Red Rooney | Page 8

replied Nuna, with decision.
"But we cannot force him to stay."
"He cannot travel alone," said Nuna, "and we will not help him to go."
"We are not the only Innuits in all the land. Others will help him if we refuse."
This was so obvious that the woman could not reply, but gazed for some time in perplexity at the lamp-smoke. And really there was much inspiration to be derived from the lamp-smoke, for the wick being a mass of moss steeped in an open cup of seal-oil, the smoke of it rose in varied convolutions that afforded almost as much scope for suggestive contemplation as our familiar coal-fires.
Suddenly the little woman glanced at her slumbering household, cast a meaning look at her husband, and laughed--silently of course.
"Has Nuna become a fool that she laughs at nothing?" demanded Okiok simply.
Instead of replying to the well-meant though impolite question, Nuna laughed again, and looked into the dark corner where the pretty little round face of Nunaga was dimly visible, with the eyes shut, and the little mouth wide-open.
"We will marry him to Nunaga," she said, suddenly becoming grave.
"Pooh!" exclaimed Okiok--or some expression equivalent to that--"Marry Nunaga to a Kablunet? Never! Do you not know that Angut wants her?"
It was evident from the look of surprise with which Nuna received this piece of information that she was not aware of Angut's aspirations, and it was equally evident from the perplexed expression that followed that her hastily-conceived little matrimonial speculation had been knocked on the head.
After this their thoughts either strayed into other channels, or became too deep for utterance, for they conversed no more, but soon joined the rest of the family in the realms of oblivion.
CHAPTER THREE.
OUR HERO AND HIS FRIENDS BECOME FAMILIAR.
It was a fine balmy brilliant morning when Red Rooney awoke from the most refreshing sleep he had enjoyed for many a day, gazed thoughtfully up at the blackened roof of the Eskimo hut, and wondered where he was.
There was nothing that met his eyes to recall his scattered senses, for all the members of the family had gone out to their various avocations, and one of them having thrust a sealskin into the hole in the wall which served for a window the sun found admittance only through crevices, and but faintly illumined the interior.
The poor man felt intensely weak, yet delightfully restful--so much so that mere curiosity seemed to have died within him, and he was content to lie still and think of whatever his wayward mind chose to fasten on, or not to think at all, if his mind saw fit to adopt that course in its vagaries. In short, he felt as if he had no more control over his thoughts than a man in a dream, and was quite satisfied that it should be so.
As his eyes became accustomed to the dim light, however, he began slowly to perceive that the walls around him were made of rough unhewn stone, that the rafters were of drift timber, and the roof of moss, or something like it; but the whole was so thickly coated with soot as to present a uniform appearance of blackness. He also saw, from the position in which he lay, a stone vessel, like a primitive classical lamp, with a wick projecting from its lip, but no flame. Several skulls of large animals lay on the floor within the range of his vision, and some sealskin and other garments hung on pegs of bone driven into the wall. Just opposite to him was the entrance to the tunnel, which formed the passage or corridor of the mansion, and within it gleamed a subdued light which entered from the outer end.
Rooney knew that he saw these things, and took note of them, yet if you had asked him what he had seen it is probable that he would have been unable to tell--so near had he approached to the confines of that land from which no traveller returns.
Heaving a deep sigh, the man uttered the words, "Thank God!" for the third time within the last four-and-twenty hours. It was an appropriate prelude to his sinking into that mysterious region of oblivion in which the mind of worn-out man finds rest, and out of which it can be so familiarly yet mysteriously summoned--sometimes by his own pre-determination, but more frequently by a fellow-mortal.
He had not lain long thus when the tunnel was suddenly darkened by an advancing body, which proved to be the mistress of the mansion.
Nuna, on thrusting her head into the interior, looked inquiringly up before venturing to rise. After a good stare at the slumbering Kablunet, she went cautiously towards the window and removed the obstruction. A flood of light was let in, which illumined, but did not awaken, the sleeper.
Cautiously and on