k appearing in answer to their earnest
petition, they shriek aloud, and die from fear. At the end of three
days they come to life again, and receive a torngak, who takes them
forthwith on a journey to heaven and hell, after which they return home
full-fledged angekoks, prepared to bless their fellows, and guide them
with their counsels.

"Now, you must know," said Okiok, after explaining all this, "what
puzzles me is, that Ujarak intends to alter the customs at the beginning
of the affair. Ippegoo is to be made an angekok to-night, and to be let
off all the fasting and hard thinking and fits. If I believed in these
things at all, I should think him only a half-made angekok. As it is, I
don't care a puff of wind what they make of poor Ippegoo--so long as
they don't kill him; but I'm uneasy because I'm afraid the rascal Ujarak
has some bad end in view in all this."

"I'm _quite_ sure of it," muttered Nuna, making a stab with her stick at
the contents of her pot, as if Ujarak's heart were inside.

At that moment Nunaga entered, looking radiant, in all the glory of a
new under-garment of eider-duck pelts and a new sealskin upper coat with
an extra long tail.

"Have you seen Angut lately?" asked Rooney of the young girl.

"Yes," she replied, with a modest smile that displayed her brilliant
teeth; "he is in his own hut."

"I will go and talk with him on this matter, Okiok," said the seaman.
"Meanwhile, do you say nothing about it to any one."

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

SOLEMN AND MYSTERIOUS DOINGS ARE BROUGHT TO A VIOLENT CLOSE.

Angut was seated at the further end of his abode when his friend
entered, apparently absorbed in contemplation of that remarkable
specimen of Eskimo longevity, the grandmother of Okiok.

"I have often wondered," said Angut, as the seaman sat down beside him,
"at the contentment and good-humour and cheerfulness, sometimes running
into fun, of that poor old woman Kannoa."

"Speak lower," said Rooney in a soft voice; "she will hear you."

"If she does, she will hear no evil. But she is nearly deaf, and takes
no notice."

"It may be so; poor thing!" returned the sailor in a tender tone, as he
looked at the shrivelled-up old creature, who was moving actively round
the never-idle lamp, and bending with inquiring interest over the
earthen pot, which seemed to engross her entire being. "But why do you
wonder?"

"I wonder because she has so little to make her contented, and so much
to rui