Генри Хаггард - Allan and the Ice Gods

"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

See the books The Ivory Child and The Ancient Allan .