“But we might send some of the young men to look round, and bring us word if they see any of the robbers,” said Simek.
“If we do that,” replied Okiok, “they will get wind of us, and clear off. Then they would kill my great-mother before casting her away.”
“That’s true, Okiok. We must keep quiet,” said Rooney. “Besides, they are pretty sure to bring her to the cliff, for that is a favourite mode among you of getting rid of witches.”
“But what if they don’t come here?” asked Ippegoo.
“Then we must hope that they have slept on the mound,” returned Okiok; “and Angut will be sure to find them, and kill them all in their sleep.”
“Too good to hope for,” murmured Arbalik.
“We must hide, if we don’t want to be seen,” suggested Simek.
Feeling the propriety of this suggestion, the whole party went into a cave which they found close at hand and sat down to wait as patiently as might be. Rooney was the last to enter. Before doing so he crept on hands and knees to the extreme edge of the cliff and looked down. Nothing was visible, however; only a black, unfathomable abyss. But he could hear the sullen roar of ocean as the waves rushed in and out of the rocky caverns far below. Drawing back with a shudder, a feeling of mingled horror, rage, and tender pity oppressed him as he thought of Kannoa’s poor old bones being shattered on the rocks, or swallowed by the waves at the foot of the cliff, while behind and through Kannoa there rose up the vision of that grandmother in the old country, whose image seemed to have acquired a fixed habit of beckoning him to come home, with a remonstrative shake of the head and a kindly smile.
They had not long to wait. They had been seated about ten minutes in the cavern when the man who had been left outside to watch came gliding in on tip-toe, stepping high, and with a blazing look about the eyes.
“They come,” he said in a hoarse whisper.