It was now decreed that, this being the direct command of Torngak,
Chealuk must be expelled from the camp. Some even asserted that she
should be killed, but the majority decided that as Torngak had said
merely that "Chealuk must go" that meant only that she must be sent
away. If this did not prove sufficient to counteract their ill luck,
why she could, after a reasonable time, be sought out and dispatched,
if she had not in the meantime perished.
The feeble old woman heard it all with outward stoic indifference. It
was a part of her religion and she probably thought the punishment
quite just, and whatever shrinking of spirit she felt, she hid it
heroically from the others. To have been killed immediately would have
been more humane than banishment, for the latter only meant a slower
but just as sure a death, from exposure and starvation.
To Bob, who had listened intently and was able to grasp the situation
in a general way, it seemed heartless in the extreme; but his protests
would not only have been powerless to move the Eskimos from their
purpose, but in all probability would have worked harm for himself and
to no avail. These people that at first had seemed so amiable and
hospitable, and almost childlike in their nature, had been by their
heathen superstitions suddenly transformed into cruel, unsympathetic
savages.
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