“But Angut has not yet uttered his mind,” said the jovial Simek, turning with a bland expression to the man in question; “he is an angekok, though he will not admit it. Has not his familiar spirit said anything to him?”
Angut looked gravely at the speaker for a moment or two, and shook his head. Dead silence prevailed. Then in a voice that was unusually soft and deep he said: “I am no angekok. No torngak ever speaks to me. The winds that whistle round the icebergs and rush among the hummocks on the frozen sea speak to me sometimes; the crashing ice-cliffs that thunder down the glens speak to me; the noisy rivulets, the rising sun and moon and winking stars all speak to me, though it is difficult to understand what they say; but no familiar spirit ever speaks to me.”
The man said this quietly, and in a tone of regret, but without the slightest intention of expressing poetical ideas, or laying claim to originality of thought. Yet his distinct denial of being an angekok or wise man, and his sentiments regarding the voices of Nature, only confirmed his countrymen in their belief that he was the greatest angekok they had ever seen or heard of.
“But surely,” urged Simek, “if so many spirits speak to you, they must tell you something?”
“They tell me much,” replied Angut in a contemplative tone, “but nothing about hunting.”
“Have you no opinion, then, on that subject?”
“Yes, I have an opinion, and it is strong. Let all the hunters go south after seals without delay; but I will not go. I shall go among the icebergs—alone.”
“He will go to hold converse with his numerous torngaks,” whispered old Kannoa to Pussimek.
“He will go to visit Okiok, and see the Kablunet, and court Nunaga,” thought the jealous and suspicious Ujarak.
And Ujarak was right; yet he dared not follow, for he feared the grave, thoughtful man, in spite of his determination to regard and treat him with lofty disdain.