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"There is something in what you say," returned the Eskimo, as the lines of unusually intense thought wrinkled his brow; "but for all that you say, I think there are no torngaks, and that Ujarak is a liar as well as a fool." "I agree with you, Okiok, because I think you have good reason for your disbelief.
I looked at him. Then he changed his position, sat down on my chin, and looked at me over my nose. Then he spoke. "`Do you know White-bear Bay? he asked. "`Know it? said I `do I know my own mother? "`What answer is that? he said in surprise. "Then I remembered that torngaks especially little ones don't understand jokes, nothing but simple speech; so I laughed.
If they did, angekoks would only have to listen to all they had to tell on every subject, and there would be an end of it; they would have no occasion to use their judgments at all. No; the torngaks tell what they choose by degrees. Mine told me to leave my tribe, and visit the Kablunets. On the way he told me more, but not all."
"Ha! ho!" exclaimed several of the Eskimos, turning a sharp gaze upon the wizard, as much as to say, "There's a puzzler for you, angekok!" But Ujarak, although pulled up for a moment, was not to be overturned easily. "Torngaks," he said, "do not always reveal all they know at once.
"It was yesterday that I killed the seal and the bear." "Torngaks never make mistakes," was the wizard's prompt and solemn reply; "but they see and know the future as well as the past, and they sometimes speak of both as the present." "How puzzling!" returned the other meekly. "He meant you, then, to understand that I was going to kill a seal and a bear.
"You will make a good enough angekok in time, if you will only attend to what I say, and be obedient. Come, I will explain to you. Torngaks, you must understand, do not always tell all that they know. Sometimes they leave the angekok dark, for a purpose that is best known to themselves. But they always tell enough for the guidance of a wise man "
But our angekoks believe in torngaks, familiar spirits, which they say meet and talk with them. There is no torngak. It is a lie." "But you believe in one great and good Spirit, don't you?" asked the seaman, with a serious look. "Yes; I believe in One," returned the Eskimo in a low voice, "One who made me, and all things, and who must be good."
"Torngaks must be very hard-hearted," said Okiok, with a look and tone of contempt that he did not care to conceal. "But what were they doing in the cave?" "Who knows?" replied Nuna. "These two are always plotting. Ridroonee says they looked as if worried at having been discovered. Come, fall-to. You must be strong to-day if you would play kick-ball well."
"He will go to hold converse with his numerous torngaks," whispered old Kannoa to Pussimek. "He will go to visit Okiok, and see the Kablunet, and court Nunaga," thought the jealous and suspicious Ujarak. And Ujarak was right; yet he dared not follow, for he feared the grave, thoughtful man, in spite of his determination to regard and treat him with lofty disdain.
"`Perhaps'!" echoed the youth, with that perplexed look which so frequently crossed his features when the wizard's words puzzled him. "I thought that torngaks knew everything, and never needed to say `perhaps." "You think too much," said Ujarak testily. "Was it not yesterday," returned the pupil humbly, "that you told me to think well before speaking?"
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