Allan and the Ice Gods (4 page)

as I had seen her in my
Taduki
dream.

The eyes (for both handles were identical) seemed fixed on me in a

solemn and mystical stare; the parted lips looked as though they were

uttering words of invitation. To what did they invite? Alas! I knew

too well: it was that I should burn
Taduki
in the bowl so that they

might be opened by its magic and tell me of hidden things.

Nonsense! I thought to myself. Moreover, I remembered that one must

never take
Taduki
after drinking wine. Then I remembered something

else; namely, that, as it happened, at dinner that night I had drunk

nothing but water, having for some reason or other preferred it to

claret or port. Also, I had eaten precious little—I suppose because I

was not hungry. Or could it be that I was a humbug and had done these

things, or rather left them undone, so that should temptation overtake

me its results might not prove fatal? Upon my word, I did not know,

for on such occasions it is difficult to disentangle the exact motives

of the heart.

Moreover, this speculation was forgotten in a new and convincing idea

that suddenly I conceived. Doubtless, the virtues, or the vices, of

Taduki
were all humbug, or rather nonexistent. What caused the

illusions was the magnetic personalities of the ministrants, that is

to say, of Lady Ragnall herself and, on my first acquaintance with it,

here in England, of that remarkable old medicine man, Harut. Without

these personalities, and especially the first who was now departed

from the earth, it would be as harmless as tobacco and as ineffectual

as hay. So delighted was I with this discovery that almost I

determined to prove it by immediate demonstration.

I opened the carved chest of rich-coloured wood and drew out the age-blackened silver box within which now I observed for the first time

had engraved upon it several times a picture of the goddess Isis in

her accustomed ceremonial dress, and a god, Osiris or Ptah, I think,

making incantations with their hands, holding lotus flowers and the

Cross of Life stretched out over a little altar. This I opened also,

whereon a well-remembered aroma arose and for a moment clouded my

senses. When these cleared again, I perceived, lying on the top of the

bundles of
Taduki
leaves, of which there seemed to be a large

quantity remaining, a half sheet of letter paper bearing a few lines

in Lady Ragnall’s handwriting.

I lifted it and read as follows:

My Friend:

When you are moved to inhale this
Taduki
, as certainly you will

do, be careful not to use too much lest you should wander so far

that you can return no more. One of the little bundles, of which I

think there are thirteen remaining in the box, should be

sufficient, though perhaps as you grow accustomed to the drug you

may require a larger dose. Another thing—for a hidden reason with

which I will not trouble you, it is desirable, though not

necessary, that you should have a companion in the adventure. By

preference, this companion should be a woman, but a man will serve

if he be one in whom you have confidence and who is sympathetic to

you.

L.R.

“That settles it,” I thought. “I am not going to take
Taduki
with

one of the housemaids, and there is no other woman about here,” and I

rose from my chair, preparing to put the stuff away.

At that moment, the door opened and in walked Captain Good.

“Hullo, old fellow,” he said. “Curtis says a farmer tells him that a

lot of snipe have come in onto the Brathal marshes, and he wants to

know if you will come over to-morrow morning and have a go at them—I

say, what is this smell in the room? Have you taken to scented

cigarettes or hashish?”

“Not quite, but, to tell you the truth, I was thinking of it,” I

answered, and I pointed to the open silver box.

Good, who is a person of alert mind and one very full of curiosity,

advanced, sniffed at the
Taduki
, and examined the brazier and the

box, which in his ignorance he supposed to be of Grecian workmanship.

Finally, he overwhelmed me with so many questions that, at length, in

self-defence, I told him something of its story and how it had been

bequeathed to me with its contents by Lady Ragnall.

“Indeed!” said Good. “She who left you the fortune which you wouldn’t

take, being the lineal descendant of Don Quixote, or rather of Sancho

Panza’s donkey. Well, this is much more exciting than money. What

happened to you when you went into that trance?”

“Oh!” I answered wearily, “I seemed to foregather with a very pretty

lady who lived some thousands of years ago, and after many adventures,

was just about to marry her when I woke up.”

“How jolly! though I suppose you have been suffering from blighted

affections ever since. Perhaps, if you took some more, you might pull

it off next time.”

I shook my head and handed him the note of instructions that I had

found with the
Taduki
, which he read with attention, and said:

“I see, Allan, that a partner is required and that failing a lady, a

man in whom you have confidence and who is sympathetic to you, will

serve. Obviously that’s me, for in whom could you have greater

confidence, and who is more sympathetic to you? Well, my boy, if

there’s any hope of adventures, real or imaginary, I’ll take the risk

and sacrifice myself upon the altar of friendship. Light up your

stuff—I’m ready. What do you say? That I can’t because I have been

dining and drinking wine or whisky? Well, as a matter of fact, I

haven’t. I’ve only had some tea and a boiled egg—I won’t stop to

explain why—and intended to raise something more substantial out of

you. So fire away and let’s go to meet your lovely lady in ancient

Egypt or anywhere else.”

“Look here, Good,” I explained, “I think there is a certain amount of

risk about this stuff, and really you had better reflect–-”

“Before I rush in where angels fear to tread, eh? Well, you’ve done it

and you ain’t even an angel. Also I like risks or anything that makes

a change in this mill round of a life. Come on. What have we got to

do?”

Then, feeling that Fate was at work, under a return of the impulse of

which the strength had been broken for a moment by the reading of Lady

Ragnall’s note of instructions, I gave way. To tell the truth, Good’s

unexpected arrival when such a companion was essential, and his

strange willingness, and even desire, to share in this unusual

enterprise, brought on one of the fits of fatalism from which I suffer

at times. I became convinced that the whole business was arranged by

something or somebody beyond my ken—that I must take this drug with

Good as my companion. So, as I have said, I gave way and made the

necessary preparations, explaining everything to Good as I did so.

“I say!” he said at last, just as I was fishing for an ember from the

wood fire to lay upon the
Taduki
in the bowl, “I thought this job

was a joke, but you seem jolly solemn about it, Allan. Do you really

think it dangerous?”

“Yes, I do, but more to the spirit than to the body. I think, to judge

from my own experience, that anyone who has once breathed
Taduki

will wish to do so again. Shall we give it up? It isn’t too late.”

“No,” answered Good. “I never funked anything yet, and I won’t begin

now. ‘Lay on, Macduff’!”

“So be it, Good. But first of all, listen to me. Move that armchair of

yours close to mine, but not quite up against it. I am going to place

the brazier just between and a little in front of us. When the stuff

catches a blue flame will burn for about thirty seconds—at least,

this happened on a previous occasion. So soon as it dies away and you

see the smoke begin to rise, bend your head forward and a little

sideways so that it strikes you full in the face, but in such a

fashion that, when you become insensible, the weight of your body will

cause you to fall back into the chair, not outward to the floor. It is

quite easy if you are careful. Then open your mouth and draw the

vapour down into your lungs. Two or three breaths will suffice, as it

works very quickly.”

“Just like laughing gas,” remarked Good. “I only hope I shan’t wake

with all my teeth out. The last time I took it I felt–-”

“Stop joking,” I said, “for this is a serious matter.”

“A jolly sight too serious! Is there anything else?”

“No. That is, if there is anybody you particularly wish to see, you

might concentrate your thoughts on him–-”

“Him! I can’t think of any him, unless it is the navigating lieutenant

of my first ship, with whom I always want to have it out in the next

world, as he is gone from this, the brute.”

“On her, then; I meant her.”

“Then why didn’t you say so instead of indulging in pharisaical

humbug? Who would breathe poison just to meet another man?”

“I would,” I replied firmly.

“That’s a lie,” muttered Good. “Hullo! don’t be in such a hurry with

that coal, I ain’t ready. Ought I to say any hocus-pocus? Dash it all!

it is like a nightmare about being hanged.”

“No,” I replied, as I dropped the ember onto the
Taduki
just as Lady

Ragnall had done. “Now, play fair, Good,” I added, “for I don’t know

what the effect of half a dose would be; it might drive you mad. Look,

the flame is burning! Open your mouth and arrange your weight as I

said, and when your head begins to whirl, lean back at the end of the

third deep breath.”

The mysterious, billowy vapour arose as the pale blue flame died away,

and spread itself out fanwise.

“Aye, aye, my hearty,” said Good, and thrust his face into it with

such vigour that he brought his head into violent contact with mine,

as I leant forward from the other side.

I heard him mutter some words that were better left unsaid, for often

enough Good’s language would have borne editing. Then I heard no more

and forgot that he existed.

My mind became wonderfully clear and I found myself arguing in a

fashion that would have done credit to the greatest of the Greek

philosophers upon all sorts of fundamental problems. All I can

remember about that argument or lecture is that, in part at any rate,

it dealt with the possibility of reincarnation, setting out the pros

and cons in a most vivid manner.

Even if I had not forgotten them, these may be passed over, as they

are familiar to students of such subjects. The end of the exposition,

however, was to the effect that, accepted as it is by a quarter of the

inhabitants of the earth, this doctrine should not lightly be set

aside, seeing that in it there is hope for man; that it is at least

worthy of consideration. If the sages who have preached it, from Plato

down—and indeed for countless ages before his time, since without

doubt he borrowed it from the East—are right, then at least we pure

human creatures do not appear and die like gnats upon a summer’s eve,

but in that seeming day pass on to life eternally renewed, climbing a

kind of Jacob’s ladder to the skies.

It is true that as our foot leaves it, each rung of that ladder

vanishes. Below is darkness and all the gulf of Time. Above is

darkness and we know not what. Yet our hands cling to the uprights and

our feet stand firm upon a rung, and we know that we do not fall, but

mount; also that, in the nature of things, a ladder must lean against

some support and lead somewhere. A melancholy business, this tread

mill doctrine, it may be said, where one rung is so like another and

there are so many of them. And yet, and yet—is it not better than

that of the bubble which bursts and is gone? Aye, because life is

better than death, especially if it be progressive life, and if at

last it may lead to some joy undreamed, to some supernal light in

which we shall see all the path that we have trodden, and with it the

deep foundations of the Rock of Being upon which our ladder stands and

the gates of Eternal Calm whereon it leans.

Thus, in the beginning of my dream state, I, the lecturer, argued to

an unknown audience, or perhaps I was the audience and the lecturer

argued to me, I am not sure, pointing out that otherwise we are but as

those unhappy victims of the Revolution in the prisons of Paris, who

for a little while bow and talk and play our part, waiting till the

door opens and the jailer Death appears to lead us to the tumbril and

the knife.

The argument, I should point out, was purely rational; it did not deal

with faith, or any revealed religion, perhaps because these are too

personal and too holy. It dealt only with the possible development of

a mighty law, under the workings of which man, through much

tribulation, might accomplish his own weal and at last come to look

upon the source of that law and understand its purpose.

Obviously these imperfectly reported reflections, and many others that

I cannot remember at all, were induced by the feeling that I might be