“I did not know that you had ever seen a Kablunet,” returned the other, with a look of surprise.
“Nor have I. But have I not often heard them described by the men of the south? and has not my torngak showed them to me in dreams?”
The wizard said this somewhat tartly, and Okiok, feeling that he had gone far enough, turned away his sharp little eyes, and gazed at the lamp-smoke with an air of profound humility.
“You have got seal-flesh?” said Ujarak, glad to change the subject.
“Yes; I killed it yesterday. You are hungry? Nuna will give you some.”
“No; I am not hungry. Nevertheless I will eat. It is good to eat at all times.”
“Except when we are stuffed quite full,” murmured Okiok, casting at Nunaga a sly glance, which threw that Eskimo maiden into what strongly resembled a suppressed giggle. It was catching, for her brothers Norrak and Ermigit were thrown into a similar condition, and even the baby crowed out of sympathy. Indeed Red Rooney himself, who only simulated sleep, found it difficult to restrain his feelings, for he began to understand Okiok’s character, and to perceive that he was more than a match for the wizard with all his wisdom.
Whatever Ujarak may have felt, he revealed nothing, for he possessed that well-known quality of the Eskimo—the power to restrain and conceal his feelings—in a high degree. With a quiet patronising smile, he bent down in quite a lover-like way, and asked Nunaga if the seal-flesh was good.
“Yes, it is good; very good,” answered the maiden, looking modestly down, and toying with the end of her tail. You see she had no scent-bottle or fan to toy with. To be sure she had gloves—thick sealskin mittens—but these were not available at the moment.
“I knew you had a seal,” said the angekok, pausing between bites, after the edge of his appetite had been taken off; “my torngak told me you had found one at last.”