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Updated: May 11, 2025
The whole family cried out vigorously with delight, in various keys, when the team came yelping home with the Kablunet. Even the baby gave a joyous crow in Eskimo. But the exclamations were changed to pity when the Kablunet was assisted to rise, and staggered feebly towards the hut, even when supported by Okiok and his sons. The sailor was not ignorant of Eskimo ways.
Seating himself quietly between Nunaga and Nuna, and taking the oily Tumbler on his knee, the visitor entered into a low-toned conversation respecting this great event of their lives the arrival of a real live Kablunet! They also talked of Kablunets in general, and their reported ways and manners. It is to be noted here that they did not talk in whispers.
"Yes," continued the sailor; "they had lands, more or less some of them, at least and some of them had money; but you must know, Okiok, that however much a Kablunet may have, he always wants more." "Is he never content?" asked the Eskimo. "Never; at least not often." "Wonderful!" exclaimed Okiok; "when I am stuffed with seal-blubber as full as I can hold, I want nothing more."
"Mother," gasped the youth, turning to the natural repository of all his cares and troubles, "he is coming!" "Who is coming, my son?" asked Kunelik, in a quiet, soothing tone, for the pleasant little woman, unlike most of the others, was not easily thrown into a state of agitation. "The Kablunet," cried Ippegoo. "Where, when, who, how, which, what?" burst simultaneously from the gaping crowd.
He quickly seated himself on a raised platform, and had done some justice to it before Nuna recovered the use of her tongue. "A Kablunet!" she exclaimed, almost solemnly. "Is he dead?" Okiok paused, with a lump of blubber in his fingers close to his mouth. "No; he is alive. At least he was alive when I left him. If he has not died since, he is alive still."
Let us now return to Ippegoo. Having borrowed a sledge, he had driven off to the appointed place of rendezvous, before the arrival of Rooney and Angut, as fast as the team could take him. Arrived there, he found Ujarak awaiting him. "You have failed," said the wizard gravely. "Yes, because Nunaga had left with her father and mother, and is now in the village. So is the Kablunet."
But by that time they were not far distant from the Kablunet settlements. Why some people should wink and blink as well as smirk when they are comfortable is a question which might possibly be answered by cats if they could speak, but which we do not profess to understand.
But men with tails must look very funny." Here Mrs Okiok ventured to ask how the Kablunet women dressed. "Well, it's not easy to describe that to folk who have never seen them," said the sailor, with a slight grin. "In the first place, they don't wear boots the whole length of their legs like you, Nuna." "Surely, then," remarked the hostess, "their legs must be cold?"
By degrees he closed the eyes, and allowed the smile to develop into a high falsetto chuckle which convulsed his broad hairy shoulders for full five minutes. From that hour Okiok and the Kablunet were united! They understood each other. The chords of sympathetic humour had vibrated within them in harmony.
Unrolling the bear-skin, which yet retained a little of its first owner's warmth, he wrapped the Kablunet in it from head to foot, leaving an opening in front of his mouth for breathing purposes. With his knife a stone one he cut off a little lump of blubber from the seal, and placed that in the opening, so that the stranger might eat on reviving, if so inclined, or let it alone, if so disposed.
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