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A gleaming glance of intelligent humour lighted up Okiok's face as he said "Ujarak is wiser than his torngak in that. He wants to make use of the poor lad for his own wicked ends. I know not what these are but I have my suspicions." "So have I," broke in Nuna at this point, giving her pot a rap with the cooking-stick by way of emphasis. Rooney laughed.
Half an hour later he entered Okiok's hut in quest of Nunaga, but only her mother was there. She told him that the girl had gone off with a sledge along the coast to Moss Bay to fetch a load of moss to stuff between the logs of the hut where they required repairing, and that she had taken Kabelaw as well as Tumbler and Pussi with her.
The vehicle itself was Okiok's hunting-sledge, having spears, bow and arrows, lines, bladders, etcetera, attached to it, so that, although there were no provisions on it except one small seal, which its owner had probably thought was not worth removing, the wizard knew that he possessed all the requisites for procuring a supply.
At the same time the lead which the voyagers had been following grew narrower, and that so rapidly, that they had barely time to jump upon a mass of ice when the opening closed and crushed the oomiak and Okiok's kayak to pieces. Angut and Simek had time to lift their kayaks on to the ice, but that, as it turned out, was of no advantage.
Okiok's further elucidation of this point was so complex that we prefer to give the reader our own explanation. Before assuming the office of an angekok or diviner, an Eskimo must procure one of the spirits of the elements for his own particular familiar spirit or torngak.
Indeed Red Rooney himself, who only simulated sleep, found it difficult to restrain his feelings, for he began to understand Okiok's character, and to perceive that he was more than a match for the wizard with all his wisdom. Whatever Ujarak may have felt, he revealed nothing, for he possessed that well-known quality of the Eskimo the power to restrain and conceal his feelings in a high degree.
The kayaks were old ones which had been found by the party on arriving at the deserted village. They had probably been left as useless by previous visitors, but Okiok's boys, Norrak and Ermigit, being energetic and ingenious fellows, had set to work with fish-bone-needles and sinew-threads, and repaired them with sealskin patches.
In the afternoon Ujarak returned from a visit, as he said, to the nether world, and with his brother wizards for there were several in the tribe confirmed the rumour. As evening approached, Rooney entered Okiok's hut. No one was at home except Nuna and Tumbler. The latter was playing, as usual, with his little friend Pussi. The goodwife was busy over the cooking-lamp.
Evidently they knew nothing of what had occurred. Simek ran out to meet them. A few words sufficed to explain. The news seemed to stun both men at first, but the after-effect on each was wonderfully different. The blood rushed to Okiok's face like a torrent. He clenched his hands and teeth, glared and stamped, and went on like one deranged as indeed for the moment he was.
An hour later, and the gossips of the Eskimo village were assembled round Mrs Okiok's hospitable lamp she had no "board," the raised floor at the further end of the hut serving both for seat and table in the daytime and for bed at night. Of course they were all bursting with curiosity, and eager to talk. But food at first claimed too much attention to permit of free conversation.
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