Silence prevailed again. Tumara, who was sitting in the front row of the councillors, stroked his right ear with his right hand, and began after a moment's pause.
'I have told you already how, having lost the reindeer, we took our goods and our children on our backs, and returned to the valley. Our children became ill, and soon died from eating bad meat, which made us weak too. But what can a hunter find in the wilderness at a time like that?'
'What, indeed?'
'Very soon we were entirely without food. We had eaten all our stores, leather bags, and old thongs, and the women's greasy scarves; there was nothing left that could have a taste. Do not we, who encamp on the mountains, know what hunger is? And was Tumara wanting in courage?'
'He was famous for it!' the listeners asseverated.
'But it happened thus, nevertheless;—we had been many, and only four were left,—I, my wife, my son, and daughter. We went on, always longing for the sight of human faces. We halted at all the known spots and ancient resting places, and everywhere found the cold ashes of fires:—the people had fled, scattered by the danger. And our wanderings took us ever further from them.
'But when, on coming down from the mountains, we saw bare tent poles, all our courage forsook us. Notwithstanding, we went on further and never stopped searching, for it is not an easy thing for a man to lie down and die in the snow without giving any account of himself.—We scraped the rubbish, and turned over the wet ashes of the cold fires to find a morsel of food, stilling our hunger by knawing the bones left by the dogs. At last it came to this that we could not look at our own children, full of flesh and warm blood, without trembling. "Tumara, let the girl die to save her parents," my wife said at last. I was sorry for the child. She looked at us, not understanding. "Tala," her mother said to her, "according to the old custom, when the family is in danger, the daughter dies first."'
'That is so!' the listeners affirmed.
'"Go, Tala," she said, "wash in the snow, and look at the world for the last time." The girl understood and tried to escape, but I held her; so she cried and begged: "Wait till the evening, perhaps the God will send something, I want to live; I am afraid!" So we waited and watched. The girl was continually going out of the tent, and looking towards the wood, shading her eyes with her hand. But each time her mother was behind her, hiding a knife in her sleeve. It had already begun to be dusk. The girl went out oftener and each time stood longer on the threshold, while I lay in the shade of the tent, waiting to see what would happen. Suddenly I heard a cry outside, which froze my heart. My wife came in with the knife in her hand, staggering like a drunken woman. "Have you killed her?" "No, the God has had pity," she said, "there is a large elk running into the wood close by here!" I jumped up and ran out of the door with my son. The girl was sitting by the tent with outstretched arms, while not far off in the wood stood a large elk.—'
'Stood a large elk!' the listeners repeated.