The Angekkok knew the way to riches, and foretold
that Anningait, having already caught two whales, would soon return home
with a large boat laden with provisions.
This prognostication she was ordered to keep secret; and Norngsuk
depending upon his artifice, renewed his addresses with greater
confidence; but finding his suit still unsuccessful, applied himself to
her parents with gifts and promises. The wealth of Greenland is too
powerful for the virtue of a Greenlander; they forgot the merit and the
presents of Anningait, and decreed Ajut to the embraces of Norngsuk. She
entreated; she remonstrated; she wept, and raved; but finding riches
irresistible, fled away into the uplands, and lived in a cave upon such
berries as she could gather, and the birds or hares which she had the
fortune to ensnare, taking care, at an hour when she was not likely to
be found, to view the sea every day, that her lover might not miss her
at his return.
At last she saw the great boat in which Anningait had departed, stealing
slow and heavy laden along the coast. She ran with all the impatience of
affection to catch her lover in her arms, and relate her constancy and
sufferings. When the company reached the land, they informed her that
Anningait, after the fishery was ended, being unable to support the slow
passage of the vessel of carriage, had set out before them in his
fishing-boat, and they expected at their arrival to have found him on
shore.
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