The Pymeut pilot nodded.
"Tell him, if he'll lend the thing to me to wash, he shall have it back."
Nicholas explained.
Kaviak, with streaming eyes and quivering lips, reluctantly handed it over, and watched Mac anxiously till overwhelmed by a yet greater misfortune in the shape of a bath for himself.
"How shall I clean this thing thoroughly?" Mac condescended to ask Father Wills. The priest shrugged.
"He'll have forgotten it to-morrow."
"He shall have it to-morrow," said Mac.
With his back to Kaviak, the Boy, O'Flynn, and Potts crowding round him, Mac ripped open the little bird-skin pouch, and took out three objects—an ivory mannikin, a crow's feather, and a thing that Father Wills said was a seal-blood plug.
"What's it for?" "Same as the rest. It's an amulet; only as it's used to stop the flow of blood from the wound of a captive seal, it is supposed to be the best of all charms for anyone who spits blood."
"I'll clean 'em all after the Blow-Out," said Mac, and he went out, buried the charms in the snow, and stuck up a spruce twig to mark the spot.