Allan and the Ice Gods (39 page)

“Nothing can be worse than the worst. Here certainly we die. Yonder we

may live who in the end cannot do more than die.”

“Pag’s words are mine,” said Moananga when Wi looked toward him, but

Tana was silent because fear had robbed her of all spirit; and Laleela

also held her peace. Only, while they still stared at the ground, the

boy Foh cried out:

“The Chief my father has spoken. Is it for us to weigh his words?”

No one answered, so they rose up and laded the canoe with the food

that Laleela had stored, and the cut-up flesh of the two seals which

now was frozen stiff. The skins of the seals they used, although these

were undressed, for coverings, lashing them over the food with the

paddles and some wood of which others might be made. Lastly, at

Laleela’s bidding, they took a young fir tree that lay in the cave

over which in former days the seal pelts had been hung to dry, that it

might serve to make them a mast, though, except Laleela, none of them

knew anything of the use of masts. Also upon their backs they bound

loads of dry wood and seaweed for the making of fire, wrapped up in

such hides as lay in the cave.

These things done, they dragged the boat over the snow to the ice that

covered the sea and away out on to the ice southward, Laleela walking

ahead to guide them and carrying a pole in her hand with which she

tested the ice.

Thus then did Wi and the others bid farewell to the home of their

fathers, which they were never to see again.

For some hours they dragged the boat thus, making but little progress,

for the face of the packed ice was much rougher than it seemed to be

when looked at from the shore, then rested a while and ate some of

their food. When they rose to try to go forward, though by now most of

them thought the task hopeless, Foh cried out:

“Father, this ice moves. When we stopped, those rocks on the headland

were over against us, and now look, they are behind.”

“It seems that it is so, but I am not sure,” said Wi.

While they discussed the matter, Pag wandered back upon their track.

Presently he returned and said:

“Certainly it moves. The ice sheet has broken behind us and there is

water filled with hummocks that grind against each other between us

and the shore, to which now we cannot return.”

Then they knew that a current was bearing them southward, and some of

them were frightened. But Wi said:

“Let us rather be thankful, for so shall we travel faster.”

Still they continued to push and drag the boat over the rough ice,

though this they did chiefly that they might keep themselves warm, who

feared that they would freeze if they remained still for too long. So

they toiled all day till, toward nightfall, they came to ice upon

which snow had fallen and lay deep. Moreover, it began to fall again,

so that they must stop and make themselves a kind of hut of snow

blocks, as they knew well how to do, in which hut they crouched all

night to protect themselves from cold.

Next morning they found that the snow had ceased; also that now they

were out of sight of the mountains that stood at the back of the beach

which was their home, though they could still see snow-covered peaks

on the headland to the east of them, very far away. Leaving the hut,

they dragged the boat forward over the surface of the snow which had

frozen, so that now it was easy to travel, and thus made good

progress. All that day, resting from time to time, they went on thus,

till, late in the afternoon, the snow began to grow soft and it was

difficult to draw the boat through it. Therefore they stopped, being

tired, and built themselves another snow hut outside which they lit a

fire. On that fire they cooked some of the seal flesh and ate it

thankfully, and then went into the hut and slept, for they were very

weary.

Next morning they found that the snow was still soft and that, if they

tried to walk on it, they sank in to their ankles, so that it was no

longer possible to drag the boat forward.

“We cannot go forward and we cannot go back,” said Wi. “There is but

one thing to do—to stay here, though where that may be I do not know,

for the mountains on the headland have vanished.”

Now Tana broke into weeping and Moananga looked sad, but Aaka said:

“Yes, we stay here till we die; indeed, what other end could be looked

for on such a journey, unless we have a witch among us who can teach

us to fly like the swans?” and she glanced at Laleela.

“That I cannot do,” answered Laleela, “and the journey was one that

must be tried, or so we all thought. Nor need we die for a long while,

seeing that here we have shelter in the snow hut and enough seal’s

flesh to last for many days if we are sparing, and snow that we can

melt to drink. Also I hope that always the ice is bearing us forward,

and it seems to me that the air grows somewhat warmer.”

“Those are wise words,” said Pag. “Now let us make the hut bigger, and

since we can do nothing more for ourselves, trust to the Ice-gods, or

to those that Laleela and Wi worship, or to any others that there may

be.”

So they did these things; also, while their fuel lasted they cooked

the most of the seal flesh after a fashion and set it aside to eat

cold together with the fat, which they swallowed raw.

That day Pag and Moananga spoke much with Laleela, questioning her as

to her journey northward and how long it had taken; about her own land

also, and where it lay—to which she answered as best she could. But

Wi and Laleela talked little together, for whenever they did so Aaka

watched them coldly, which seemed to tie their tongues.

Four more days and nights passed thus, and during this weary night

there was no change, save one, namely, that always the air grew

warmer, by which they knew they were being borne southward, so that at

last the snow began to melt and the walls of their hut to drip. On the

fourth day also they saw behind them, but somewhat to the west, a

mountain of ice that they had not noted before. This mountain seemed

to grow bigger and nearer, as though it were heading toward them, or

they toward it, which told them that all the ice still travelled

though they could not see or feel it move. During that night they

heard terrible rending sounds and felt the ice shake beneath them but,

although it was melting, they did not dare go out of the snow hut to

look whence the sounds came, for a strong wind had begun to blow from

the north, bringing with it clouds that covered the moon.

Toward dawn the wind fell, and presently the sun rose, shining

brightly in a clear sky. Thrusting aside the block of snow that sealed

the entrance hole of the hut, Pag crept out. Presently he returned

and, finding Wi’s hand, without speaking, drew him from the hut,

pushing back the snow block after him.

“Look,” he said as they rose from their knees, and pointed to the

north.

Wi looked and would have fallen, had not Pag caught him. For there,

not more than a hundred paces away, wedged into the thick floes

whereon they floated, was that great ice mountain which they had seen

before they slept, a tall pinnacle ending in a slope of rough ice. And

lo! there, halfway up the slope, held up between blocks of ice and

stone, stood the great Sleeper!

Oh! there could be no doubt, for the light of the rising sun struck

full upon it. There stood the Sleeper as Wi had seen it for all his

life through the veil of ice, only now its left foreleg was broken off

below the knee. Moreover, this was not all, for among the stones and

ice lay strange, silent shapes shrouded in a powder of snow.

“Here be old friends,” said Pag, “if it pleases you to go to look upon

them, Wi, N’gae—no, not N’gae, for of him on whom the Sleeper fell

little would be left; but Urk the Aged and Pitokiti and Hotoa and

Whaka, though no longer will he croak of evil like a raven, and many

others.”

“It does not please me,” said Wi. Then he heard a voice behind him,

that of Aaka, who said:

“You thought you had left the old gods behind, but see, they have

followed after you, Husband, which I think means no good to Pag and

you, who were the first to look upon them whom both of you have

rejected.”

“I do not know what it means, Wife,” said Wi, “nor do I ask. Still,

the sight is strange.”

Then the others came. Moananga was silent, Tana lifted her hands and

screamed, but Laleela said:

“The evil gods may follow, but we go before them, and never shall they

come up with us.”

“That remains to be learned,” said Pag.

As he spoke, the ice peak on which they were looking, whereof the base

had been melted by the warmer waters into which it had floated, began

to tremble and to bow toward them. Thrice it bowed thus, then, with a

slow and noble motion, it turned over. Bearing the Sleeper and its

company with it, it vanished into the sea, and where its head had been

appeared its foot, spotted all about with great rocks that it had

brought with it from the land.

“Farewell to the Ice-gods!” said Laleela with a smile, but Wi cried:

“Back! Back! The wave comes!” and seizing Aaka by the hand he dragged

her away.

They fled, all of them, and not too soon for after them followed a

mingled flood of ice and water, cast up by the overturning of the

berg. Near to their snow hut it stopped and began to recede. Yet the

platform upon which that hut stood rocked and trembled.

In his fear and haste to escape, the lad Foh ran past the hut out on

to the snow plain, whence presently he returned, crying:

“The ice has broken, and far away I see land. Come, Father, and look

upon the land.”

They ran after him, wading through the snow for some two hundred

paces, till before them they beheld a channel of water wide as the

mouth of a great river, down which the current ran furiously, bearing

with it great blocks of ice. This channel wended its way between two

shores of ice, as a river winds between its banks, and seemed to end

at last in a blue and open sea where there was no ice. Far away, at

the edge of that sea, appeared the land of which Foh had spoken, green

hills between which a large river ran into the sea, and valleys with

woods on either side of them that grew upward from the plains lying at

the foot of the hills, clothing their rounded sides. For a few minutes

only they saw this green and pleasant land. Then a mist that seemed to

arise from where the ice mountain had overturned drove down wind and

hid it.

“Yonder is the shore of my country. I know that river and those

hills,” said Laleela.

“Then, the sooner we come there, the better,” answered Pag, “for this

ice which has borne us so far is breaking up beneath us.”

Breaking up it was indeed, having drifted into those warmer waters, of

which once Laleela had spoken as bathing the coasts of her land.

Rapidly it melted beneath their feet. Cracks appeared in it. One

opened beneath the snow hut, which fell to a shapeless heap.

“To the boat!” cried Wi.

They ran back; they took hold of the canoe and dragged it forward

toward the edge of the ice, that here and there began to yawn. They

came to the edge, the women and Foh were thrust in, Moananga followed,

and Pag also by the command of Wi, who held the stern of the boat to

keep its bow straight in the stream, while Laleela and Moananga got

out the paddles. Wi looked at it and saw that it was very heavy laden;

saw that the water almost ran over the edge of the great hollowed log

whereof it was fashioned, saw, too, that if another man entered into

it and the wind blew a little harder, or if it were struck by one of

the blocks of ice that floated past on the swift current, it would

fill and overset so that all would be drowned.

“Come swiftly, Wi,” cried Aaka, and the others also cried, “Come!” for

they found it hard to keep the boat steady.

“I come, I come,” answered Wi, and with all his strength thrust at the

stern so that the boat darted out into the midst of the channel and

there being seized by the fierce current, turned and sped away.

Wi went back a few paces and sat himself down upon a floe that was

bedded in the sheet ice watching. As he went, he heard a splash and,

turning, saw Pag swimming toward the ice. Being very strong, he

reached it and by the help of Wi climbed on to its edge.

“Why do you come?” asked Wi.

“That hollow log is very full,” answered Pag, “and there are too many

women in it, their chatter troubles me.”

Now Wi looked at Pag, and Pag looked at Wi, but neither of them said

anything. They sat upon the floe watching the canoe being borne down

the race between the shores of ice, its head pointing first this way

and then that as though the paddlers were trying to turn it round but

could not. The mist grew thick about it. Then, just before it was

swallowed up in that mist, they saw a tall woman’s shape stand up in

the boat and plunge from it into the water.

“Which of them was it?” asked Wi of Pag in a hollow groaning voice.