Lest the reader should be perplexed here, we may explain that some Eskimo ladies often make the wide tops of their long sealskin boots do duty for pockets.
The party was still engaged in discussing the delicacy referred to, and commenting in pitiable tones on their situation, when Ujarak returned, bade them resume their places, jumped on the sledge, and continued to advance. In half an hour the moon rose in a clear sky. The stars shone brightly, and to add to the beauty of the scene, the aurora borealis played and shot about vividly overhead, enabling them to resume a rapid gallop.
It was not till the night was far advanced, and his dogs were nearly worn-out, and full sixty miles lay between him and his native village, that Ujarak felt himself to be comparatively safe, and halted for a prolonged rest.
Without a word, he made for himself a shelter with a bear-skin under a low bush, devoured a lump of raw seal’s flesh, and then went to sleep, leaving the women to look after themselves, the dogs, and the children, as best they might. Fortunately, they were well able to do so, and, being very weary, were not long in doing it. While they went about the work, however, they could not help remarking the unusually morose and surly manner of their master, and expressed the opinion that he was already troubled with that mental complaint to which we give the name of remorse.
And they were right. Bad as the wizard was, he had hitherto kept within the bounds of Eskimo propriety; but now at last he had overstepped those bounds and become a criminal—an outlaw. By one hasty act he had cut, for ever, the cords which had united him to his kindred.
Chapter Seventeen.
Tells of Despair and a Wild Pursuit.
On discovering that Nunaga and the children were not at Moss Bay, and that there were no fresh sledge tracks in that region to tell of their whereabouts, Simek drove back to the village at a wild scamper, in a state of mind very much the reverse of jovial. His hope was that the girl might have been to some other locality, and had perhaps returned during his absence; but the first glance at Nuna put that hope to flight, for the poor woman was in a state of terrible anxiety.