Red Rooney: The Last of the Crew by R. M. Ballantyne (free e books to read .txt) 📕

Partially concealed in a cavern at the base of a stupendous, almost perpendicular, cliff, stood the wizard Ujarak and his pupil Ippegoo. The former silently watched the latter as he fitted a slender spear, or rather giant arrow, to a short handle, and prepared to discharge it at a flock of sea-birds which were flying about in front of them within what we would call easy gunshot.

The handle referred to acted as a short lever, by means of which the spear could be launched not only with more precision but with much greater force than if thrown simply by hand like a javelin.

“There, dart it now!” cried Ujarak, as a bird swept close to the cave’s mouth. “Boh! you are too slow. Here is another; quick! dart!”

Ippegoo let fly hastily, and missed.

“Poo! you are of no more use than the rotten ice of spring. There; try again,” said Ujarak, pointing to a flock of birds which came sweeping towards them.

The crestfallen youth fitted another spear to the handle—for he carried several—and launched it in desperation into the middle of the flock. It ruffled the wings of one bird, and sent it screaming up the cliffs, but brought down none.

“Boo!” exclaimed the wizard, varying the expression of his contempt. “It is well that your mother has only a small family.”

Ippegoo was accustomed to severe backhanders from his patron; he was not offended, but smiled in a pathetic manner as he went out in silence to pick up his weapons.

Just as he was returning, Arbalik, nephew to the jovial Simek, appeared upon the scene, and joined them. The wizard appeared to be slightly annoyed, but had completely dissembled his feelings when the young man walked up.

“Have the hunters found no seals?” asked Ujarak.

“Yes, plenty,” answered Arbalik cheerily, for he had a good deal of his old uncle’s spirit in him, “but you know variety is agreeable. Birds are good at a feast. They enable you to go on eating when you can hold no more seal or walrus blubber.”

“That is true,” returned the wizard, with a grave nod of appreciation. “Show Ippegoo how to dart the spear. He is yet a baby!”

Arbalik laughed lightly as he let fly a spear with a jaunty, almost careless, air, and transfixed a bird on the wing.

“Well done!” cried the wizard, with a burst of genuine admiration; “your wife will never know hunger.”

“Not after I get her,” returned the youth, with a laugh, as he flung another spear, and transfixed a second bird.

Ippegoo looked on with slightly envious but not malevolent feelings, for he was a harmless lad.

“Try again,” cried Arbalik, turning to him with a broad grin, as he offered him one of his own spears.

Ippegoo took the weapon, launched it, and, to his own great surprise and delight, sent it straight through the heart of a bird, which fell like a stone.

A shout of pleasure burst from Arbalik, who was far too good a shot to entertain mean feelings of jealousy at the success of others.

“It is the luck of the spear,” said Ujarak, “not the skill of the hunter.”

This would have been an unkind cut to ordinary mortals, but it fell as harmless on Ippegoo as water on the back of the eider-duck. A snub from the wizard he took almost as a compliment, and the mere success of his shot afforded him unbounded pleasure.

The good-natured Arbalik offered him another spear, but Ujarak interposed.

“No; Ippegoo must come with me,” he said. “I have work for him to do. One who would be an angekok must leave bird-spearing to boys.” Then turning to Arbalik—“Did you not say that the hunters have found plenty of game?”

“Yes, plenty.”

“I told you so,” said the wizard, using a phrase not unfamiliar to civilised ears. “Remain here, and spear plenty of birds; or go where you will.”

Having thus graciously given the youth free permission to do as he pleased—which Arbalik received with inward scorn, though outward respect—he left the cave, followed meekly by his satellite.

After walking in silence till well out of earshot of the expert young hunter, the wizard said in solemn tones—

“Ippegoo, I have work of more importance for you to do than spearing birds—work that requires the wisdom of a young angekok.”

All Ujarak’s backhanders vanished before this confidential remark, and the poor tool began to feel as if he were growing taller and broader even as he walked.

“You know the hut of Okiok?” continued the wizard.

“Yes; under the ice-topped cliff.”

“Well, Angut is there. I hate Angut!”

“So do I,” said Ippegoo, with emphasis quite equal to that of his master.

“And Nunaga is there,” continued Ujarak. “I—I love Nunaga!”

“So do I,” exclaimed Ippegoo fervently, but seeing by the wizard’s majestic frown that he had been precipitate, he took refuge in the hasty explanation—“Of course I mean that—that—I love her because you love her. I do not love her for herself. If you did not love her, I would hate her. To me she is not of so much value as the snout of a seal.”

The wizard seemed pacified, for his frown relaxed, and after a few moments’ thought he went on savagely—

“Angut also loves Nunaga.”

“The madman! the insolent! the fool!” exclaimed Ippegoo; “what can he expect but death?”

“Nothing else, and nothing less,” growled the wizard, clenching his teeth—“if he gets her! But he shall never get her! I will stop that; and that is why I ask you to listen—for you must be ready to act, and in haste.”

As Ippegoo began to entertain uncomfortable suspicions that the wizard was about to use him as an instrument of vengeance, he made no response whatever to the last remark.

“Now,” continued his master, “you will go to the hut of Okiok. Enter it hurriedly, and say to Nunaga that her father’s grandmother, Kannoa, is ill—ill in her mind—and will not rest till she comes to see her. Take a small sledge that will only hold her and yourself; and if Okiok or Angut offer to go with you, say that old Kannoa wants to see the girl alone, that there is a spell upon her, that she is bewitched, and will see no one else. They will trust you, for they know that your mind is weak and your heart good.”

“If my mind is weak,” said Ippegoo somewhat sadly, “how can I ever become an angekok?”

With much affectation of confidence, the wizard replied that there were two kinds of men who were fit to be angekoks—men with weak minds and warm hearts, or men with strong minds and cold hearts.

“And have you the strong mind?” asked Ippegoo.

“Yes, of course, very strong—and also the cold heart,” replied Ujarak.

“But how can that be,” returned the pupil, with a puzzled look, “when your heart is warmed by Nunaga?”

“Because—because,” rejoined the wizard slowly, with some hesitation and a look of profound wisdom, “because men of strong mind do not love as other men. They are quite different—so different that you cannot understand them.”

Ippegoo felt the reproof, and was silent.

“So, when you have got Nunaga on the sledge,” resumed Ujarak, “you will drive her towards the village; but you will turn off at the Cliff of Seals, and drive at full speed to the spot where I speared the white bear last moon. You know it?”

“Yes; near Walrus Bay?”

“Just so. There you will find me with two sledges. On one I will drive Nunaga away to the far-south, where the Innuit who have much iron dwell. On the other you will follow. We will live there for ever. They will be glad to receive us.”

“But—but—” said Ippegoo hesitatingly, and with some anxiety, for he did not like to differ on any point from his master— “I cannot leave my—my mother!”

“Why not?”

“I suppose it is because I love her. You know you told me that the weak minds have warm hearts—and my mind must be very, very weak indeed, for my heart is very warm—quite hot—for my mother.”

The wizard perceived that incipient rebellion was in the air, so, like a wise man, a true angekok, he trimmed his sails accordingly.

“Bring your mother with you,” he said abruptly.

“But she won’t come.”

“Command her to come.”

“Command my mother!” exclaimed Ippegoo, in amazement.

Again the wizard was obliged to have recourse to his wisdom in order to subdue this weak mind.

“Yes, of course,” he replied; “tell your mother that your torngak—no, you haven’t got one yet—that Ujarak’s torngak—told him in a vision that a visit to the lands of the far-south would do her good, would remove the pains that sometimes stiffen her joints, and the cough that has troubled her so much. So you will incline her to obey. Go, tell her to prepare for a journey; but say nothing more, except that I will call for her soon, and take her on my sledge. Away!”

The peremptory tone of the last word decided the poor youth’s wavering mind. Without a word more he ran to the place where his dogs were fastened, harnessed them to his sledge, and was soon driving furiously back to the Eskimo village over the frozen sea, while the wizard returned to the place where the hunters of his tribe were still busy hauling in the carcases of seals and other game, which they had succeeded in killing in considerable numbers.

Approaching one of the band of hunters, which was headed by the jovial Simek, and had halted for the purpose of refreshment, Ujarak accosted them with—

“Have the young men become impatient women, that they cannot wait to have their food cooked?”

“Ha! ha!” laughed Simek, holding up a strip of raw and bloody seal’s flesh, with which he had already besmeared the region of his mouth and nose; “Yes, we have become like women; we know what is good for us, and take it when we need it, not caring much about the cooking. My young men are hungry. Must they wait till the lamps are lighted before they eat? Come, Ujarak, join us. Even an angekok may find a bit of good fat seal worth swallowing. Did you not set them free? You deserve a bit!”

There was a spice of chaff as well as jollity in the big Eskimo’s tone and manner; but he was such a gushing fellow, and withal so