Allan and the Ice Gods (41 page)

little collections of miserable people like to those over whom Wi

ruled, each of them perhaps thinking itself alone in the world, and

time on time the ice at intervals of tens or hundreds of thousands of

years must have descended upon them and crushed them out, except a few

survivors who fled south. Doubtless, the tragedy of Wi was common,

though nobody thinks of such things to-day when, for aught we know, we

may be living in an interval between two ice ages. Not long ago, I was

reading of the flint pits at Brandon in Norfolk, where it is said

that, in the far past, lived tribes of flint-workers. Then, it seems,

came an ice age, and after it was over appeared other tribes of flint-workers, separated from the first by untold epochs of time. But one

might talk of such things all night.”

“And all to-morrow, Allan. But you have not answered my question. How

do you account for a man like Wi at that period of the world’s

history?”

I took a little more whisky and soda to give myself time to think.

Then I answered easily enough, at least to my mind.

“The world they tell us now has probably been inhabitable and

therefore inhabited by man for millions of years. Now, Wi, if he ever

existed, by comparison lived quite recently, for he knew how to make

fire, how to trap beasts, and many other things. I suggest to you, my

dear Good, that we have not really advanced very much since the days

of Wi. The skulls that are found of people of or before his period

have the same, or sometimes an even larger, brain capacity than our

own. All the first and more essential developments of the human race

took place infinite ages before the birth of Wi. Some outstanding

individuals must have conceived the idea of making and enforcing

necessary laws and of putting a stop to infanticide. Why should not Wi

have been one of these? He may have gone ahead too fast—as, in fact,

he did—but perhaps the memory of his laws survived through his wife

Aaka, or his brother Moananga, or his son Foh, if they escaped, and

were repeated and improved upon by future generations of his blood. In

short, Good, although I think that men have grown cleverer as a race,

I do not believe that the high-water mark of individuals among them

has advanced greatly since the times of such as Wi, which, after all,

in the history of the world, and indeed of the human race, are but

yesterday. For the rest, in my own life I have known many who are

called savages in Africa who knew as little or less than Wi and yet,

in similar circumstances, would have done all that he did, and more.”

“That’s a new idea,” said Good. “Perhaps we civilized people vaunt

ourselves too much.”

“Perhaps,” I answered, “for civilization as we know it is very young

and a great sham. I don’t know and it isn’t worth bothering about. All

I know is that I wish I had never dreamed that dream, which has given

me a new set of sorrows that cannot be forgotten.”

“That’s the point,” exclaimed Good. “Now there was Tana. She was a

jealous sort of woman, and we quarrelled often, especially when I

began to make up to Laleela. And I, well, I was a natural man, much as

I am to-day, so, as I say, we quarrelled. Yet, after all, I was very

fond of Tana; she was my wife for many years, and she bore children

whom both of us loved, children that died, as most children died among

the tribe. As for the rows between us, what do they matter? Now that I

have come to know her, I can never forget Tana.”

“It is the same here,” I answered. “That boy Foh, and his sister Fo-a

whom you remember that brute-man Henga murdered—for example. Well,

they may be but dream children, but henceforward they are mine. At

this very moment I tell you that I could burst into tears over the

murder of Fo-a, and that my heart aches over the loss of Foh, and yet

I suppose that they are only fantasies, drug-born fantasies. See what

this cursed
Taduki
has done for us! To the bereavements and miseries

of our own lives, it has added another series. It has suggested to us

that we have endured other lives, other losses, and other miseries,

and yet it has not helped us to solve their problems. Shall we ever

see any of these people again? We who seemed to mix with them still

exist. Do they exist also, and if so have we any hope of finding

them?”

“Are you quiet certain, Allan, that we haven’t found some of them

already, although it was but to lose them once more. Now, although I

never saw him, you have often told me of the Hottentot called Hans who

served you from your youth until he died, still trying to serve you by

saving your life. Well, isn’t there some resemblance between that

Hottentot and Pag?”

“Undoubtedly there is,” I answered, “although Pag the Wolf-man was a

bit more primeval.”

“Then, as regards Laleela—how about that Lady Ragnall who left you

the fortune which, like a donkey, you refused? Do you see any

connection between them?”

“Not much,” I answered, “except that they were both priestesses of, or

at any rate in some way connected with, the moon. But, of course, I

know very little of Laleela’s life. She appeared from a southern land,

but exactly why she left it, I cannot tell, because she never told me.

At that time her age must have been, well, what do you put it at,

Good?”

“Anywhere between twenty-eight and thirty-two, I should say.”

“That’s about it. Well, in those days, a woman of her beauty and

station must have had lots of private history behind her at, let us

say, thirty. Indeed she hinted as much more than once. But as she

never stated what it was, there is very little to go on, and

identification becomes impossible.

“Look here, let us stop this before we go cracked. Under the influence

of an African drug, we have seen strange things, or think that we have

seen them. We have seen an ancient, barbaric tribe living at the foot

of the glaciers upon a desolate beach, collecting their food from year

to year as best they could with their primitive weapons, and evolving

a kind of elementary civilization. Thus they were ruled by a chief who

might be killed when any stronger man appeared, as in a herd of game

the old bull is killed by the young bull. We have seen a man of

strength and ability arise who tried to make new and better laws and

to introduce justice, and who, under the influence of a foreign and

more advanced woman, ultimately turned from the worship of fierce

fetish gods supposed to dwell in the ice they dreaded, to a purer if

still elementary faith. We have seen the fate fall upon him that

overtakes almost all reformers, also that this ice was not feared in

vain, since it swept down and destroyed his people, as indeed it must

often have done in the history of the world, and perhaps will do again

in the future.”

“Yes, we have seen all that,” said Good, “but if it wasn’t real, what

is the use of it? Dreams have not much practical value.”

“Are you sure about that, Good? Are you sure that Life, as we know it,

is anything more than a
Taduki
dream?”

“What do you mean, Allan?”

“I mean that perhaps already we may be plunged into and be a part of

immortality, and that this immortality may have its nights as well as

its days—dream-haunted nights of which this present life of ours is

one.”

“Steady, old fellow. You are running full steam into strange waters

and without a chart.”

“Quite true,” I answered. “Let us get back into the channel between

the lighted buoys. To my mind our experience to-night has been very

instructive. Whether it be real or imaginary, it has taught me what

must have happened to our forefathers tens or hundreds of thousands of

years ago. Let us suppose that it was all a dream or delusion, and

think of it as nothing else. Still, it has been a most fascinating

dream, a kind of lightning flash, showing us a page of the past. There

let us leave it, locking it up as an individual experience not meant

for the benefit of others. To advertise what are called hallucinations

is not wise.”

“I quite agree with you, Allan,” said Good, “and I mean to keep my

experience upon that beach wherever it may have been, very much to

myself. Only in my leisure time I intend to take up the study of the

ice ages and the glacial drift.

“And now, about those snipe (it is odd, by the way, that even in those

days you seem to have been a sportsman and a hunter), will you bring

your spear—I mean gun—and come to-morrow?”

THE END