Stirring restlessly within him, sometimes coming to him in dreams and
sometimes in a great and unfulfilled yearning, Wapi felt vaguely the
strange call of his forefathers. It was impossible for him to understand.
It was impossible for him to know what it meant. And yet he did know that
somewhere there was something for which he was seeking and which he never
found. The desire and the questing came to him most compellingly in the
long winter filled with its eternal starlight, when the maddening yap,
yap, yap of the little white foxes, the barking of the dogs, and the
Eskimo chatter oppressed him like the voices of haunting ghosts. In these
long months, filled with the horror of the arctic night, the spirit of
Tao whispered within him that somewhere there was light and sun, that
somewhere there was warmth and flowers, and running streams, and voices
he could understand, and things he could love. And then Wapi would whine,
and perhaps the whine would bring him the blow of a club, or the lash of
a whip, or an Eskimo threat, or the menace of an Eskimo dog's snarl. Of
the latter Wapi was unafraid. With a snap of his jaws, he could break the
back of any other dog on Franklin Bay.

Such was Wapi, the Walrus, when for two sacks of flour, some tobacco, and
a bale of cloth he became the property of Blake, the uta-wawe-yinew, the
trader in seals, whalebone--and women. On this day Wapi's soul took its
flight back through the space of forty years. For Blake was white, which
is to say that at one time or another he had been white. His skin and his
appearance did not betray how black he had turned inside and Wapi's brute
soul cried out to him, telling him how he had waited and watched for this
master he knew would come, how he would fight for him, how he wanted to
lie down and put his great head on the white man's feet in token of his
fealty. But Wapi's bloodshot eyes and battle-scarred face failed to
reveal what was in him, and Blake--following the instructions of those