as my intention to run
away with Nunaga that brought this disgrace upon me."

"It was," said a voice very close to him.

The wizard looked round quickly, but no one seemed to be thinking of
him.

It was the voice of Conscience. Ujarak felt uneasy, and stifled it at
once. Everybody can do that without much difficulty, as the reader
knows, though nobody has ever yet succeeded in killing Conscience
outright. He then set himself to devise some plan for escaping from
this duel. His imagination was fertile. While the revellers continued
to amuse themselves with food, and song, and story, the wizard took to
thinking.

No one thought his conduct strange, or sought to disturb him, for
angekoks belong to a privileged class. But think as hard and as
profoundly as he could, no way of escape presented itself until the
evening was far advanced, and then, without an appreciable effort of
thought, a door seemed to fly open, and that door was--Ippegoo.

"Yes," thought the wizard; "that will do. Nothing could be better.
I'll make him an angekok."

It may be needful to explain here that the creation of an angekok is a
serious matter. It involves much ceremonial action on the part of him
who operates, and preparation on the part of him who is operated on.
Moreover, it is an important matter. When once it has been decided on,
nothing can be allowed to interfere with it. All other things--save the
unavoidable and urgent--must give way before it.

He would announce it that very night. He would boldly omit some of the
preliminary ceremonial. The morrow would be a day of preparation. Next
day would be the day of the ceremony of induction. After that it would
be necessary for him to accompany the new-made wizard on his first
journey to the realm of spirits. Thus the singing duel would have to be
delayed. Ultimately he would manage to carry off Nunaga to the land of
the southern Eskimo; thus he would be able to escape the ordeal
altogether, and to laugh at Okiok and his jingling rhymes.

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 exhau