Part 8 (1/2)

If the last few minutes had inspired an eagerness for action in his own mind he saw at a glance that something equally exciting had possessed Celie Armin. Spread out on the table were the bits of paper she had brought from her room, and, pointing to them, she again called him by name. That she was laboring under a new and unusual emotion impressed him immediately. He could see that she was fighting to restrain an impulse to pour out in words what would have been meaningless to him, and that she was telling him the bits of paper were to take the place of voice. For one swift moment as he advanced to the table the papers meant less to him than the fact that she had twice spoken his name. Her soft lips seemed to whisper it again as she pointed, and the look in her eyes and the poise of her body recalled to him vividly the picture of her as he had first seen her in the cabin. He looked at the bits of paper. There were fifteen or twenty pieces, and on each was sketched a picture.

He heard a low catch in Celie's breath as he bent over them, and his own pulse quickened. A glance was sufficient to show him that with the pictures Celie was trying to tell him what he wanted to know. They told her own story--who she was, why she was at Bram Johnson's cabin, and how she had come. This, at least, was the first thought that impressed him. He observed then that the bits of paper were soiled and worn as though they had been handled a great deal. He made no effort to restrain the exclamation that followed this discovery.

”You drew these pictures for Bram,” he scanning them more carefully.

”That settles one thing. Bram doesn't know much more about you than, I do. s.h.i.+ps, and dogs, and men--and fighting--a lot of fighting--and--”

His eyes stopped at one of the pictures and his heart gave a sudden excited thump. He picked up the bit of paper which had evidently been part of a small sack. Slowly he turned to the girl and met her eyes.

She was trembling in her eagerness for him to understand.

”That is YOU,” he said, tapping the central figure in the sketch, and nodding at her. ”You--with your hair down, and fighting a bunch of men who look as though they were about to beat your brains out with clubs!

Now--what in G.o.d's name does it mean? And here's a s.h.i.+p up in the corner. That evidently came first. You landed from that s.h.i.+p, didn't you? From the s.h.i.+p--the s.h.i.+p--the s.h.i.+p--”

”Skunnert!” she cried softly, touching the s.h.i.+p with her finger.

”Skunnert--Sibirien!”

”Schooner-Siberia,” translated Philip. ”It sounds mightily like that, Celie. Look here--” He opened his pocket atlas again at the map of the world. ”Where did you start from, and where did you come ash.o.r.e? If we can get at the beginning of the thing--”

She had bent her head over the crook of his arm, so that in her eager scrutiny of the map his lips for a moment or two touched the velvety softness of her hair. Again he felt the exquisite thrill of her touch, the throb of her body against him, the desire to take her in his arms and hold her there. And then she drew back a little, and her finger was once more tracing out its story on the map. The s.h.i.+p had started from the mouth of the Lena River, in Siberia, and had followed the coast to the blue s.p.a.ce that marked the ocean above Alaska. And there the little finger paused, and with a hopeless gesture Celie intimated that was all she knew. From somewhere out of that blue patch the s.h.i.+p had touched the American sh.o.r.e. One after another she took up from the table the pieces of paper that carried on the picture-story from that point. It was, of course, a broken and disjointed story. But as it progressed every drop of blood in Philip's body was stirred by the thrill and mystery of it. Celie Armin had traveled from Denmark through Russia to the Lena River in Siberia, and from there a s.h.i.+p had brought her to the coast of North America. There had been a lot of fighting, the significance of which he could only guess at; and now, at the end, the girl drew for Philip another sketch in which a giant and a horde of beasts appeared. It was a picture of Bram and his wolves, and at last Philip understood why she did not want him to harm the wolf-man. Bram had saved her from the fate which the pictures only partly portrayed for him. He had brought her far south to his hidden stronghold, and for some reason which the pictures failed to disclose was keeping her a prisoner there.

Beyond these things Celie Armin was still a mystery.

Why had she gone to Siberia? What had brought her to the barren Arctic coast of America? Who were the mysterious enemies from whom Bram the madman had saved her? And who--who--

He looked again at one of the pictures which he had partly crumpled in his hand. On it were sketched two people. One was a figure with her hair streaming down--Celie herself. The other was a man. The girl had pictured herself close in the embrace of this man's arms. Her own arms encircled the man's neck. From the picture Philip had looked at Celie, and the look he had seen in her eyes and face filled his heart with a leaden chill. It was more than hope that had flared up in his breast since he had entered Bram Johnson's cabin. And now that hope went suddenly out, and with its extinguishment he was oppressed by a deep and gloomy foreboding.

He went slowly to the window and looked out.

The next moment Celie was startled by the sudden sharp cry that burst from his lips. Swiftly she ran to his side. He had dropped the paper.

His hands were gripping the edge of the sill, and he was staring like one who could not believe his own eyes.

”Good G.o.d--look! Look at that!”

They had heard no sound outside the cabin during the last few minutes.

Yet under their eyes, stretched out in the soiled and trampled snow, lay the wolf that a short time before had been gnawing a bone. The animal was stark dead. Not a muscle of its body moved. Its lips were drawn back, its jaws agape, and under the head was a growing smear of blood. It was not these things--not the fact but the INSTRUMENT of death that held Philip's eyes. The huge wolf had been completely transfixed by a spear.

Instantly Philip recognized it--the long, slender, javelin-like narwhal harpoon used by only one people in the world, the murderous little black-visaged Kogmollocks of Coronation Gulf and Wollaston Land.

He sprang suddenly back from the window, dragging Celie with him.

CHAPTER XIII

”Kogmollocks--the blackest-hearted little devils alive when it comes to trading wives and fighting,” said Philip, a little ashamed of the suddenness with which he had jumped back from the window. ”Excuse my abruptness, dear. But I'd recognize that death-thing on the other side of the earth. I've seen them throw it like an arrow for a hundred yards--and I have a notion they're watching that window!”

At sight of the dead wolf and the protruding javelin Celie's face had gone as white as ash. s.n.a.t.c.hing up one of the pictures from the table, she thrust it into Philip's hand. It was one of the fighting pictures.