Chapter Eighteen.
A Terrible Encounter, Disastrous Results, and Singular Termination.
Let us return now to the wizard and his captives.
After travelling for several days at the utmost possible speed, the guilty man began to feel at ease as regarded pursuit, and commenced to advance at a more reasonable rate, giving the poor dogs time for sufficient rest, and going out once or twice on the floes to procure fresh supplies of seal-flesh for himself and his party.
The thaw which had by that time set steadily in had not broken up the old ice to the southward, so that no more thin ice or open water was met with. But although he had thus begun to take things more easily, Ujarak did not by any means waste time. The wretched man was very morose, even savage, insomuch that he would scarcely reply to the questions which were timidly put to him at times by the women. It was evident that he repented of his hasty flight, and no doubt was rendered desperate by the reflection that the matter was by that time past remedy.
One morning, on rounding one of those bluff precipitous capes which jut out from the western coast of Greenland into Baffin’s Bay, they came unexpectedly in sight of a band of Eskimos who were travelling northwards.
Ujarak pulled up at once, and for some moments seemed uncertain what to do. He had not yet been observed, so that there was a possibility of turning aside, if he were so disposed, and hiding among the rugged masses of ice which lined the bottom of the cliffs. Before he could make up his mind, however, on the subject, a loud shout from the Eskimos showed that he had been observed.
Turning sharply, and with a savage scowl, to the women, he said in a low voice—
“If you say that I have run away with you, I will kill you and the children.”