Allan and the Ice Gods (30 page)

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 Red-Beards 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.”

“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 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 Red-Beards 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 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.

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 twenty-one wounded, among whom was

Moananga, who was hit in the side with an arrow, though not badly. Of

the Red-Beards, 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 Red-Beards 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.

“Yes,” said Wi. “Yet it is strange to sleep when death is so near,”

and he looked at her doubtfully.

Pag said nothing, only, kneeling down, he thrust his long arms

underneath Laleela and turned her over onto her back. Then they saw

that the sand beneath her was red with blood and that her blue robe

was also red. Now Wi cried aloud and would have fallen had not

Moananga caught him by the arm.

“Laleela is dead!” he said in a hollow voice. “Laleela, who saved us,

is dead.”

“Then I know one who will be glad,” muttered Pag. “Still, be not so

sure.”

Then he opened her robe, and they saw the wound beneath her breast,

which still bled a little. Pag, who was skilled in the treating of

hurts, bent down and examined it, and while he did so, Moananga said

to Wi:

“Do you understand, Brother, that the little spear gave her this wound

while she was talking to us, and that she hid it so that none of us

knew she had been pierced?”

Wi nodded like one who will not trust himself to speak.

“I knew well enough,” growled Pag, “I who drew out the arrow.”

“Then why did you not tell us?” asked Moananga.

“Because if Wi had known that this Witch-from-the-Sea was smitten in

the breast, the heart would have gone out of him and his knees would

have become feeble. Better that she should die than that the heart of

our chief should have turned to water while the Red Wanderers gathered

to kill us.”

“What of the wound?” asked Wi, paying no heed to this talk.

“Be comforted,” answered Pag. “Although she has bled much, I do not

think that it is deep, because this thick cloak of hers almost stopped

the little spear. Therefore, unless the point was poisoned, I believe

that she will live. Stay now and watch her.”

Then he shambled off toward certain bushes and sea herbs that grew

upon the beach, and searched among them till he found one that he

sought. From this he plucked a number of leaves which he put into his

mouth and chewed between his great teeth. He returned and, taking the

green pulp from his mouth, thrust some of it into Laleela’s wound and

the rest into that of Moananga.

“It burns,” said Moananga, wincing.

“Aye, it burns out poison and staunches blood,” answered Pag as he

covered Laleela with her cloak.

Then Wi seemed to awake from the deep thoughts into which he had

fallen, for, stooping down, he lifted Laleela in his arms as though

she were a child and strode away with her toward the cave, followed by

Pag and Moananga, also by certain of the tribe who waved their spears

and shouted. By this time the women were returning from the woods, for

some of the younger and more active of them had climbed tall trees

and, watching all, though from far away, had made report to those

below, who, learning that the Red Wanderers had fled or been killed,

trooped back to the huts, leaving the aged and the children to follow

after.

The first of all came Foh, running like a deer.

“Father!” he cried in an angry voice as he met Wi, “am I a child that

I should be dragged off to woods by women when you are fighting?”

“Hush!” said Wi, nodding his head at the burden in his arms, “hush, my

son. We will talk of these matters afterward.”

Then appeared Aaka, calm-faced and stately, although, if the truth

were known, she had run also and with much swiftness.

“Welcome, Husband,” she said. “They tell me that you have conquered

those Red-Beards. Is it true?”

“It seems so, Wife—at least they have been conquered. Afterward I

will tell you the tale.”

As he spoke, he strove to pass her by, but she stepped in front of him

and asked again:

“If that Witch-from-the-Sea has been killed for her treachery, why do

you carry her in your arms?”

Wi gave no answer, for anger made him speechless. But Pag laughed

hoarsely and said:

“In throwing stones at the kite you have hit the dove, Aaka. The

Witch-from-the-Sea whom Wi clasps upon his breast has not died for

treachery. If she be dead, death came upon her in saving Wi’s life,

since she leapt in front of him and received into her bosom that which

would have pierced him through, and this not by chance.”

“Such things might have been looked for from her, who is ever where

she should not be. What did she among the men—she who ought to have

accompanied the women?” asked Aaka.

“I don’t know,” answered Pag. “I only know that she saved Wi’s life by

offering up her own.”

“Is it so, Pag? Then it is his turn to save hers, if he can; or to

bury her if he cannot. Now I go to tend the wounded of our own people.

Come with me, Tana, for I see that Moananga’s hurt has been dressed

and that we are not wanted here,” and tossing her head, she walked

away slowly.

But Tana did not follow her, being curious to learn the tale of

Laleela; also to make sure that Moananga had taken no harm.

Wi bore Laleela into the cave and laid her down upon the bed where she

slept near to the cast-out children. Tana took Moananga away, and Pag

went to make broth to pour down Laleela’s throat, so that Wi and

Laleela seemed to be left alone, though they were not, for the women

who nursed the cast-outs watched them from dark places in the cave. Wi

threw fur wrappings over her, and taking her hand, rubbed it between

his own. In the warmth of the cave, where fire still burned, Laleela

woke up and began to talk like one who dreams.

“Just in time! Just in time,” she said, “for I saw the arrow coming,

though they did not, and leapt into its path. It would have killed

him. If I saved him, all is well, for what matters the life of a

stranger wanted of none, not even of him?”

Then she opened her eyes and, looking upward, by the light of the fire

saw the eyes of Wi gazing down upon her.

“Do I live,” she murmured, “and do you live, Wi?”

Wi made no answer; only he bent his head and kissed her on the lips,

and although she was so weak, she kissed him back, then turned away

her head and seemed to go to sleep. But asleep or awake, Wi went on

kissing her, till Pag came with the broth, and after him the women

with the cast-out children appeared from their hiding places,

chattering like starlings before they flight in autumn.