Red Rooney: The Last of the Crew by R. M. Ballantyne (books to read for self improvement txt) 📖

Chapter Nine. Shows that the Wise are a Match for the Wicked, and exhibits Tumbler and Pussi in Danger.

When Red Rooney and his friend reached the village, and found that most of the men had gone south to hunt, and that Nunaga was living in peace with her mother in her father’s town mansion, their fears were greatly relieved, although Angut was still rendered somewhat anxious by the suspicion that mischief of some sort was brewing. Being resolved if possible to discover and counteract it, he told Rooney that he meant to continue his journey southward, and join the hunters.

“Good. I will rest here till you return,” said the seaman, “for I feel that I’m not strong enough yet for much exertion.”

“But Ridroonee promised to dwell with me,” returned Angut, somewhat anxiously.

“So I did, and so I will, friend, when you come back. At present you tell me your hut is closed because you have no wife—no kinswoman.”

“That is true,” returned the Eskimo; “my mother is dead; my father was killed; I have no brothers, no sisters. But when I am at home old Kannoa cooks for me. She is a good woman, and can make us comfortable.”

“Just so, Angut. I’ll be content to have the old woman for a nurse as long as I need one. Good luck to you; and, I say, keep a sharp look-out on Ujarak. He’s not to be trusted, if I am any judge of men’s faces.”

Angut said no word in reply, but he smiled a grim smile as he turned and went his way.

Being much fatigued with his recent exertions, Red Rooney turned into Okiok’s hut, to the great sorrow of the women and children, who had gathered from all parts of the village to gaze at and admire him.

“He is real—and alive!” remarked Kunelik in a low voice.

“And Nuna is not a liar,” said the mother of Arbalik.

“Yes; he is tall,” said one.

“And broad,” observed another.

“But very thin,” said Pussimek.

“No matter; he can stuff,” said Kabelaw, with a nod to her sister Sigokow, who was remarkably stout, and doubtless understood the virtue of the process.

While this commentary was going on, the object of it was making himself comfortable on a couch of skins which Nuna had spread for him on the raised floor at the upper end of her hut. In a few minutes the wearied man was sound asleep, as was indicated by his nose.

No sooner did Mrs Okiok note the peculiar sound than she went out and said to her assembled friends—“Now you may come in; but—forget not—no word is to be spoken. Use your eyes and bite your tongues. The one who speaks shall be put out.”

Under these conditions the multitude filed into the mansion, where they sat down in rows to gaze their fill in profound silence; and there they sat for more than an hour, rapt in contemplation of the wonderful sight.

“He snorts,” was on the lips of Pussimek, but a warning glance from Nuna checked the sentence in the bud.

“He dreams!” had almost slipped from the lips of Kunelik, but she caught it in time.

Certainly these primitive people availed themselves of the permission to use their eyes; nay, more, they also used their eyebrows—and indeed their entire faces, for, the lips being sealed, they not only drank in Rooney, so to speak, with their eyes, but tried to comment upon him with the same organs.

Finding them very imperfect in this respect, they ventured to use their lips without sound—to speak, as it were, in dumb show—and the contortions of visage thus produced were indescribable.

This state of things was at its height when Rooney chanced to awake. As he lay with his face to the foe, the tableau vivant met his gaze the instant he opened his eyes. Rooney was quick-witted, and had great power of self-command. He reclosed the eyes at once, and then, through the merest chink between the lids, continued to watch the scene. But the wink had been observed. It caused an abrupt stoppage of the pantomime, and an intense glare of expectancy.

This was too much for Rooney. He threw up his arms, and gave way to a violent explosion of loud and hearty laughter.

If a bomb-shell had burst among the spectators, it could scarcely have caused greater consternation. A panic ensued. Incontinently the mother of Ippegoo plunged head first into the tunnel. The mother of Arbalik followed, overtook her friend, tried to pass, and stuck fast. The others, dashing in, sought to force them through, but only rammed them tighter. Seeing that egress was impossible, those in rear crouched against the furthest wall and turned looks of horror on the Kablunet, who they thought had suddenly gone mad. But observing that Nuna and her daughter did not share their alarm, they soon recovered, and when Rooney at last sat up and began to look grave, they evidently felt somewhat ashamed of themselves. Pussimek at last seized the mother of Ippegoo by the legs, and with a strong pull extracted her from the tunnel. Issek, being thus set free, quickly made her exit. The rest followed by degrees, until Rooney was left with Nuna and her daughter.

“Your friends have had a fright,” remarked the sailor.

“They are easily frightened. Are you hungry?”

“Yes; I feel as if I could eat a white bear raw.”

“So I expected,” returned the little woman, with a laugh, as she placed a platter of broiled meat before her guest, who at once set to work.

Let us now return to Ippegoo. Having borrowed a sledge, he had driven off to the appointed place of rendezvous, before the arrival of Rooney and Angut, as fast as the team could take him. Arrived there, he found Ujarak awaiting him.

“You have failed,” said the wizard gravely.

“Yes, because Nunaga had left with her father and mother, and is now in the village. So is the Kablunet.”

Whatever Ujarak might have felt, he took good care that his countenance should not betray him. Indeed this capacity to conceal his feelings under a calm exterior constituted a large element of the power which he had obtained over his fellows. Without deigning a reply of any kind to his humble and humbled follower, he stepped quietly into the sledge, and drove away to the southward, intending to rejoin the hunters.

Arrived at the ground, he set off on foot over the ice until he found a seal’s breathing-hole. Here he arranged his spears, erected a screen of snow-blocks, and sat down to watch.

“Ippegoo,” he said, at last breaking silence, “we must not be beaten.”

“No, that must not be,” replied his pupil firmly.

“This time we have failed,” continued the wizard, “because I did not think that Okiok would leave his guest.”

“I thought,” said Ippegoo, somewhat timidly, “that your torngak told you everything.”

“You are a fool, Ippegoo.”

“I know it, master; but can you not make me more wise by teaching me?”

“Some people are hard to teach,” said Ujarak.

“That is also true,” returned the youth mournfully. “I know that you can never make me an angekok. Perhaps it would be better not to try.”

“No. You are mistaken,” said the wizard in a more cheerful tone, for he felt that he had gone too far. “You will make a good enough angekok in time, if you will only attend to what I say, and be obedient. Come, I will explain to you. Torngaks, you must understand, do not always tell all that they know. Sometimes they leave the angekok dark, for a purpose that is best known to themselves. But they always tell enough for the guidance of a wise man—”

“But—but—I am not a wise man, you know,” Ippegoo ventured to remark.

“True; but when I have made you an angekok then you will become a wise man—don’t you see?”

As the word angekok signifies “wise man,” Ippegoo would have been a fool indeed had he failed to see the truism. The sight raised his spirits, and made him look hopeful.

“Well, then, stupid one, speak not, but listen. As I have before told you, I love Nunaga and Nunaga loves me—”

“I—I thought she loved Angut,” said Ippegoo.

“O idiot,” exclaimed the wizard; “did I not tell you that you cannot understand? The loves of angekoks are not as the loves of ordinary men. Sometimes one’s torngak makes the girl seem uncertain which man she likes best—”

“Ye–yes; but in this case there seems no uncertainty, for she and Angut—”

“Silence! you worse than baby walrus!”

Ippegoo shut his mouth, and humbly drooped his eyelids.

After a few minutes, Ujarak, having swallowed his wrath, continued in a calm tone—

“This time we have failed. Next time we will be sure to succeed, and—”

“I suppose your torngak told—”

“Silence! weak-minded puffin!” thundered the wizard, to the great astonishment of a seal which came up at that moment to breathe, and prudently retired in time to save its life.

Once again the angekok with a mighty effort restrained his wrath, and after a time resumed—

“Now, Ippegoo, we dare