Allan and the Ice Gods (34 page)

at the root of the tongue. They noted how Wi had hacked at the beast’s

head with his ax, striving to sever its neck bone, which he could not

do because of the thickness of the mane and hide, but at length

battering it till it died. They marvelled at its mighty horns one of

which it had splintered when it tore the ridge of rock upon which Wi

stood. They measured its bulk with wands and reported it to Urk the

Aged, who was too old to go so far but said that in the days of his

grandfather’s grandfather a still bigger bull had been killed by his

great-uncle’s great-uncle, who threw over it a net of withies and

pounded it to death with rocks while it struggled to be free. Someone

asked him how he knew this, whereon he answered that his great-great-grandmother, when she was a hundred winters old, had told it to his

grandmother, who had told it to him when he was a little lad.

So the bull was skinned, the meat on it divided up, and the hide

brought home to be a mat for the cave. Also the head was brought,

carried upon poles by four men and tied to that tree upon which had

been hung the head of Henga until Pag used it as a bait for the great

toothed tiger. Yes, it was brought with one of Wi’s spears fixed in

the eye socket, and another, whereof the shaft was champed to pieces,

fast in its throat. There it hung and the people came up and stared at

it. Wi also, when he had vomited out all the red mud and rested

himself, sat in the mouth of the cave and stared at the great head

hanging on the tree, wondering how he had found strength to fight that

beast while it lived.

There Aaka spoke with him.

“You are a mighty man, Husband,” she said, “so mighty that long ago

you might have made an end of Henga if it had pleased you, and thus

saved our daughter from death. I am proud to have borne the children

of such a man. And yet, tell me, how came it that Pag and Moananga

were there to drag you from the mud when the bull rolled over on to

you?”

“I don’t know, Wife,” Wi answered, “but I hear that Laleela had

something to do with the business. She dreamed something, I know not

what, which she told to Pag and Moananga, and they ran out to seek me.

Ask her whom I have not seen since I woke up.”

“I have sought her, Husband, but she cannot be found. Yet I do not

doubt that, being a witch, her witchcraft was at work here, as

always.”

“If so, in this case you should not grumble, Wife.”

“I do not grumble, I thank her who has preserved alive the greatest

man that is told of among the people. I say more. I think that you

should marry her, Wi, for she has earned no less. Only first you must

find her.”

“As to this matter of marriage, I have made a new law,” answered Wi.

“Shall the maker of laws be also the breaker of laws?”

“Why not?” said Aaka, laughing, “seeing that he who makes can also

break. Moreover, who will find fault with the man that single-handed

could slay this bull of bulls? Not I for one, Wi.”

“Two of us slew it,” answered Wi, looking down. “The hound Yow and I

slew it together. Without Yow, I should have been slain.”

“Aye, and therefore glory be to Yow. If I were a lawmaker like you,

Wi, I should choose Yow to be a god among us.”

Then she smiled in her dark fashion and went away to talk with Pag and

Moananga, for Aaka desired to learn the truth of all this matter.

Wi sat in the mouth of the cave eating his food and telling the tale

of the fight to Foh, his son, who listened with open mouth and staring

eyes. Then he sent Foh to help peg out the skin of the bull, and when

he was gone, slipped from the cave to seek for Laleela, who could not

be found.

Not knowing where to look, he walked, very stiffly at first, along the

shore by the mouth of the great glacier and round the headland beyond,

past the hills and smaller glaciers, toward the seal bay. There, if

anywhere, he thought that he might find Laleela, since thither, after

the fight with the Red Wanderers, her boat had been brought back and

hidden in the little cave at the head of the bay! Late in the

afternoon, he reached the place and there, seated at the mouth of the

small cave, he found Laleela as though she were waiting for the sun to

set or for the moon to rise. She started, looking down but saying

nothing.

“Why are you here?” he asked sternly.

“I came to be alone to give thanks to the moon that I worship, because

of a certain dream which was sent to me, and to make my prayer to the

moon when she appears.”

“Is it so, Laleela? Are you sure that you did not come for another

purpose also?” and he looked toward the cave where her boat was

housed.

“I am not sure, Wi. All hangs upon the answer that is sent to my

prayer.”

“Hearken, Laleela,” he said in a voice that was thick with rage.

“Unless you swear to me that you will not fly away for a second time,

I will drive my ax through the bottom of that boat of yours or burn it

with fire.”

“To what purpose, Wi? Cannot the seekers of Death travel to him by

many roads? If one be blocked a hundred others still remain.”

“Why should you seek death?” he asked passionately. “Are you then so

unhappy here? Do you hate me so much that you wish to die?”

Now Laleela bent her head and shook her long hair about her face as

though to hide her face and spoke to him through the meshes of her

hair, saying very softly:

“You know that I do not hate you, Wi, but rather that I hold you too

dear. Yet, hear me. Among my own folk I am named a prophetess, one

believed to have gifts that are not given to all, and in truth

sometimes I think that I have such gifts. Thus, when I left my own

people, I was sure that I must do so that I might find one who would

be more to me than all others, and did I not find him? Yet now that

gift is upon me again, and it tells me that I should do well to go

away, because, if I bide here, I shall bring evil upon the head of one

who is more to me than all others.”

“Then stay, Laleela, and together let us face this evil that your

heart foretells.”

“Wi, we may face nothing quite together. Have you not sworn an oath,

and would you break that oath? I think not. Yet, if you should be

weak, must I therefore cease from being strong? Nay, draw not near to

me lest madness take you, for here and now I swear that oath for you

afresh. Never will I live to see you mocked of Aaka and of your

people, as a man who has broken his oath for a woman’s sake. Nay,

rather would I die twice over.”

“Then it is finished,” said Wi with a groan.

Laleela lifted her head and looked upward. In the sky appeared the

evening star, and on this star she fixed her eyes, then answered:

“By what right do you say that it is finished between us, or indeed

that anything is ever finished? Listen, Wi. Among my folk are wise men

and women who hold that death is not the end of all; indeed, that it

is but the beginning, and that yonder, beyond that star, the life we

lay down here will spring afresh, and that in this new life all which

we have lost will be found again. I am of that company, I who am

called a prophetess; and so I believe, who hold therefore that this

world is of small account and that if once we find thereon that which

we were sent forth to seek, for us it has served its purpose and may

be well forgot.”

Wi stared at her, then asked:

“Do you mean that somewhere beyond death there is a home where we

shall find those whom we have lost, where I shall find Fo-a my child

and the mother who suckled me, and—and others, and there be in joy

and peace with them?”

“Yes,” answered Laleela, looking him in the face, and her eyes were

bold and happy.

“At times,” said Wi, “aye, not often, but now and again, such hope has

come to me, only to fade away. If I could but be sure that I who am

but what you see, a beast that thinks and talks—Oh! tell me of this

faith, Laleela.”

So, speaking low and earnestly, she set it out to him, a simple faith

indeed, such as has been held by chosen ones throughout the earth in

all the generations, yet a pure and a comfortable one, while he drank

in her words and his heart burned with a new fire.

“Now I understand why you were sent to me, Laleela,” he said at

length. “Tell me no more to-night. I must think, I must think.”

She smiled at him very happily, and as they rose to go, said this:

“Wi, there was more in that dream that came to me this morning than I

told to Pag or any. That dream said to me that you went out secretly

in the darkness almost hoping that you would not return in the light.”

“Perhaps,” he answered briefly, “for I was unhappy.”

“Who now are happy again, Wi. See, I have promised you that no more

will I flee from you back into the water whence I came, but, through

good and ill, will stand at your side till the end which is the

beginning, though not hand in hand. Do you promise me as much, Wi?”

“I do, Laleela.”

“Then all is well, Wi, and we can laugh at troubles.”

“Yes, Laleela. But there is one thing. You know that I love Foh, my

only child, and always I am afraid for Foh. I am afraid lest the

brother should follow the sister, Laleela.”

“Cease to be afraid, Wi. I think that one day Foh will be a great

chief over a great tribe.”

“How do you know that?” he asked eagerly.

“Have I not told you that I am named a prophetess, or a Witch-from-the-Sea, as your people call me?” she answered, and smiled at him

again.

This great talk of theirs, the “light-bringing” talk, as Wi named it,

was the first of many such between him and Laleela. From the cup of

her wisdom he drank deeply till his heart was as full of it as is a

hiving bee with honey. Soon what she believed he believed, so that

their souls were one. Yet never did he break the oath that he had

sworn to the people, and never did she tempt him so to do by look or

touch or word.

Wi changed. He who had been gloomy and full of care, always looking

over his shoulder to see the evil behind him, became happy-faced and

full of cheerful, pleasant words. Aaka stared at him amazed, who no

longer even fretted or troubled her about the health and safety of

their son Foh, but said outright that he had no fear for him any more

—that he knew all would be well with him. At first Aaka was sure

that, while keeping his oath to the outward eye, in secret he had

taken Laleela to wife, but when she found that certainly this was not

so, she felt bewildered. At length, she could bear no more and

questioned Wi in such fashion that he must answer.

“All things go ill,” she said; “there is little food, and the cold,

even now at the beginning of winter, is such as has not been known.

Yet you, Wi, are as happy as a boy who fishes on a rock in the

sunshine and catches fishes many and great. How does this come about,

Wi?”

“Would you know, Wife? Then I will tell you. I have discovered a great

truth, namely that we live on after death, and that not for nothing

did I bury her toys with Fo-a, for when all is finished I shall find

her playing with them elsewhere.”

“Are you mad?” asked Aaka. “Do the Ice-gods promise us any such thing?

Do Urk and the ancients teach any such thing?”

“No, Wife. Yet what I tell you is true, and if you would be happy, you

will do well to learn the same lesson.”

“Who is to teach it to me, Wi?”

“I, Wife, if you will listen.”

“Or rather, to begin at the beginning,” she went on, “who taught it to

you? Was it Laleela?”

Now, Wi, who found that he could no longer lie as perhaps he would

have done in the old days, answered simply:

“Who else, Wife? I have learned the wisdom of her people. Believe me,

I am not mad, and that hers is a true wisdom, which has made me happy

who was wretched, which has made me brave who was full of terrors.”

For a while, Aaka was silent, for words choked in her throat. Then she

said coldly:

“Now I understand. That Witch-from-the-Sea has made a wizard of you.

She has not been content to take you as a fair woman might have done

with little blame. No, she has poisoned your heart. She has turned you

from our ancient gods. Little wonder that they are wroth and bring

misfortune upon us, when the chief of the people and a witch from the

sea join together to mock and reject them and to turn to I know not

what. Tell me, what is it that you two worship when you stand staring

at the skies at night, as I know you do?”

“That which dwells in the skies, Wife; that which waits to receive us

in the skies.”

Now the cold and stately Aaka trembled with wrath.

“Shall I bandy words with a wizard, one who spits upon our father’s

gods?” she asked, and turning, left him.

From that hour began the great trouble. The winter was terrible; none

had known such a winter; even Urk the Aged declared that weather so

fierce had not been told of since the day of his grandfather’s great-grandfather. The winds howled continually from the north and east, and