Red Rooney: The Last of the Crew Part 22

When he stood up and made the announcement, declaring that his torngak had told him that another angekok must be created, though who that other one was had not yet been revealed to him, there was a slight feeling of disappointment, for Eskimos dearly love a musical combat; but when he pointed out that after the ceremonies were over, the singing duel might then come off, the people became reconciled to the delay. Being by that time exhausted in body and mind, they soon after retired to rest.

Ere long oblivion brooded over the late hilarious crew, who lay down like bundles of hair in their festal garments, and the northern lights threw a flickering radiance over a scene of profound quietude and peace.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

MISCHIEF HATCHING.

At early dawn next morning Ippegoo was awakened from a most refreshing slumber by a gentle shake of the shoulder.

"Oh! not yet, mother," groaned the youth in the drowsiest of accents; "I've only just begun to sleep."

He turned slowly on the other side, and tried to continue his repose, but another shake disturbed him, and a deep voice said, "Awake; arise, sleepy one."

"Mother," he murmured, still half asleep, "you have got the throat s-sickness v-v-very bad," (referring to what we would style a cold).

A grim smile played for a moment on the visage of the wizard, as he gave the youth a most unmotherly shake, and said, "Yes, my son, I am very sick, and want you to cure me."

Ippegoo was wide awake in a moment. Rising with a somewhat abashed look, he followed his evil genius out of the hut, where, in another compartment, his mother lay, open-mouthed, singing a song of welcome to the dawning day through her nose.

Ujarak led the youth to the berg with the sea-green cave. Stopping at the entrance, he turned a stern look on his pupil, and pointing to the cavern, uttered the single word--"Follow."

As Ippegoo gazed into the sea-green depths of the place--which darkened into absolute blackness, with ghostly projections from the sides, and dim icicles pendent from the invisible roof, he felt a suspicion that the cave might be the vestibule to that dread world of the departed which he had often heard his master describe.

"You're not going far, I hope," he said anxiously; "remember I am not yet an angekok."

"True; but you are yet a fool," returned the wizard contemptuously. "Do you suppose I would lead you to certain death for no good end? No; but I will make you an angekok to-night, and after that we may explore the wonders of the spirit-world together. I have brought you here to speak about that, for the ears of some people are very quick. We shall be safe here. You have been long enough a fool. The time has arrived when you must join the ranks of the wise men. Come."

Again he pointed to the cave, and led the way into its dim sea-green interior.

Some men seek eagerly after honours which they cannot win; others have honours which they do not desire thrust upon them. Ippegoo was of the latter cla.s.s. He followed humbly, and rather closely, for the bare idea of being alone in such a place terrified him. Although p.r.o.nounced a fool, the poor fellow was wise enough to perceive that he was utterly unfitted, physically as well as mentally, for the high honour to which Ujarak destined him; but he was so thoroughly under the power of his influence that he felt resistance or refusal to be impossible. He advanced, therefore, with a heavy heart. Everything around was fitted to chill his ambition, even if he had possessed any, and to arouse the terrors of his weak and superst.i.tious mind.

When they had walked over the icy floor of the cave until the entrance behind them seemed no larger than a bright star, the wizard stopped abruptly. Ippegoo stumbled up against him with a gasp of alarm. The light was so feeble that surrounding objects were barely visible. Great blocks and spires and angular fragments of ice projected into observation out of profound obscurity. Overhead mighty and grotesque forms, attached to the invisible roof, seemed like creatures floating in the air, to which an imagination much less active than that of Ippegoo might easily have given grinning mouths and glaring eyes; and the atmosphere of the place was so intensely cold that even Eskimo garments could not prevent a shudder.

The wizard turned on his victim a solemn gaze. As he stood facing the entrance of the cavern, there was just light enough to render his teeth and the whites of his eyes visible, though the rest of his features were shadowy.

"Ippegoo," he said in a low voice, "the time has come--"

At that moment a tremendous crash drowned his voice, and seemed to rend the cavern in twain. The reverberating echoes had not ceased when a clap as of the loudest thunder seemed to burst their ears. It was followed for a few seconds by a pattering shower, as of giant hail, and Ippegoo's very marrow quailed.

It was only a crack in the berg, followed by the dislodgement of a great ma.s.s, which fell from the roof to the floor below--fortunately at some distance from the spot on which the Eskimos stood.

"Bergs sometimes rend and fall asunder," gasped the trembling youth.

Ujarak's voice was unwontedly solemn as he replied--

"Not in the spring-time, foolish one. Fear not, but listen. To-night you must be prepared to go through the customs that will admit you to the ranks of the wise men."

"Don't you think," interposed the youth, with a shiver, "that it would be better to try it on some one else--on Angut, or Okiok, or even Norrak? Norrak is a fine boy, well-grown and strong, as well as clever, and I am such a fool, you know."

"You have said truth, Ippegoo. But all that will be changed to-morrow.

Once an angekok, your foolishness will depart, and wisdom will come."

The poor youth was much cheered by this, because, although he felt utterly unfit for the grave and responsible character, he had enough of faith in his teacher to believe that the needed change would take place,--and change, he was well aware, could achieve wonders. Did he not see it when the change from summer to winter drove nearly all the birds away, converted the liquid sea into a solid plain, and turned the bright day into dismal night? and did he not feel it when the returning summer changed all that again, sent the sparkling waves for his light kayak to dance upon, and the glorious sunshine to call back the feathered tribes, to open the lovely flowers, to melt the hard ice, and gladden all the land? Yes, he knew well what "change" meant, though it never occurred to him to connect all this with a Creator who changes not. In this respect he resembled his master.

"Besides," continued the wizard in a more confidential tone, which invariably had the effect of drawing the poor youth's heart towards him, "I cannot make whom I will an angekok. It is my torngak who settles that; I have only to obey. Now, what I want you to do is to become very solemn in your manner and speech from this moment till the deed is finished. Will you remember?"

Ippegoo hesitated a moment. He felt just then so unusually solemn that he had difficulty in conceiving it possible to become more so, but remembering the change that was about to take place, he said brightly, "Yes, I'll remember."

"You see," continued his instructor, "we must get people to suppose that you are troubled by a spirit of some sort--"

"Oh! only to suppose it," cried Ippegoo hopefully. "Then I'm not _really_ to be troubled with a spirit?"

"Of course you are, foolish man. But don't you understand people must see that you are, else how are they to know it?"

Ippegoo thought that if he was really to be troubled in that way, the only difficulty would be to prevent people from knowing it, but observing that his master was getting angry, he wisely held his tongue, and listened with earnest attention while Ujarak related the details of the ordeal through which he was about to pa.s.s.

At the time this conversation was being held in the sea-green cave, Okiok, rising from his lair with a prodigious yawn, said to his wife--

"Nuna, I go to see Kunelik."

"And what may ye-a-o-u---my husband want with the mother of Ippegoo?"

asked Nuna sleepily, but without moving.

"I want to ye-a-o-u---ask about her son."

"Ye-a-a-o-o-u!" exclaimed Nuna, turning on her other side; "go, then,"

and she collapsed.

Seeing that his wife was unfit just then to enter into conversation, Okiok got up, accomplished what little toilet he deemed necessary in half a minute, and took his way to the hut of Ippegoo's mother.

It is not usual in Eskimo land to indulge in ceremonious salutation.

Okiok was naturally a straightforward and brusque man. It will not therefore surprise any one to be told that he began his interview with--

"Kunelik, your son Ippegoo is a lanky fool!"

"He is," a.s.sented Kunelik, with quiet good-humour.

"He has given himself," continued Okiok, "spirit and body, to that villain Ujarak."

"He has," a.s.sented Kunelik again.

"Where is he now?"

"I do not know."

"But me knows," said a small sweet little child-voice from the midst of a bundle of furs.