Allan and the Ice Gods

Chapter XX The Sum of the Matter

I, Allan Quatermain, woke up, to notice that, as on the previous occasion when Lady Ragnall and I took the Taduki together, my trance must have been brief. Although I had forgotten to look at the time, as it chanced, I could measure its duration by another method. The Taduki herb, as I knew, soon burned itself away, yet, when I awoke, the last little vapour, so thin and faint that it could scarcely be discerned, was rising from its embers.

Good gracious! I thought to myself, how could all those things have happened in that unknown land and age in much less time than it takes the stump of a cigarette to die.

Then I remembered Good, for, although my head seemed rather heavy at first, my brain was clear enough, and looked at him, not without alarm, or rather anxiety, for if anything had happened to Good what would my position be?

There he was in his armchair, his head lying back, staring at me with his eyes half–opened, much as a cat does sometimes when it is pretending to be asleep, but is really very wide awake indeed. Also he resembled something else, a man who was drunk, an effect that was heightened presently by his trying to speak and producing only prolonged stutterings and a word that sounded like "whisky."

"No, you don't," I said. "It is far too soon to drink. Alcohol and Taduki might not agree."

Then Good said a word that he should have left unsaid, sat up, shook himself, and remarked:

"I say, Wi—for you are Wi, aren't you?—how in the name of the Holy Roman Empire—or of the Ice–gods and the Sleeper—did I get out of that canoe, and where's Laleela?"

"Before I answer your questions, which seem absurd, might I ask you, Good, what you considered your name to be when you were in the canoe of which you speak?"

"Name? Why, Moananga, of course. Dash it all! Wi, you haven't forgotten your own brother, have you, who stuck to you through thick and thin—well, like a brother in a book."

"Then if you were Moananga, why do you not ask after Tana instead of Laleela?"

"I wonder," said Good reflectively. "I suppose it was because she was out of the picture just then, lying at the bottom of the canoe overcome with the horrors, or seasickness, or something, you know, with that dear boy, Foh, sitting on her. Also, you needn't be jealous, old chap, for, although I did try to cut in when you were doing the pious over that tomfool oath of yours and the rest of it, it wasn't the slightest use. She just smiled me out of court, so to speak, and like you, made remarks about Tana. But where's Laleela? You haven't hidden her away anywhere, have you?" and he stared round the room in a foolish fashion.

"That's just what I want to know," I answered. "Indeed, to tell you the truth, I never remember wanting to know anything quite so much in all my life."

"Then I can't tell you. The last I saw of her, she was in the canoe, trying to get the head of the crazy thing round with a paddle—which I didn't know how to do."

"Look here, Good," I said. "This is a serious matter, so pull yourself together and tell me exactly what you remember just before you woke."

"Only this. The canoe was bobbing about, being carried shoreward down that infernal tide race or current between the two banks of ice, at, I should say, not less than eight or nine knots. Moreover, it was rocking because that fiddle–headed dwarf, Pag, nearly overset it when he jumped out like a seal from a rock and began to swim toward the ice bank we had left, because he thought we were all going to be drowned, I suppose. So there remained only Aaka, Laleela, Tana, Foh, and myself. Laleela, as I have told you, was trying to get the craft round, Tana was wailing and sobbing, that plucky lad Foh was quite still—I can see his white face and big eyes now, and Aaka, sitting in the bottom of the canoe, gripping the thwarts with both her outstretched hands but still looking very dignified, was making unpleasant remarks to Laleela as to her having murdered you, Wi, Aaka's husband and her lover, or something of the sort, to which Laleela returned no answer. Then, just as I was shoving away a cake of floating ice which cut my hand, everything went out like a candle, and here I am. For heaven's sake, tell me, where is Laleela?"

"I am afraid, old fellow, we shall ask ourselves that question for the rest of our days yet never learn the answer," I replied solemnly. "Listen, I saw a little more than you did. Pag reached the ice bank and I pulled him to my side. He said that he had jumped out of the canoe because it was too full and there were too many women in it for his liking. But what the dear chap really meant was that he preferred to return to die with me."

"Good old Pag!" ejaculated Moananga—I mean, Good.

"After that," I went on, "the canoe ran into the spindrift which the wind lashed up, and the sea fog―"

"Always get it with thawing ice," interrupted Good. "Once nearly lost in it myself off the coast of Newfoundland."

"—and for a moment Pag and I lost sight of it. It reappeared between two billows of fog a hundred yards or more away, and then—well, then we saw a tall woman spring suddenly from the canoe into the sea. But, as you will remember, both Aaka and Laleela were tall, exactly of a height indeed, and neither of us could tell which of them it was that the sea took. Next instant the mist closed in again."

"Did you see the woman rise up in the canoe? Aaka was sitting down, you remember."

"No, we only saw the spring."

"That sounds like Laleela," said Good, "for she was standing. And yet I do not think it can have been, for she was doing all she knew to try to bring the craft round, thinking to creep back to fetch you by the edge of the ice where the current did not run so fiercely. The last thing she said was to call to me to get out the other paddle and help. Indeed, I had it in my hand but, being a landlubber, hardly knew how to use it."

"I don't think Laleela could have done such a thing, Good. Suicide was against her principles. Indeed, she reproached me upon that very matter. Also, her own country was just ahead of her, and she would wish to reach it, if only to make sure that Foh and Aaka—yes, Aaka— met with a good reception. Yet who knows?"

"Aaka had a very bitter tongue," remarked Good. "Also, by then, Laleela saw that we could never get back against that race, and she was mad with grief; so, as you say—who knows?" and he groaned, while I—well, never mind what I did.

For a time there was silence between us, a very depressing silence, because both of us were overcome. It was broken by Good asking humbly enough if I thought he might have some whisky now.

"I don't know, and I don't care, but for my part I mean to risk it," I said, and going to the side table I helped myself freely, as did Good, only more so.

Teetotallers may say what they like, but alcohol in moderation often is a friend in trouble. So, at least, we found, for, as we put that whisky down, our spirits rose considerably.

"Look here!" said Good presently while he lit his pipe and I occupied myself in hiding away that confounded Taduki outfit, which I both hated and blessed. I hated it because it seemed to be possessed by an imp which, like a will–'o–the–wisp, led one on and on to the edge of some great denouement, and then, in the very moment of crisis, vanished away, leaving one floundering in a bog of doubt and wonder. I blessed it because these dreams it gave were, to me at any rate, so very suggestive and interesting.

"Look here!" repeated Good. "You are a clever old boy in your way, and one who thinks a lot. So be kind enough to tell me what all this business means. Do you suggest that you and I have been reading some chapters out of a former existence of our own?"

"I suggest nothing," I answered sharply; "the thing is beyond me. But if you want to know, I don't much believe in the former existence solution. Does it not occur to you that we must all of us, perhaps fifty thousand, perhaps five hundred thousand years ago, have had just such ancestors as Wi and the rest of them? And is it not possible that this drug may have the power of awakening the ancestral memory which has come down to us with our spark of life through scores of intervening forefathers?"

"Yes, that's right enough. And yet, Allan, in a way, the thing is too perfect. Remember that we understood and used the language of those prehistoric beachcombers, although we have forgotten every word of it now—or at least I have. Remember that we saw, not only our own careers, but those of other people with whose ancestral memories we have nothing to do; moreover, that some of those people reminded us, or at any rate me, of folk whom I have known in this life; just as though the whole lot of us had reappeared together."

"That's the very point, Good. Men are queer bundles of mystery. For the most part, they seem quite commonplace, what might be called matter–of–fact, yet I believe that inside there are few who are not stuffed with imagination, as our dreams show us. Supposing that we are dealing with our own ancestral pasts; if that be so, we could quite well invent the rest, using the staff that lies to our hands, namely our knowledge of others with whom we have been intimate in life. These would be the foundation upon which the dreams were built up, the bits of glass that make the pattern in the kaleidoscope."

"If so, all I have to say is that your kaleidoscope is an uncommonly clever machine, because anything more natural than those dirty people upon the beach I never knew, Allan. Still, one thing seems to support your argument. Wi, the great hunter of the tribe, who by birth and surroundings was a most elementary savage, showed himself much in advance of his age. He made laws; he thought about the good of others; he resisted his perfectly natural inclinations; he adopted a higher religion when it was brought to his knowledge; he was patient under provocation; he offered himself up as a sacrifice to the gods in whom he no longer believed, because his people believed in them and he thought that his voluntary death would act as a kind of faith cure among them, which is one of the noblest deeds I have ever heard of among men. Lastly, when he saw that a confounded hollowed–out log, which by courtesy may be called a canoe or a boat, was overcrowded and likely to sink in a kind of ice–packed mill race, he thrust it out into the stream and himself remained behind to die, although it contained all that he cared about—his wife, another woman who loved him, his son, and perhaps, I may add, his brother. I say that the man who did these things, not to mention others, was a hero and a Christian martyr rolled into one, with something of the saint and Solon, who I believe was the first recorded lawgiver, thrown in. Now, I ask you, Allan, could such a person by any possibility have existed in paleolithic or pre–paleolithic times at that period of the world's history when one of the ice ages was beginning? Also the same question may be asked of Laleela."

"You must remember," I answered, "that Wi was not such a hero as you suppose. He offered to sacrifice himself chiefly in order to save his family, or one of them, just as most men would do in like circumstances. As regards Laleela, she and everything about her were mysterious—her origin, her noble patience, and especially her self– control. But it is quite obvious that she belonged to another stratum of civilization, I presume that which we call neolithic, since she told me—I mean Wi—that her people grew crops; kept cows, with other domestic animals; had some advanced form of religion with a divinity that was symbolized by the moon; and so forth. Well, there is nothing strange about all this, since now we know that in prehistoric days races in very different stages of advancement existed in the world at the same time. It is quite possible that Wi and his company lived in their paleolithic simplicity, let us say somewhere in Scotland (those red–headed wanderers who descended upon them suggest Scotland), while Laleela and her people existed perhaps in the south of Ireland or in France, where the climate was much warmer and the ice did not come."

"Probably; Wi and Co. might have lived anywhere in a cold district and gone to any warmer shore—perhaps one washed by the Gulf Stream," answered Good. "At any rate, one thing is obvious. If there is anything in this dream of ours, it tells of a tragedy that must often have happened in the world. I mean, the coming of an ice age."

"Yes," I said. "All about the northern shores there must have been 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