“Did he tell you that I had also found a bear?” asked Okiok, with deeper simplicity than ever.
The wizard, without raising his head, and stuffing his mouth full to prevent the power of speech, glanced keenly about the floor. Observing the fresh skin in a corner, and one or two ribs, he bolted the bite, and said—
“O yes. My torngak is kind; he tells me many things without being asked. He said to me two days ago, ‘Okiok is a clever man. Though all the people are starving just now, he has killed a seal and a bear.’”
“Can torngaks make mistakes?” asked Okiok, with a puzzled look. “It was yesterday that I killed the seal and the bear.”
“Torngaks never make mistakes,” was the wizard’s prompt and solemn reply; “but they see and know the future as well as the past, and they sometimes speak of both as the present.”
“How puzzling!” returned the other meekly. “He meant you, then, to understand that I was going to kill a seal and a bear. Glad am I that I am not an angekok, for it would be very difficult work for a stupid man,—enough almost to kill him!”
“You are right. It is difficult and hard work. So you see the torngak told me go feast with Okiok, and at his bidding of course I have come, on purpose to do so.”
“That’s a lie. You came to see my Nunaga, and you hope to get her; but you never will!” said Okiok. He said it only to himself, however, being far too polite to say it to his guest, to whom he replied deferentially—
“If they are starving at your village, why did you not bring your mother and your father? They would have been welcome, for a seal and a bear would be enough to stuff us all quite full, and leave something to send to the rest.”
For some minutes the wizard did not reply. Perhaps he was meditating, perchance inventing.