to Mertuk, orders, arguments, and requests, whether in pantomime English or in Danish-Eskimo dialect, would have utterly failed of effect, had she not been stirred by frequent allusions to her baby--Hans's child, who must be saved from danger of death. To the mother, cold, hunger, and privations were as naught.

Long and bitter was the conflict in Mertuk's heart between her motherly affection and her wifely devotion. Should she do alone her duty to her infant, or should she put the child's life aside in her arctic quest for her missing hunter husband? To the last her heart was undecided. Now she turned to the north, taking a few steps toward the s.h.i.+p, then she flew back on the trail after the searching party, which had now moved onward.

Finally, with a gesture as of despair at adverse and inexorable fate, she slowly took up her lonely march back to the s.h.i.+p--where food, warmth, and shelter awaited at least the child of Hans.

On s.h.i.+pboard Mertuk did not cease to bewail her weakness in returning from the search until the very day when Hans, who by no means hastened his return, came back to fill her heart with that sweet content which was absolutely insured by his presence alone.

By modern standards this woman of the stone age was low in the scale of humanity--uncouth, ignorant, a heathen, and even brutish in a way.

This tale of an Inuit girl is, however, but a loose leaf from the history of woman, which indicates that the spirit of altruistic devotion is an attribute implanted by G.o.d in the primitive races, and not, as some would fain have us believe, the golden fruit of developed humanity.

A century since an American poet paid due homage to a beautiful belle, who later became his wife, in verse that aptly depicts the lovable traits of Mertuk, the daughter of Shung-hu.

"Affections are as thoughts to her, The measures of her hours; Her feelings have the fragrancy, The freshness of the flowers."

FOOTNOTES:

[30] See map on page 95.

[31] The raised bench or platform of stone, earth, or snow, in the back part of the igloo, on which the furs and skins are arranged for bedding.

[32] Kane says of him: "I obtained an Eskimo hunter at Fiskernaes, one Hans Christian (known elsewhere as Hans Hendrik), a boy of eighteen, an expert with the kayak and javelin. After Hans had given me a touch of his quality by spearing a bird on the wing, I engaged him. He was fat, good-natured, and except under the excitements of the hunt as stolid and unimpressive as one of our Indians."