“Yes; when is it coming?” asked Kunelik, who knew well how to humour him.
“How can I tell? I—I think it has come now,” said the youth, growing paler, or rather greener; “I think I feel it in my breast. Ujarak said the torngak would come to-day, and to-night I am to be—changed!”
“Oho!” exclaimed Kunelik, with a slight touch of asperity, “it’s a torngak that is to come, is it? and Ujarak says so? Don’t you know, Ippe, that Ujarak is an idiot!”
“Mother!” exclaimed the youth remonstratively, “Ujarak an idiot? Impossible! He is to make me an angekok to-night.”
“You, Ippe! You are not more fit for an angekok than I am for a seal-hunter.”
“Yes, true; but I am to be—changed!” returned the youth, with a bright look; then remembering that his rôle was solemnity, he dropped the corners of his mouth, elongated his visage, turned up his eyes, and groaned.
“Have you the stomach twist, my boy?” asked his mother tenderly.
“No; but I suppose I—I—am changing.”
“No, you are not, Ippe. I have seen many angekoks made. There will be no change till you have gone through the customs, so make your mind easy, and have something to eat.”
The youth, having had no breakfast, was ravenously hungry, and as the process of feeding would not necessarily interfere with solemnity, he agreed to the proposal with his accustomed look of satisfaction—which, however, he suddenly nipped in the bud. Then, setting-to with an expression that might have indicated the woes of a lifetime, he made a hearty breakfast.