Allan and the Ice-Gods

ALLAN AND THE ICE-GODS

upon the rocks. When they had gathered there to the number of a hundred or more, they began to talk, waving their long arms and pointing to the shore with the spears they carried that seemed to be tipped with walrus ivory or white stone.

Wi, watching them from the beach, said to Pag at his side: “Surely these strangers are terrible. See how tall and strong they are, and behold their skins covered with fur and their red hair and beards. I think that they are not men but devils. Only devils could look like that and travel about without women or

children.”

“If so,” answered Pag, “they are very hungry devils, for that big fellow who seems to be their chief, opens his mouth and points down it, also at his stomach, and then waves his hand toward the shore, telling the others thus that there they will find food. Likewise, they are devils who can drown,” and he nodded toward the corpses of one or two of them who had been in those canoes that were overset, which corpses now were rolling to and fro in the shallow water. “For the rest,” he added after a pause, “wives can always be stolen,” and he glanced toward the women of the tribe, who were gathered in little companies behind them, all talking together at once, or screaming and beating their breasts, while the children clung to them terrified.

“Yes,” said Wi. Then he thought for a moment and called certain men to him.

“Go,” he said, “to Urk the Aged, and bid him lead the women, the children, and the old people to the woods and hide them there, for how this business will end, I do not know, and they will be better far away.”

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The men went, and there followed much screaming and confusion. Some of the women began to run toward the woods; others would not move; while others threw their arms about their husbands and tried to drag these away with them.

“Unless this wailing stops, soon the hearts of the men will melt like blubber over a fire,” said Pag. “Look. Some of them are creeping away to the women.”

“Go you and drive them to the woods,” said Wi.

“Nay,” answered Pag, “I who never liked the company of women overmuch stay where I am.”

Now Wi took another counsel. Seeing Aaka standing at a distance between the women and the men, or most of them, whom Moananga was marshalling as best he might, he called to her. She heard and came to him, for Aaka did not lack courage.

“Wife,” he said, “those red devils are going to attack us, and we must kill them or be killed.”

“That I know,” answered Aaka calmly.

“It is best,” went on Wi, looking down and speaking in a rapid voice, “that the women should not see the fighting. I ask you, therefore, to lead them all to the woods and hide them away, together with the old people and children and those who have run there already. Afterward you can return.”

“What is the use of returning to find our men dead? It is better that we should stay here and die with them.”

“You would not die, Aaka. Those Red Wanderers may want wives. At least, you would not die at once, though in the end they might kill and eat you. Therefore I command you to go.”

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“Surely the Witch-from-the-Sea who guided the Wanderers to attack us should go also before she works more treachery,” answered Aaka.

“She did not guide them; she fled before them,” exclaimed Wi angrily. “Still, take her with you if you will, and Foh also. Only drive back any men. Go now, I command you.”

“I obey,” said Aaka, “but know, Husband, that, although we have grown away from each other, if you die, I die also, because once we were close together.”

“I thank you,” answered Wi. “Yet, if that should happen, I say – live on, rule the tribe, and build it up afresh.”

“Of what use are women without men?” replied Aaka, shrugging her shoulders.

Then she turned to walk away, and as she went, Wi saw her wipe her eyes with the back of her hand. She reached the women and cried out something to them in a fierce voice, repeating it again and again, till presently they began to move away with the aged, dragging the children by the hand or carrying them, so that at last the tumult died and the sad company vanished among the first of the trees.

All this while the Red-Beards had been jabbering together, making their plans. At last these seemed to be settled, for by the help of their boats a number of them crossed the mouth of the bay and gathered upon the line of rocks to the left that now, at low tide, also stood bare above the water. Others, too, in some of the boats set themselves in order between these jaws of rock, as though preparing to paddle toward the shore.

Pag noted this and cried out exultingly:

“That they cannot do, for their boats will overset upon the reefs that lie beneath the waves, and they will be drowned in

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the deep holes between, like those fellows,” and he pointed to the bodies rolling about in the surf.

But such was not the purpose of the red-haired men, as presently he was to learn.

As he spoke Wi heard the crunching of little shells in the sand behind him and looked round to see who came. Behold, it was Laleela, clad in her blue cloak and holding a spear in her hand.

“Why are you here?” he asked angrily. “Why have you not gone to the woods with the other women?”

“Your orders were to the tribe,” she replied in a quiet voice. “I am not of the tribe, so I hid in a hut till all were gone. Be not wrath, Chief,” she went on, in a gentle voice, “for I, who have seen other tribes and their fightings, may be able to give good counsel.”

Now he began to speak angry words to her and bid her begone, of which, standing at his side, she took no heed but only stared out at the sea. Then, suddenly, with a cry of “I thought it!” she leapt in front of Wi, whose face was shoreward, and next instant staggered back, falling into his arms as he turned. He stared at her, as did Pag, and lo! they saw that in her cloak stood a little spear with feathers on it which had struck her just above the breast.

“Pull it out, Pag,” she said, recovering her feet. “It is an arrow, which other peoples use, and well was it for me that this cloak is so good and thick.”

“Had you not sprung in front of me, that little spear would have pierced me,” exclaimed Wi, staring at her.

“It was by a chance,” answered Laleela with a smile.

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“You lie,” said Wi, at which she only smiled again and drew the cloak more closely about her. Aye, while Pag pulled she still smiled, though he noted that her lips turned pale and twitched. At length the arrow came out, and he noted something else: namely, that on its bone barb there was blood and a little piece of flesh, though, being wise, of this he said nothing.

“Lie down, Chief,” said Laleela, “there, behind that rock; and you also, Pag, for so you will be safer. I also will lie down,” and she did so. “Now hearken to me,” she went on. “Those RedBeards, or some of them, have bows and arrows, as we have just learned, and their plan is to shoot at you from the boats until the tide is quite low, and then to climb along both lines of rock and attack you.”

At this moment Moananga came up and was also made to lie down.

“Perhaps,” said Wi, “and if so, we had better draw out of the reach of the little spears.”

“That is what they want you to do,” answered Laleela, “for then they will climb along the lines of rock quietly and without hurt. I have another counsel, if it pleases you to hear it.”

“What is it?” said Wi and Moananga together.

“This, Chief: You and all the people know those rocks and where the deep water holes are between them, since from childhood you have gathered shellfish there. Now, divide your men into two companies, and do you command one while Moananga commands the other. Clamber along those rocks to the right and left with the companies and attack the RedBeards on them, for, when they see you coming so boldly, some of them will get into the boats. The others you must fight and

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kill; nor will those in the boats who have bows and arrows be able to shoot much at you, for fear lest they should hit their own people. Do this, and swiftly.”

“Those are good words,” said Wi. “Moananga, do you take the left line of rocks with half the men, and I will take the right with the rest. And, Laleela, I bid you remain here, or fly.”

“Yes, I will remain here,” said Laleela, rather faintly and turning on her face, so that none should see the stain of blood soaking through her blue robe. Yet, as they went, she cried after them:

“Bid your people take stones, Wi and Moananga, that they may cast them into the boats and break their bottoms.”

Coming to the men of the tribe who stood there in knots looking very wretched and afraid, most of them, as they stared at the hairy RedBeards upon the rocks and in their boats, Wi addressed them in a few hard words, saying:

“Yonder Red-Beards come from I know not whence. They are starving, which will make them very brave, and they mean to kill us, every one, and to take first our food and then our women, if they can find them; also perhaps to eat the children. Now, we count as many heads as they do, perhaps more, and it will be a great shame to us if we allow ourselves to be conquered, our old people butchered, our women taken, and our children eaten by these Red Wanderers. Is it not so?”

To this question the crowd answered that it was, yet without eagerness, for the eyes of most of them were turned toward the woods, whither the women had gone. Then Moananga said:

“I am chief in this matter. If any man runs away, I will kill him at once if I can. And if not I will kill him afterward.”

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“And I,” added Pag, “who have a good memory, will keep my eye fixed on all and remember what every man does, which afterward I will report to the women.”

Then the force was divided into two companies, of whom the bravest were put in the rear to prevent the others from running away. This done, they began to scramble along the two horns of rock that enclosed the little bay, wading round the pools that lay between the rocks, for they knew where the water was deep and where it was shallow.

When the Red-Beards saw them coming, they made a howling noise, wagging their heads so that their long beards shook, and beating their breasts with their left hands. Moreover, waving their spears they did not wait to be attacked, but clambered forward down the rocks, while those of them in the boats shot arrows, a few of which hit men of the tribe and wounded them.

Now, at the sight of blood flowing from their brothers whom the arrows had struck, the tribe went mad. In an instant they seemed to forget all their fears; it was as though something of which neither they nor their fathers had thought for hundreds of years came back to their hearts. They waved their stone axes and flint-pointed spears, they shouted, making a sound like to that of wolves or other wild beasts; they gnashed their teeth and leapt into the air, and began to rush forward. Yet, moved by the same thought, Wi and Moananga made them stay where they were for a while, for they knew what would happen to the Red-Beards.

This happened: These Red-Beards, also leaping forward, slipped upon the seaweed-covered rocks and fell into the pools between them. Or, if they did not fall, they tried to wade these

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pools, not knowing which were deep and which were shallow, so that many of them went under water and came up again spluttering. Then Wi and Moananga screamed to the tribe to charge.

On they went, bounding from rock to rock, as they could do readily enough who from boyhood had known every one of these stones and where to set their feet upon them. Then, coming to the pools into which the Red-Beards had fallen, they attacked them as they tried to climb out, breaking their skulls with axes and stones and thus killing a number without loss to themselves.

Now, the Red-Beards scrambled back to the ends of the two horns of rock, purposing to make a stand there, and here the tribe attacked them, led by Wi and Moananga. That fight was very hard, for the RedBeards were strong and fierce, and drove their big, ivory-pointed spears through the bodies of a number of the tribe. Indeed, it looked ill for the tribe, until Wi, with his bright ax that Pag had made, that with which he slew Henga, killed a great fellow who seemed to be the chief of the Red-Beards, cutting his head in two so that he fell down into the water. Seeing this, the Red-Beards wailed aloud and, seized by a sudden panic, rushed for the boats into which they began to scramble as best they could. Then Wi and Moananga remembered the counsel of Laleela and gave commands to the tribe to throw the heaviest stones they could lift into the boats. This they did, breaking the bottoms of most of them, so that water flowed in and they sank.

The men in the boats swam about till they drowned or tried to come to the shore, where they were met with spears or stones, so that they died – every one of them. The end of

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it was that but five boatloads got away, and these rowed out to sea and were never seen again. That night, a wind blew in which they may have foundered; or, perhaps, being so hungry, they starved upon the sea. At least the tribe saw no more of them. They came none knew whence, and they went none knew whither. Only the most of them remained behind in the pools of the rocks or sunk in the deep sea beyond the rocks.

Thus ended the fight, the first that the tribe had ever known.

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CHAPTER 15

WI KISSES LALEELA

When all was over, Wi and Moananga, having come together on the shore, bearing the hurt with them, counted their losses. They found that in all twelve men had been killed and twentyone wounded, among whom was Moananga, who was hit in the side with an arrow, though not badly. Of the RedBeards, however, more than sixty had died, most of them by drowning; at least, this was the number that they found after the next high tide had washed up the bodies. There may have been more that were taken out to sea.

“It is a great victory,” said Moananga, as Wi washed the wound in his side with salt water, “and the tribe fought well.”

“Yes,” answered Wi, “the tribe fought very well.”

“Yet,” interrupted Pag, “it was the Witch-from-the-Sea who won the fight by her counsel, for I think that, had we waited for the RedBeards to attack us on the beach, it would have ended otherwise. Also it was she who taught us to throw stones into the boats.”

“That is true,” said Wi. “Let us go to thank her.”

So they went, all three of them, and found Laleela lying where they had left her behind the rock, but face downward.

“She has fallen asleep, who must be very weary,” said Moananga.

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