Allan and the Ice-Gods

ALLAN AND THE ICE-GODS

She paused a while as though to master his question, which she seemed to be translating in her mind, then answered:

“The one I hated was my father’s brother. My father was going away” (by this she meant dying), “the brother wished to marry me and become king. I hate him. Taking boat with much food, I row down river to the sea at night.”

Wi nodded to show that he understood, and asked again: “But what of the dream?”

“The dream told me to go north,” she replied, “a great wind blow me north for days and days, till I fall asleep and you find me.”

“Why did the dream tell you to go north?” asked Wi, with the help of Pag.

She shook her head and answered with a set face:

“Ask of the dream, O Wi.” Nor would she say any more. From this time forward, Laleela began to learn the language

of the tribe very fast, so that soon she could speak it quite well, for she was quick and clever, and Pag, who was also clever, taught her continually. In the evenings, when his work was done, Wi would come to her hut and, sitting there with Pag, he asked her many things about her people and her country. In answer, she told him that it was much warmer than his own, though there was a great deal of rain if little snow; also that it lay a long way off, for she had been days and nights in the boat driven by the gale before she fell asleep.

“Could you find your way home?” asked Wi.

“I think so,” she answered, “because all the time I was seldom out of the sight of the shore, and I marked the headlands and know the mountains between which the river runs that leads to my country. I mean that I should know all this if once

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I were out of the ice that floats upon your sea. For it was after I passed the last headland and came across open water into the ice, that I fell asleep.”

“Then that headland cannot be so very far away,” said Wi, “for if it were, the cold would have been your death before I found you.”

So this talk ended, but Wi thought much of it afterward, and often he and Pag spoke together of the matter.

A little while later Laleela began to grow restless and to say that she lacked work, she who had been a big woman among her people with much to do.

Pag thought over her words for a while, then, one day when Wi was out upon some business, he took her to the cave and showed her the little girl infants which were nurtured there, telling her their story: how they had been cast out to perish, or rather how they would have been cast out had it not been for Wi’s new law.

“Your mothers are very cruel,” she said. “In my country, she who did this would herself be cast out.”

Then she took up some of the infants and, after looking them all over, said that they were ill-tended as though by hirelings, and that two of them were like to die.

“Several have died,” said Pag.

Now, although they did not see him, Wi, having returned to the cave, stood in the shadow watching them and listening to their talk. Presently he stepped forward and said:

“You are right, Laleela, these babes need more care. After the first few weeks their mothers neglect them, I think to show that they were fated to die and that for this reason they wished to cast them out; nor do the other women nurse them as they

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should. Yet I am helpless who lack time to see to the business, and when I complain, find all the women leagued against me. Will you help me with these children, Laleela?”

“Yes, Wi,” she answered, “though if I do so the women of your tribe will become even more bitter against me than they are now. Why does not your wife, Aaka, see to the matter?”

“If I walk one way, Aaka walks another,” answered Wi sadly. “See now,” he added, “I make you, Laleela, the Stranger- fromthe-Sea, head nurse of these babes, with authority to do what you will for their welfare. This I will proclaim and with it my word that any who disobey you in your duty shall be punished.”

So Laleela, the Witch-from-the-Sea, became the mother of the castouts, with other women set under her, and filled that office well. There she would sit by the fire among these little creatures, feeding them with such food as was known to this people, and in a low, sweet voice singing songs of her own country that were very pleasant to hear. At least, Wi thought them pleasant, for often he would come into the cave and, seated in the shadows, would watch and listen to her, thinking that she did not know he was there, though all the while she knew this well enough. At length, finding out that she knew, he came forward from the shadows, and, seated on a log of wood, would talk to her, who by now understood his language.

Thus he learned much for, though she would not speak about herself, in broken words she told him of her country and of how around it lived many other peoples with whom they made war or peace, which astonished him who had believed that the tribe were the only men upon the earth. Also, she told him and Pag of such simple arts as they practised,

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whereof these heard with wonder. But of why she fled from these folk of hers, trusting herself to the sea in an open boat to be driven wherever the winds would take her, she would or could tell him little. Moreover, when he asked her whether she wished to return to her own country, she answered that she did not know.

Then, after a while, Wi began to talk to her as a friend and to tell her of his own troubles, though of Aaka he said nothing at all. She listened, and at length answered that his sickness had no cure.

“You belong to this people, Chief,” she said, “but are not of them. You should have been born of my people.”

“In every company one walks quicker than the rest,” answered Wi.

“Then he finds himself alone,” said Laleela.

“Not so, because he must return to guide the others.” “Then, before the hilltop is gained, night will overtake

them all,” said Laleela.

“If a man gain that hilltop, what can he do by himself?” “Look at the plains below and die. At least it is something

to have been the first to see new things, and some day those who follow in his footsteps will find his bones.”

From the time that Wi heard Laleela speak thus, he began to love her with his heart, and not only for her beauty’s sake, as he had always done since first he looked upon her in the boat.

Soon Aaka noted all this and laughed at him.

“Why do you not take the witch to yourself, as it is lawful that you should do?” she asked, “for whoever heard of a chief

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with only one wife, I shall not be jealous of her, and you have but a single child left.”

“Because she is far above me,” he answered. “Moreover, I have sworn an oath upon this matter.”

“That for your oath!” said Aaka, snapping her fingers.

Yet, when she spoke thus, Aaka did not tell all the truth. As a wife she was not jealous of Wi because of the customs of her people. Yet in other ways she was very jealous, because in old times she and no other had been his counsellor. Then she became bitter toward him because he set their children before her, and left him to go his own way. Thereon he turned to Pag and made a friend of him and hearkened to his words, and for this reason she hated Pag. Now the Witch-from-the-Sea had come with her new wisdom which he drank up as thirsty sand drinks up water, and, behold! she hated her even more than she had done Pag, not because she was fair but because she was clever.

Moreover, although he had liked Laleela well enough at first and guarded her as her friend, Pag began to hate her also, and for the same reason. The truth was that, notwithstanding his faults, which were many, Wi was one of those men who is beloved by all who are near to him, even when they do not understand him, so much so that those who love him grow jealous of each other. But this Wi himself never knew, any more than Pag did, that it was because he entered into the hearts of all, reading them and their joys and sorrows, that he drew the hearts of all after him.

So Wi made a friend of Laleela, telling her his troubles, and the closer he drew to her, the farther away moved Aaka and Pag. Laleela listened and advised and comforted, and being a

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woman, in her heart wondered why he did not come still nearer, though whether or not she would have been glad if he had, she did not know. At least, she would have wondered, had not Wi told her of the new law that he had made, under which, because women were so few among the tribe, no man might take more than one wife; and of the oath that he had sworn that this law he would keep himself, calling down upon his head the curse of the Ice-gods whom he worshipped, should he break it, and not on his own only, but also upon those of the people.

Now, Laleela did not believe in the Ice-gods because she was a Moonworshipper. Yet she did believe that a curse invoked in the name of one god was just as terrible as that invoked in the name of another. In fact, she put more faith in the curse than she did in the gods, because, if the gods were invisible, always evil could be seen. Therefore, she was not angry because Wi, who was so near to her in mind, still remained as far away from her as though he were her brother, or her father; nor did she try to draw him closer as, had she wished, she knew well enough that she could do.

Meanwhile, it is to be told that this year all things went ill with the tribe. There was no spring, and when the time of summer came the weather remained so cold and sunless that always it felt as though snow were about to fall, while the wind from the east was so bitter that but little could grow. Moreover, only a few seals appeared from the south to breed, not enough to furnish the food of the people or their garments for the winter. With the ducks and other wild fowl, and the fish, especially the salmon, the story was the same, so that had it not been for the chance that four whales of the smaller sort, com-

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ing in with a high tide, were left stranded in the bay, which whales they cut up, preserving their flesh as best they could by smoking it, and otherwise, there would have been little for them to eat until the spring of another year.

At the cutting up of these whales, also at the collection of all food that could be found, Wi worked very hard. Yet the people who had been accustomed to plenty in the summer season, however tight they must draw their belts in winter, murmured and walked about with sullen, downcast faces, grumbling and asking each other why such trouble should come upon them, the like of which even Urk the Aged could not remember. Then a whisper began to run from ear to ear among them, that it was because the beautiful Witch-from-the-Sea had brought evil on them out of the sea, changing the face of heaven and driving away the seals and the fowls and the fish that would not come where no sun shone.

If she were gone, said the whisperers, the sun would shine again and the beasts and birds would return and their stomachs would be full and they could look up to the ridgepoles of their huts and see them bending beneath the weight of the winter food, as they used to do in the old days. Why could she not go back into the sea in her hollow log, or if she would not, why could she not be cast out thither living, or if need be – dead? Thus they said one to another by signs, or speaking in hints, but as yet, whatever he might guess, Wi knew nothing of their talk.

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CHAPTER 13

THE LESSON

OF THE WOLF MOTHER

On a certain day Aaka saw Pag shambling past her hut, his eyes fixed upon the ground.

“The wolf-man is sad,” she said to herself, “and I know why he is sad. It is because Wi up there at the cave is taking counsel with that yellow-haired Laleela about big matters and asking no help from him.”

Thus she thought, then called to Pag to come to her and offered him a dish of food, mussels cooked in a shell. Pag, who was hungry, looked at it, then said:

“Is it poisoned, Aaka?”

“Why do you ask that, Pag?” she answered.

“For two very good reasons,” said Pag. “First, because I never remember the day that you offered food to me out of kindness; and secondly, because you hate me, Aaka.”

“Both those things are true, Pag. Because I hate you I have never offered you food. Yet one hate may be driven out by a larger hate. Eat the mussels, Pag. They are fresh and good, for Foh brought them to me this morning, though not so fat as they used to be in past years.”

So Pag sat down and devoured that dish to the last mussel, smacking his thick lips, for he was a large eater and food had

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been scarce of late, because by Wi’s command all that could be spared was being saved for the coming winter.

Aaka, handsome, solemn, black-browed, deep-eyed, watched him as he ate, and when he had finished, said:

“Let us talk.”

“I wish there were some more mussels,” said Pag, licking the shell, “but if they are finished, then, if you have anything to say about Laleela, talk on, for I am sure it is of her that you wish to speak.”

“Now, as always, you are clever, Pag.”

“Yes, I am clever; if I were not I should have been dead long ago. Well, what of Laleela the Beautiful?”

“Oh! nothing much, except” – here she leant forward and whispered in his ear – “that I wish you would kill her, Pag, or bring it about that she is killed. This, being a man, or something like one, you can do; whereas for us women it is impossible because it would be set down to jealous hate.”

“I understand,” said Pag. “And yet, why should I kill Laleela whom I like very much, and who knows more than all the rest of us put together?”

“Because she has brought a curse upon the tribe,” began Aaka, whereon Pag stopped her with a wave of his big hand.

“You may think that, Aaka, or choose to say that you think it, but why waste breath in telling such a tale to me, who know it to be a lie? It is the skies and the season that have brought a curse upon the tribe, not this fair woman from the sea, as the people believe.”

“What the people believe is always true,” said Aaka sullenly. “Or at least they think that it is true, which is the same thing. Hearken. If this witch is not killed, or driven away to

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die, or put in her hollow log and sent out to sea so that we look on her no more, the people will kill Wi.”

“Worse things might happen to him, Aaka. For instance, he might live on, hated, to see all his plans fail and all his friends turn against him, as it seems some have done already,” and he looked at her hard, adding, “Come, speak your mind, or let me go.”

“You know it,” said Aaka, staring at the ground with her fine eyes.

“I think I know it,” answered Pag. “I think that you are so jealous of Laleela that you would like to be rid of her. Yet why are you jealous, seeing that Wi by his new law has built a wall between himself and her?”

“Talk not to me of Wi’s foolish laws, for I hate them and all new things,” interrupted Aaka impatiently. “If Wi wishes more wives, let him take them. That I could understand, for it is our custom. What I do not understand is that, seated with her by the fire, he should make a friend and counsellor of this witch, leaving me, his wife, standing outside the hut in the cold while she is warm within; me – and you also, Pag,” she added slowly.

“I understand it well enough,” said Pag. “Wi, being wise and in trouble, seeks wisdom to help him out of his trouble. Finding a lamp to his hand, he holds it up to search the darkness.”

“Yes, and while he stares at this new light, his feet will fall into a pit. Listen, Pag. Once I was Wi’s counsellor. Then you, the wolf-man and outcast whom he had saved, came and took him from me. Now another has come and taken him from both

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