Free Allan and the Ice Gods by H. Rider Haggard Page A

because I wished to see those
    things no more, perhaps because it is a custom to bury with the dead
    what they loved when they were alive.”
    Then he turned and left the hut. Aaka watched him go, muttering to
    herself:
    “He is right. I am mad with grief for Fo-a and with fear for Foh; for
    it is the children that we women love, yes, more than the man who
    begat them; and if I thought that I should never find her again, then
    I would die at once and have done. Meanwhile, I live on to see Wi dash
    out the brains of Henga, or, if he is killed, to help Pag poison him.
    They say that Pag is a wolf, but, though I hate him of whom Wi thinks
    too much, what care I whether he be wolf or monster? At least he loves
    Wi and our children and will help me to be revenged on Henga.”
    Presently she heard the wild-bull horn that served the tribe as a
    trumpet being blown, and knew that Wini-wini, he who was called the
    Shudderer because he shook like a jellyfish even if not frightened,
    which was seldom, was summoning the people that they might talk
    together or hear news. Guessing what that news would be, Aaka threw
    her skin cloak about her and followed the sound of the horn to the
    place of assembly.
    Here, on a flat piece of ground at a distance from the huts that lay
    about two hundred paces from a cliff-like spur of the mountain, all
    the people, men, women, and children, except a few who were in
    childbed or too sick or old to move, were gathering together. As they
    walked or ran, they chattered excitedly, delighted that something was
    happening to break the terrible sadness of their lives, now and again
    pointing toward the mouth of the great cave that appeared in the stone
    cliff opposite to the meeting place. In this cave dwelt Henga, for by
    right, from time immemorial, it was the home of the chiefs of the
    tribe, which none might enter save by permission, a sacred place like
    to the palaces of modern times.
    Aaka walked on, feeling that she was being watched by the others but
    taking no heed, for she knew the reason. She was Wi’s woman, and the
    rumour had run round that Wi the Strong, Wi the Great Hunter, Wi whose
    little daughter had been murdered, was about to do something strange,
    though what it might be none was sure. All of them longed to ask Aaka,
    but there was something in her eye which forbade them, for she was
    cold and stately and they feared her a little. So she went on
    unmolested, looking for Foh, of whom presently she caught sight
    walking in the company of Pag, who still had the reeking wolfskin on
    his shoulders, of which, as he was short, the tail dragged along the
    ground. She noted that, as he advanced, the people made way for him,
    not from reverence or love, but because they feared him and his evil
    eye.
    “Look,” said one woman to another in hearing, “there goes he who hates
    us, the spear-tongued dwarf.”
    “Aye,” answered the other. “He is in such haste that he has forgotten
    to take off the wolf’s hide he hunted in last night. Have you heard
    that Buk’s wife has lost her little child of three? It is said that
    the bears took it, but perhaps yonder wolf-man knows better.”
    “Yet Foh does not fear him. Look, he holds his hand and laughs.”
    “No, because–-” Here suddenly the woman caught sight of Aaka and was
    silent.
    “I wonder,” reflected Aaka, “whether we women hate Pag because he is
    ugly and hates us, or because he is cleverer than we are and pierces
    us with his tongue. I wonder also why they all think he is half a
    wolf. I suppose it is because he hunts with Wi, for how can he be both
    a man and a wolf? At least, I too believe that report speaks truth and
    that he and the wolves have dealings together. Or perhaps he puts the
    tale about that all may fear him.”
    She came to the meeting ground and took her stand near to Foh and Pag
    among the crowd which stood or sat in a ring about an open space of
    empty ground where sometimes the tribe danced when they had