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"Ask him to come inside and speak to us," whispered Ujarak, who was a good deal more surprised even than his pupil at this unexpected turn of affairs. "Won't you come in, torngak?" said Ippegoo timidly. "It is very cold outside. You will be more comfortable inside, and we shall hear you better. I suppose you can come as easily through the wall as by " "Stop your stupid tongue!" growled Ujarak.
With the indomitable perseverance that was natural to him, the latter had made a second attempt to lead Pussi to the cave, and had been successful. "What is he goin' to do?" asked Pussi, in a voice of alarm. "Goin' to run away vid sister Nunaga," replied Tumbler. "I heard Ippegoo say dat to his mudder. Ujarak is goin' to take her away, an' nebber, nebber come back no more."
At the time this conversation was being held in the sea-green cave, Okiok, rising from his lair with a prodigious yawn, said to his wife "Nuna, I go to see Kunelik." "And what may ye-a-o-u -my husband want with the mother of Ippegoo?" asked Nuna sleepily, but without moving. "I want to ye-a-o-u -ask about her son."
"You think he must be watched, and his mischief prevented?" he said. "That's what I think," said Okiok firmly. "Tell me, what are the ceremonies to be gone through by that poor unwilling Ippegoo, before he can be changed into a wise man?" "Oh, he has much to do," returned Okiok, with his eyes on the lamp-flame and his head a little on one side, as if he were thinking. "But I am puzzled.
As I have before told you, I love Nunaga and Nunaga loves me " "I I thought she loved Angut," said Ippegoo. "O idiot," exclaimed the wizard; "did I not tell you that you cannot understand? The loves of angekoks are not as the loves of ordinary men. Sometimes one's torngak makes the girl seem uncertain which man she likes best "
"Take time, Ippe," interrupted Kunelik; "I see that your head is down, and your boots are in the air." Again Ippegoo protested earnestly that he was in the reverse position, and that Nunaga was no more to him than the snout of a seal; but he protested in vain, for his pleasant little mother believed that she understood the language of symptoms, and nodded her disbelief smilingly.
Ippegoo was supremely happy, and his felicity, like that of most simple folk, reposed on a simple basis. It was merely this that Spring had returned to the Arctic regions. Spring! Ha! who among the dwellers in our favoured land has the faintest idea of of pooh! words are wanting. The British poets, alive and dead, have sung of Spring, and doubtless have fancied that they understood it.
"But how can that be," returned the pupil, with a puzzled look, "when your heart is warmed by Nunaga?" "Because because," rejoined the wizard slowly, with some hesitation and a look of profound wisdom, "because men of strong mind do not love as other men. They are quite different so different that you cannot understand them." Ippegoo felt the reproof, and was silent.
His eyes blinked happily, like those of a cat in the sunshine; his thickish lips protruded poutingly as they gripped the stem; and the smoke was expelled slowly at each puff, as if he grudged losing a single whiff of the full flavour. Scarcely less interesting was the entranced gaze of Ippegoo. Self-oblivion had been effectively achieved in that youth.
They enable you to go on eating when you can hold no more seal or walrus blubber." "That is true," returned the wizard, with a grave nod of appreciation. "Show Ippegoo how to dart the spear. He is yet a baby!" Arbalik laughed lightly as he let fly a spear with a jaunty, almost careless, air, and transfixed a bird on the wing.
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