ls, however, were long. Perhaps this was meant as a mark
of distinction, for their costume was so very similar to that of the men
that their smaller size and longer tails alone marked the difference.
To be sure there was additional presumptive evidence of their sex in the
fact that most of them carried babies in their hoods; which hoods were
made preposterously large for the express purpose of containing the
babies.

To the tall man with the flat face the assembly listened with eager
looks, bated breath, and open mouths. What he said--who can tell? His
language was unintelligible to civilised ears. Not so, however, his
actions, which were vigorous and full of meaning, and comprehensible by
all nations. If there be any significance in signs at all he began by
saying, "Hold your stupid tongues and _I_ will speak." This drew forth
loud and prolonged applause--as consummate impudence usually does. When
he pointed with both hands to the women and children, and spoke in
tender tones, instantly thereafter growling in his speech, gnashing his
teeth, glaring fiercely, waving one hand at the surrounding hills and
shaking the other, clenched, at the unoffending sea--he was obviously
stating his grievances, namely, that the white men had come there to
wrest from him his native hills and glaciers, and rob him of his wife
and children, and that he defied them to come on and do their worst,
seeing that, in regard to the whole assembled white world in arms he did
not care a button--or a walrus-tusk, for buttons were unknown to these
creatures at that time. When, suddenly changing his manner and tone, he
seized a spear, hissed his sentiments through his teeth with great
volubility, and made a furious plunge that caused the assembly to gasp,
and the man nearest the spear point to shrivel up--what _could_ be his
meaning save that nothing short of a hole right through the body of a
Norseman could appease the spirit of indignation that caused his blood
to boil? And when, finally, he pointed to the setting sun, traced a
line with his finger from it downward to the centre of the earth under
his feet, then shook his spear wrathfully toward the sea and wound up
with a tremendous Ho! that would have startled the echoes of the place
had there been any there, it was plain to the meanest capacity that an
attack--impetuous and overwhelming--was to be made on the strangers at
midnight.

Whatever were his sentiments, the assembly heartily ap