"No, my friend," replied Rooney, with a faint smile; "I bring no message
either from heaven or anywhere else. I'm only a wrecked seaman. But,
after a fashion, you are messengers from heaven to _me_, and the message
you bring is that I'm not to die just yet. If it had not been for you,
my friends, it strikes me I should have been dead by this time. As to
my speaking your lingo, it's no mystery. I've learned it by livin' a
long time wi' the traders in the south of Greenland, and I suppose I've
got a sort o' talent that way; d'ye see?"

Red Rooney delivered these remarks fluently in a curious sort of Eskimo
language; but we have rendered it into that kind of English which the
wrecked seaman was in the habit of using--chiefly because by so doing we
shall give the reader a more correct idea of the character of the man.

"We are very glad to see you," returned Okiok. "We have heard of you
for many moons. We have wished for you very hard. Now you have come,
we will treat you well."

"Are your huts far off?" asked the seaman anxiously.

"Not far. They are close to the ice-mountain--on the land."

"Take me to them, then, like a good fellow, for I'm dead-beat, and stand
much in need of rest."

The poor man was so helpless that he could not walk to the sledge when
they unrolled him. It seemed as if his power of will and energy had
collapsed at the very moment of his rescue. Up to that time the fear of
death had urged him on, but now, feeling that he was, comparatively
speaking, safe, he gave way to the languor which had so long oppressed
him, and thus, the impulse of the will being removed, he suddenly became
as helpless as an infant.

Seeing his condition, the father and son lifted him on the sledge,
wrapped him in skins, and drove back to the huts at full speed.

Nuna was awaiting them outside, with eager eyes and beating heart, for
the discovery of a real live Kablunet was to her an object of as solemn
and anxious curiosity as the finding of a veritable living ghost might
be to a civilised man. But Nuna was not alone. There were two other
members of the household present, who had been absent when Okiok first
arrived, and whom we will now introduce to the reader.

One was Nuna's only daughter, an exceedingly pretty girl--according to
Eskimo notions of female beauty. She was seventeen years of age,
black-eyed, healthily-complexioned, round-faced, sweet-expressioned,
comfortably stout, and unusually grac