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At night Nunaga selected as comfortable a spot as she could find under the shelter of the Greenland cliffs, and there after detaching the children, re-dressing Ujarak's leg, arranging the couch of the semi-conscious Kabelaw, and feeding the hungry dogs she set up her lamp, and cooked savoury seal and bear cutlets for the whole party.
"If Ujarak's torngak was good and true, it would have told him of the deceit about to be practised on him, and would not have allowed him to submit to disgrace. If it did not care, it was a bad spirit. If it did not know, it was no better than a man, and not worth having so I don't want to have one, and am very glad I have escaped so well."
The same authority also informs us that angekoks "speak in a metaphorical style sometimes, in order to exhibit their assumed superiority in learning and penetration." It will not be expected, therefore, that our translation should convey more than a general idea of the combat. Ujarak's first act, after bounding into the ring and drumming, was to glare at his adversary.
Enough to know that, like other statesmen, he made the most of his subject, and fully impressed his audience with the belief that this first of Kablunets who had ever visited these ice-bound regions had been mysteriously, yet irresistibly, drawn there through his, Ujarak's, influence, with the assistance of his torngak or familiar spirit.
These men, who had been forced to make a long, difficult detour inland after the ice gave way, were not a little pleased to find that the ice-foot to the northward was still practicable, and that the Eskimo village was so near. Of course they told of their meeting with Ujarak's sledge, which rendered inaction on the part of the pursuers still more unbearable.
It was only a crack in the berg, followed by the dislodgement of a great mass, which fell from the roof to the floor below fortunately at some distance from the spot on which the Eskimos stood. "Bergs sometimes rend and fall asunder," gasped the trembling youth. Ujarak's voice was unwontedly solemn as he replied "Not in the spring-time, foolish one. Fear not, but listen.
With much solemnity Okiok rejoined that he had no doubt of Ujarak's being aware that the man was a Kablunet. "And I am glad you have come," he added, "for of course you can also tell me where the Kablunet has come from, and whither he is going?"
Of course he knew nothing of the object those self-sacrificing men had in view in thus establishing themselves in Greenland, only vague rumours having at that time reached his distant tribe. All he knew was that they were Kablunets, or foreigners, and that they had something mysterious to tell about the God of the Kablunets. Nunaga received Ujarak's information in silence, and waited for more.
Taking advantage of his descending weight, he added to it a wrench which seemed to sink his ten fingers into the flesh of Ujarak's shoulders; a momentary check threw the latter off his guard, and next instant Angut not only pulled him over, but hurled him over his own head, and rolled him like a porpoise on the snow!
"Is he very thin?" asked Angut, who had been somewhat impressed by Ujarak's description of the stranger, and his evident desire that no one should go near him. "He is not fat," answered Okiok, "but he has not been starving long; sleeping and stuffing will soon make him strong. Don't you think so, Norrak? You saw him at his worst, when we found him on the ice."
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