THE PUNISHMENT. 
367 
from their own stores as would pay for their board, 
they were marched on the instant back to the brig. 
The thirty miles was a hard walk for them; but 
they did not complain, nor did their constabulary 
guardians, who had marched thirty miles already to 
apprehend them. It was hardly twenty-four hours 
since they left the brig with their booty before they 
were prisoners in the hold, with a dreadful white man 
for keeper, who never addressed to them a word that 
had not all the terrors of an unintelligible reproof, and 
whose scowl, I flatter myself, exhibited a well-arranged 
variety of menacing and demoniacal expressions. 
They had not even the companionship of Myouk. 
Him I had despatched to Metek, “head-man of Etah, 
and others,” with the message of a mclo-dramatic 
tyrant, to negotiate for their ransom. For five long 
days the women had to sigh and sing and cry in soli¬ 
tary converse,—their appetite continuing excellent, it 
should be remarked, though mourning the while a 
rightfully-impending doom. At last the great Metek 
arrived. He brought with him Ootuniah, another man 
of elevated social position, and quite a sledge-load of 
knives, tin cups, and other stolen goods, refuse of 
wood and scraps of iron, the sinful prizes of many 
covetings. 
I may pass over our peace conferences and the indi¬ 
rect advantages which I of course derived from having 
the opposing powers represented in my own capital. 
But the splendors of our Arctic centre of civilization, 
with its wonders of art and science,—our “fire-death” 
