Allan and the Ice Gods (13 page)

so that Wi thought that she was about to refuse. If so, she changed

her mind and supported Wi, who was too stiff to stand up alone, while

Foh, who had now returned, fed him with pieces of food, chattering all

the while about the fight.

“Were you not afraid for your father?” asked Wi at length, “who must

fight a giant twice his size?”

“Oh, no,” said Foh cheerfully. “Pag told me that you would win in the

end and that therefore I must never be afraid, and Pag is always

right. Still,” he added, shaking his head, “when I saw you lying on

the ground and not moving and believed that Henga was about to jump on

you, then I began to think that for once Pag might be wrong.”

Wi laughed and, lifting his hand with difficulty, patted Foh’s curling

hair. Pag in the background growled:

“Never think that I am wrong again, for the god lives on the faith of

his worshippers”—words that Foh did not in the least understand. Nor

did Aaka quite, but guessing that Pag was comparing himself to a god,

she hated him more than ever and frowned. Although she believed in

them after her fashion, because her forefathers had done so before

her, she was not a spiritual woman and did not like his talk of gods,

who, if, in fact, they existed at all, were, she was sure, beings to

be feared. It was true that she had sent Wi to worship the Ice-gods in

which he put faith and to watch for the sign of the falling stone. But

that was because she had made up her mind that the time had come for

him to fight Henga and avenge the death of Fo-a, if he could, taking

the risk of being killed, and knew that at this time of year at

sunrise a stone was almost certain to fall from the crest of the

glacier which was strewn with hundreds of them, and that without some

sign he would not move. Indeed, she had made sure that one or more of

those stones would fall upon that very morning. Also, she had some

gift of foresight with which women are often endowed, especially among

Northern people, that told her Wi would conquer Henga. She said that

something of this had been revealed to her, and it was true enough

that she had dreamed that Fo-a had appeared and told her that Wi would

work vengeance upon Henga, because the thirst for vengeance and desire

for the death of Henga were always present to her mind.

Therefore she frowned and told Foh sharply that it was foolish to

believe sayings because they came out of the mouth of Pag.

“Yet, Mother,” answered Foh, “what Pag said was true. Moreover, he

made the wonderful, sharp ax, and he oiled Father’s skin and cut off

his hair, which none of us thought of doing.”

Now Pag, wishing to stop this talk, broke in:

“These things are nothing, Foh, and if I did them, it is only because

a hideous deformed one such as I am, who was born different from

others, must think and protect himself and those he loves by wisdom,

as do the wolves and other wild beasts. People who are handsome like

your father and mother do not need to think, for they protect

themselves in different ways.”

“Yet perhaps they think as much as you do, dwarf,” said Aaka angrily.

“Yes, Aaka, doubtless they think, only to less purpose. The difference

is that such as I think right and they think wrong.”

Without waiting for an answer, Pag waddled off very swiftly on some

business of his own. Aaka watched him go with a puzzled look in her

fine eyes, then asked:

“Is Pag going to live with you in this cave, Husband?”

“Yes, Wife. Now that I am chief, he to whom I owe so much, he the Wise

and the Ax-Giver, will be my counsellor.”

“Then I shall live in my hut,” she answered, “where you can visit me

when it pleases you. I hate this place, it smells of Henga and his

slave women, bah!”

Then she went away, to return later, it is true. Yet, as to sleeping

in the cave, she kept her word—that is, until winter came.

Being very strong and healthy, Wi soon recovered from this great

fight, although for a time he suffered from festering sores where he

had been scratched by Henga, whose nails, it would seem, were

poisonous as are a wolf’s teeth. Indeed, on the following day, he came

out of the cave and was received by all the people who were waiting

without to give him welcome as the new chief. This they did very

heartily, and next, through the mouth of Urk the Aged, went on to set

out their grievances, of which they had prepared a long list. These

they suggested, he, the present ruler, should redress.

First they complained of the climate, which of late years had grown so

strangely cold and sunless. As to this, he answered that they must

make prayer to the Ice-gods, whereon someone cried out that, if they

did, these gods would only send them more ice, of which they had

enough already, an argument that Wi could not combat. He said,

however, that perhaps the weather had changed because of the evil

doings of Henga, and now that he had gone it might change again.

Next they went on to speak of a delicate and domestic matter. Women,

they pointed out, were very scarce among them, so much so that some

men, although they were prepared to marry the ugliest or the most

evil-tempered, could find no wives and make no homes. Yet certain of

the strongest and richest took as many as three or four into their

households, while the late chief, by virtue of his rank and power, had

swallowed up from fifteen to twenty of the youngest and best-looking,

whom they supposed Wi intended to keep for himself.

On this point Wi replied that he intended nothing of the sort, as he

would make clear in due season, and for the rest, that women were few

because of their habit of exposing female children at birth, rather

than be at the pains of rearing and feeding them.

Then they went on to other matters, such as the pressure of taxation,

or its primeval equivalent. The chief took too much, they said, and

gave too little. He did not work himself and produced nothing, yet he

and all his great household expected to be supported in luxury and

with the best. Moreover, he seized their wives and daughters, raided

their stores of food or skins, and occasionally committed murder.

Lastly, he favoured certain rich men among them—here Urk looked hard

at Turi the Food-Hoarder, the Avaricious, and at Rahi the Rich, the

trader in fish hooks, skins, and flint instruments, which he caused

to be manufactured by forced labour, only paying the makers with a

little food in times of want. These rich men, they alleged, were

protected in their evildoing by the chief, to whom they paid a heavy

tithe of their ill-gotten goods, in return for which he promoted them

to positions of honour and gave them fine names such as Counsellor,

ordering that others should bow down to them.

Wi said that he would look into these practices and try to put a stop

to them.

Finally, they called attention to the breaking of their ancient

customs, as when he who had killed an animal, or trapped it in a pit,

or found it dead, or caught it fishing, and proposed to lay it up for

the winter, was robbed of it by a horde of hungry idlers who wished to

live on the industrious without toiling for themselves.

Into this matter also Wi said that he would inquire.

Then he announced that he summoned the whole tribe to a gathering on

the day of the next full moon, when he would announce the results of

his deliberations and submit new laws to be approved by the tribe.

During the time which elapsed between this meeting and that of the

full moon, namely, seventeen days, Wi thought a great deal. For hours

he would walk upon the shore, accompanied only by Pag, whom Aaka

contemptuously named his “shadow,” with whom he consulted deeply.

Toward the end of the time, also, he called in Urk the Aged, Moananga

his brother, and two or three other men, none of the latter of much

prominence, but whom he knew to be honest and industrious.

The rest of the tribe, devoured by curiosity, tried to wring from

these men what it might be that the chief talked of with them. They

would say nothing. Then they set the women on to them, who, being even

more curious, did their best by means of many wiles to find out what

all wanted to know. Even Tana, Moananga’s wife, the sweet and gentle,

played a part in this game, saying that she would not speak to him or

even look at him until he told her. But he would not, nor would the

others, whereupon it was decided that Wi, or Pag, or both of them,

must have some great magic, since it sufficed to bridle the tongues of

men even when women tempted them.

Now a strange thing happened. From the day that Wi became chief, the

weather mended. At length the cold, snowy-looking clouds rolled away;

at length the piercing wind ceased to blow out of the north and east;

at length, though very late, the spring, or rather the summer, came,

for that year there was no spring. Seals appeared, though not in their

usual quantity, the salmon, which seemed to have been icebound, ran up

the river in shoals, while eider and other ducks arrived and nested.

“Late come, soon gone,” said Pag, as he noted these things; “still,

better that than nothing.”

Thus it came about that, on the appointed day, the tribe, full of food

and in high good humour, met its chief, whom it felt to be an

auspicious person. Even Aaka was good-humoured, and when Tana, who was

her relation both by blood and because she was the wife of Wi’s

brother, asked her what was about to happen, she answered, laughing:

“I don’t know. But no doubt we shall be told some nonsense which Wi

and that wolf-man make up together—empty words like the cackling of

wild geese, which makes a great noise and is soon forgot.”

“At any rate,” said Tana inconsequently, “Wi is behaving very well to

you, for I know that he has sent away all those women slaves of

Henga.”

“Oh! yes, he is behaving well enough, but how long will it last? Is it

to be expected, now that he has become chief, that he will be

different from other chiefs, seeing that one man is like the rest?

They are all the same. Moreover,” she added acidly, “if he has sent

away the women, he has kept Pag.”

“What can that matter to you?” asked Tana, opening her big eyes.

“Much more than all the rest, Tana. If you could understand it, which

you cannot, it is of Wi’s mind that I am jealous, not of anything else

about him, and this dwarf has his mind.”

“Indeed!” said Tana, staring at her. “There is a strange fancy. For my

part, anyone is welcome to Moananga’s mind. It is of him that I am

jealous, and with very good reason, not of his mind.”

“No,” said Aaka sharply, “because he has not got one. With Wi it is

otherwise; his mind is more than his body, and that is why I would

keep it for myself.”

“Then you should learn to be as clever as Pag,” answered Tana, with

gentle irritation as she turned to talk to someone else.

The people were gathered at the Talking-place in front of the cave,

the same spot where Wi had conquered Henga. There they stood or sat in

a semicircle, those of the more consequence in front and the rest

behind. Presently, Wini-wini blew a blast on his horn, a strong and

steady blast, for this time he feared no evil from rocks or otherwise

to announce the appearance of the chief. Then Wi, clad in the

tigerskin cloak that Henga used to wear, which, as Aaka remarked, was

too big for him and much frayed, advanced followed by Moananga, Urk,

Pag, and the others, and sat down upon a stool made from two joints of

the backbone of a whale lashed together, which had been placed there

in readiness for him.

“Is all the tribe gathered here?” asked Wini-wini the Herald, to which

spokesmen answered that it was, except a few who would not come.

“Then hearken to the chief Wi the Great Hunter, a mighty man, the

conqueror of Henga the Evil, that is, unless anyone wishes first to

fight him for his place,” and he paused.

As nobody answered—for who in his senses wished to face the wonderful

ax that had chopped off the great head of Henga, whereof the hollow

eyes still stared at them from the broken trunk of a neighbouring

tree?—Wi rose and began his address, saying:

“O people of the tribe, we believe that there are no others like us

anywhere—at least, we have seen none upon the beach or in the woods

around, though it is true that, in the ice yonder, behind the mighty

Sleeper, is something that looks like a man. If so, he died long ago,

unless indeed he is a god. Perhaps he was a forefather of the tribe

who went into the ice to be buried there. Being therefore the only

men, and, though it is true that in some ways they are stronger than

we are, much greater than the beast people, for we can think and talk

and build huts, and do things that the beasts cannot do, it is right

that we should show how much better we are than they by our conduct to

each other.” As it had never occurred to the people to compare

themselves relatively to the animals around them, these lofty