“Mother,” said the giant, raising his eyes from the flame to his parent’s smoke-encircled visage, “they are a most wonderful people, these Kablunets. Blackbeard is a great man—a grand man—but I think he is—”
Chingatok paused, shook his head, and touched his forehead with a look of significance worthy of a white man.
“Why think you so, my son?” asked the old woman, sneezing, as a denser cloud than usual went up her nose.
“Because he has come here to search for nothing.”
“Nothing, my son?”
“Yes—at least that is what he tried to explain to me. Perhaps the interpreter could not explain. He is not a smart man, that interpreter. He resembles a walrus with his brain scooped out. He spoke much, but I could not understand.”
“Could not understand?” repeated Toolooha, with an incredulous look, “let not Chingatok say so. Is there anything that passes the lips of man which he cannot understand?”
“Truly, mother, I once thought there was not,” replied the giant, with a modest look, “but I am mistaken. The Kablunets make me stare and feel foolish.”
“But it is not possible to search for nothing,” urged Toolooha.
“So I said,” replied her son, “but Blackbeard only laughed at me.”