“No, but terribly frightened; they made me run home to fetch you.”
Chingatok increased his speed. So did Oolichuk.
While they run, let us leap a little ahead of them, reader, and see what had caused all the excitement.
The whole party had gone off that morning, with the exception of Chingatok and his mother, to spear seals in a neighbouring bay, where these animals had been discovered in great numbers. Dogs and sledges had been taken, because a successful hunt was expected, and the ice was sufficiently firm.
The bay was very large. At its distant southern extremity there rose a great promontory which jutted far out into the sea. While the men were busy there making preparations to begin the hunt, Oblooria, Chingatok’s little sister, amused herself by mounting a hummock of ice about thirty feet high.
When there, she chanced to look towards the promontory. Instantly she opened her eyes and mouth and uttered a squeal that brought her friends running to her side.
Oolichuk was the first to reach her. He had no need to ask questions. Oblooria’s gaze directed his, and there, coming round the promontory, he beheld an object which had never before filled his wondering eyes. It was, apparently, a monstrous creature with a dark body and towering wings, and a black thing in its middle, from which were vomited volumes of smoke.
“Kablunets! white men!” he yelled.
“Kablunets!—huk! huk!” echoed the whole tribe, as they scrambled up the ice-hill one after another.
And they were right. A vessel of the pale-faces had penetrated these northern solitudes, and was advancing swiftly before a light breeze under sail and steam.