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I I think it has come now," said the youth, growing paler, or rather greener; "I think I feel it in my breast. Ujarak said the torngak would come to-day, and to-night I am to be changed!" "Oho!" exclaimed Kunelik, with a slight touch of asperity, "it's a torngak that is to come, is it? and Ujarak says so? Don't you know, Ippe, that Ujarak is an idiot!"
He was found by his mother in the evening in a retired spot by the sea, sitting on the rocks with a very disconsolate countenance. "My son, what is the matter?" "Mother, my heart is heavy. I cannot forget Ujarak." "But he treated you ill, my son." "Sometimes not always. Often he was kind and and I loved him. I cannot help it." "Grieve not, Ippe," rejoined pleasant little Kunelik.
The men were yawning and rubbing their eyes, while the women, with characteristic activity and self-denial, were gathering together the few scraps of food that remained from the previous night's supper. "There is a bear just round the point so Ippe says what's to be done?" asked Rooney on entering. Up jumped the four men and two boys as if they had been made of indiarubber.
Turning quickly, he beheld Ippegoo holding his jaws with both hands and with an expression of unutterable woe on his face. "Halo, Ippe, what's wrong with you?" A groan was the reply, and Rooney, although somewhat anxious, found it difficult to restrain a laugh. "I've got oh! oh! oh! oh! a mad tooth," gasped the poor youth. "A mad tooth! Poor fellow! we call that toothache where I come from."
"If I only had a pair of pincers, but look, Ippe, look," said Rooney, pointing to the sea, in the hope of distracting his mind from present pain by referring to threatening danger; "look our kayaks being lost, we have no hope of escaping, so we must starve." His little device, well-meant though it was, failed.
"Let us put Ippe in front," suggested Simek, with a twinkling eye; "he yells better than any of us." "'Specially when he's got the toothache," added Rooney. The object of this touch of pleasantry smiled in a good-humouredly imbecile manner. It was clear that his malady had been cured, at least for the time.
"Mother!" exclaimed the youth remonstratively, "Ujarak an idiot? Impossible! He is to make me an angekok to-night." "You, Ippe! You are not more fit for an angekok than I am for a seal-hunter."
"O mother, I am such a fool! He might let me off. I'll be disgraced forever." "Not you, Ippe; you're not half such a fool as he is. Just go boldly, and do your best. Look as fierce and wild as you can, and make awful faces. There's nothing like frightening people! Howl as much as possible, and gasp sometimes. I have seen a good deal done in that way.
"But why do you say that Kannoa is very ill, Ippe?" she asked; "I have just come from her hut where she was seemingly quite well. Moreover, she has agreed to sup this very night with the mother of Arbalik, and she could not do that if she was ill, for that means much stuffing, because the mother of Arbalik has plenty of food and cooks it very fast."
Toothache one of the diseases to which Greenlanders are peculiarly liable invariably drew forth Ippegoo's tenderest feelings for himself, accompanied by touching lamentations. "Come, Ippe, be more of a man. Even your mother would scold you for groaning like that." "But it is so shriekingly bad!" returned the afflicted youth, with increasing petulance. "Of course it is. I know that; poor fellow!
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