Of course this threw them back into the open-eyed and mouthed, and finger-spreading condition, and, if possible, called forth more surprise than before. When the kite soared into the sky, they shouted; when it was being attached to the bow of the boat, they held their breath with expectation, many of them standing on one leg; and when at last the boat, with four persons in it, shot away to sea at the rate of eight or ten miles an hour, they roared with ecstasy; accompanying the yells with contortions of frame and visage which were so indescribable that we gladly leave it all to the reader’s imagination.
There can be no doubt of the fact that the Captain placed himself and his countrymen that day on a pedestal from which there was no fear of their being afterwards dislodged.
“Did not I tell you,” said Chingatok to his sire that night, in the privacy of his hut, “that the Kablunets are great men?”
“You did, my son. Chingatok is wise, and his father is a fool!”
No doubt the northern savage meant this self-condemning speech to be understood much in the same way in which it is understood by civilised people.
“When the oomiak swelled I thought it was going to burst,” added the chief.
“So did I, when I first saw it,” said Chingatok. Father and son paused a few minutes. They usually did so between each sentence. Evidently they pondered what they said.
“Have these men got wives?” asked the chief.
“The old one has, and Bunjay is his son. The other ones—no. The black man may have a wife: I know not, but I should think that no woman would have him.”
“What made him black?”