did not turn around again. To Ootah this was a good
augury--for when a maiden turns her back upon a suitor she thinks
favorably of him. This is the custom.

Ootah felt a new strength in his veins. He felt himself master of all
the prey in the sea.

At the entrance of the tent of Sipsu, the _angakoq_, or native
magician, stood Maisanguaq, one of the rivals for the hand of Annadoah.
His face twisted with jealous rage as he heard Annadoah calling to the
speeding Ootah. His narrow eyes glittered vindictively. Turning on
his heel he entered Sipsu's dwelling place.

Sipsu sat on the floor near his oil lamp. When Maisanguaq entered he
did not stir. He was as still, as grotesque, as evil-looking as the
tortured idols of the Chinese; like theirs his eyes were beadlike,
expressionless, dull; such are the eyes of dead seal. His face was
brown and cracked like old leather, and was covered with a crust of
dirt; his gray-streaked hair was matted and straggled over his face; it
teemed with lice. He held his knotty hands motionless over the flame
of his lamp. His nails were long and curled like sharp talons. As
Maisanguaq saw him he could not repress a shudder.

Sipsu was feared, and as correspondingly hated, by the tribe. They
brought to him, it is true, offerings of musk ox meat and walrus
blubber when members fell ill. But that was the urge of necessity. Of
late years Sipsu's conjurations for recovery had resulted in few cures;
his heart was not in them; but with greater vehemence did he enter upon
seances of malediction. With almost unerring exactness he prophesied
many deaths. For this the tribe did not love him. Nor did Sipsu love
the tribe; especially did he hate the youthful, and those who courted
and were newly wed. When Maisanguaq touched his shoulder, he turned
with a growl.

"Canst thou invoke the curse of death upon one who goes hunting upon
the seas?"

Through the rheum of years Sipsu's eyes gleamed.

The aged, gnarled thing found voice. It was hollow and thin.

"Ha, thou art Maisanguaq," his toothless jaws chattered. "Thou bearest
no one good will. Seldom dost thou smile. For this I like thee."

He laughed harshly. Maisanguaq impatiently repeated his question:

"Can Sipsu invoke the great curse? Ha, what dost thou mean? Art thou
a fool? Have not many died upon the word of Sipsu, Sipsu whose spirits
never desert him! Harken! Did not Sipsu go unto the mountains in his
youth? Did