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Updated: June 5, 2025
"Behold your wife, take her!" Koyatuk advanced. Leo placed Oblooria behind him, and, being unarmed, threw himself into a pugilistic posture of defence. The young Eskimo laid one of his strong hands on the Englishman's shoulder, intending to thrust him aside violently. Leo was naturally of a tender disposition.
"Boo!" exclaimed one of the warriors, with a look of ineffable contempt, "Koyatuk is big enough, but he is brainless. He can bluster and look fierce like the walrus, but he has only the wisdom of an infant puffin. No, we will be led by Teyma."
"Pardon me, Grabantak, this girl is not the wife of Koyatuk; she is my sister!" The chief frowned, clenched his teeth, and grasped a spear "When did Kablunet men begin to have Eskimo sisters?" "When they took all distressed women under their protection," returned Leo promptly. "Every woman who needs my help is my sister," he added with a look of self-sufficiency which he was far from feeling.
Koyatuk was physically a fine specimen of a savage, but his spirit was not equal to his body. Like his father he was over six feet high, and firmly knit, being of both larger and stronger build than Leo, whom he now regarded, and of course hated, as his rival a contemptible one, no doubt; still a rival. The warriors watched their chief in breathless suspense.
It did drive the blood violently to the youth's face, but, by a powerful effort of self-restraint, he continued to stand perfectly still, like a living statue, facing the Eskimo. At last Koyatuk became tired of making useless faces at his rival. Suddenly poising his spear, he launched it. Had Leo's eye been less quick, or his limbs less active, that spear had laid him low for ever.
Now, as has been said or hinted, although Grabantak's son, Koyatuk, was a stout and tall man, he was not gifted with much brain. He possessed even less of that substance than his father, whose energy and power of muscle, coupled with indomitable obstinacy, enabled him to hold the reins of government which were his by hereditary right.
"We must not," said Leo to Anders, looking at his follower over the heads of the Eskimos, "forget poor little Oblooria." "Oblooria!" roared Grabantak with a start, as if he had been electrified. "Oblooria!" echoed Koyatuk, glaring round. "Oblooria!" gasped the entire band. Another moment and Grabantak, bursting through the crowd, leaped towards the crouching girl and raised her face.
He had not a vestige of angry feeling in his heart against the man whom he was expected to fight with to the death, and the extraordinary nature of the complex faces that Koyatuk was making at him tended to foster the delusion that the whole thing was a farce or a dream.
This sentiment was highly applauded by the entire council, which included the entire army, indeed the whole grown-up male part of the nation; so that Koyatuk was deposed on the spot, as all incompetents ought to be, and one of the best men of Flatland was put in his place. "But if I am to lead you," said the premier firmly, "it shall be to peace, not to war!"
Recognising her he uttered a yell which probably was meant for a cheer. Hurrying the frightened girl into the circle through which he had broken, the chief presented her to his son, and, with an air worthy of a civilised courtier, said: "Your wife, Koyatuk your Oblooria! Looria!"
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