“To-day I have not failed to be with her.”
When the strong one heard this, he took one of the seals he had caught, and gave it to the old man, and said:
“Take this; it is yours.”
And in this way he acted towards him from that time. The old one came home that day dragging a seal behind him. And this he could often do thereafter.
When the strong one came home, he said to his wife:
“When I go out to-morrow in my kayak, it is not to hunt seal; therefore watch carefully for my return when the sun is in the west.”
Next day he went out in his kayak, and when the sun was in the west, his wife went often and often to look out. And once when she went thus, she saw that he had come, and from that moment she was no longer sleepy.
As the strong one came nearer and nearer to land, he paddled more and more strongly.
Now his wife went down to that place where he was about to land, and turned and sat down with her back to the sea. The man unfastened his hunting fur from the ring of his kayak, and put his hand into the back of the kayak, and took out a sea serpent, and struck his wife on the back. At this she felt very cold, and her skin smarted. Then she stood up and went home. But her husband said no word to her. Then they slept, and awakened, and then the old one came to them and said:
“Now you must search for the carrion of a cormorant, with only the skeleton remaining, for your wife is with child.”