As I say, the sunlight was full in
the eyes, and I was a stripling; but somehow it was all clear,
and I knew it to be the call of kind to kind.
'As she whipped ahead she looked back within the space of two
strokes--looked as only the woman Unga could look--and again I
knew it as the call of kind. The people shouted as we ripped past
the lazy oomiaks and left them far behind. But she was quick at
the paddle, and my heart was like the belly of a sail, and I did
not gain. The wind freshened, the sea whitened, and, leaping like
the seals on the windward breech, we roared down the golden
pathway of the sun.' Naass was crouched half out of his stool, in
the attitude of one driving a paddle, as he ran the race anew.
Somewhere across the stove he beheld the tossing kayak and the
flying hair of Unga. The voice of the wind was in his ears, and
its salt beat fresh upon his nostrils.
'But she made the shore, and ran up the sand, laughing, to the
house of her mother. And a great thought came to me that night--a
thought worthy of him that was chief over all the people of
Akatan. So, when the moon was up, I went down to the house of her
mother, and looked upon the goods of Yash-Noosh, which were piled
by the door--the goods of Yash-Noosh, a strong hunter who had it
in mind to be the father of the children of Unga.
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