“Have you not told me,” said Angut, with a look of solemn surprise, “that all who love the Great Spirit shall meet again up there?” He pointed to the sky as he spoke.
“Ay, truly, I said that, and I believe that. But a man sometimes wants to see his wife and children again in this life—and, to my thinkin’, that’s not likely with me, as things go at present. Have you much hope that we shall escape?”
“Yes, I have hope,” answered the Eskimo, with a touch of enthusiasm in his tone. “I know not why. I know not how. Perhaps the Great Spirit who made me put it into me. I cannot tell. All around and within me is beyond my understanding—but—the Great Spirit is all-wise, all-powerful, and—good. Did you not say so?”
“Yes, I said so; and that’s a trustworthy foundation, anyhow,” returned the sailor meditatively; “wise, powerful, and good—a safe anchorage. But now, tell me, what chances, think you, have we of deliverance?”
“I can think of only one,” said Angut. “If the pack sets fast again, we may walk over it to the land. Once there, we could manage to live—though not to continue our pursuit of Ujarak. That is at an end.”
In spite of himself, the poor fellow said the last words in a tone which showed how deeply he was affected by the destruction of his hope to rescue Nunaga.
“Now my friend seems to me inconsistent,” said Rooney. “He trusts the Great Spirit for deliverance from danger. Is, then, the rescue of Nunaga too hard for Him?”
“I know not,” returned Angut, who was, how ever, cheered a little by his friend’s tone and manner. “Everything is mystery. I look up, I look around, I look within; all is dark, mysterious. Only on this is my mind clear—the Great Spirit is good. He cannot be otherwise. I will trust Him. One day, perhaps, He will explain all. What I understood not as a little boy, I understand now as a man. Why should there not be more light when I am an older man? If things go on in the mind as they have been going ever since I can remember, perfect light may perhaps come at last.”
“You don’t think like most of your countrymen,” said Rooney, regarding the grave earnest face of his friend with increased interest.
There was a touch of sadness in the tone of the Eskimo as he replied—