SHORT STORY COMPETITION.

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 136, 11 June 1927, Page 33

SHORT STORY COMPETITION.

"FLAME S."

(By MADELEINE HONEY.)

A girl slipped out from the deep shadows of the gum trees, and, like a ghost in her pale frock in the darkness, flitted across a clearing to the base of a rocky mound. The grass, tinder dry, and the withered bracken crackled faintly beneath her light tread. She peered into the interior of a small cave, and, straightening her body, leant against the rocky surface. She stole a quick, almost a fearful glance, at tlie dark, still trees, and then, head raised, looked at the moon, which swam in a misty sea of night clouds. Though small, and very far away, it gave her a comforting sense of companionship, and the stars were like kind eyes watching. A minute later a mopoke called unhappily in the deep hush of the Australian bush, and Ngreina smiled —an exquisite, trembling smile that fled quickly, leaving her dark face aglow. She answered the call with the clear, | sweet note of the New Zealand bellbird. She stood poised on her toes, then, with a burst of low, happy laughter, she sped to a large blue-gum, and crouched down close to the gnarled trunk. With fluttering fingers she drew the pins out of her hair and the thick black tresses enveloped her. She waited—bright eyes peering out between the strands of hair, and her lithe body quivering with excitement. A tall figure emerged from the bush and crossed to the cave. "Reena, Reena," a deep voice called softly. Ngreina pressed her hand over her mouth and her shoulders shook with suppressed mirth. The melancholy call of the mopoke sounded again, and softly—very softly —the bellbird replied. Ngreina's lover darted to the old tree and saw the vague shape kneeling there. "Little Maori maiden," he whispered. But she neither moved nor spoke. Then he gently parted the veil of hair, and her face gleamed like a pearl between the darkness of the tresses. She slipped into his arms and he kissed her lips long and passionately. Presently he spoke: "Only three more weeks and well be married, Reena! I am waiting for Squatter Wilkinson to leave on his trip to England, and it will be my last coup. Goodbye to cattle stealing and danger." There was a note of regret in his voice. Ngreina began to plead with him, as she had vainly pleaded many times. "Oh, my dear," she said, with a half sob. "It is so dangerous."

He pushed her from him roughly, and in her eyes fear grew—the fear of losing her brown bush lover. Ngreina knew that without his lov® her heart would break. She was young—only nineteen —and in her veins mingled the blood of two races.

"It is for your sake, Reena. Only once more," he muttered. "So that we can live in your beloved New Zealand."

"Yes, the land of my mother's people," she cried eagerly.

He smiled, pleased because the cloud had passed and she was content once more. "I will build you a house, 0 Maori maiden "

"A whare," and she clapped her hands. She went on happily, her eyes shining. "A whare in the bush where the bellbirds and tuis sing; where the lovely red rata flames and the clematis throws its stars over the green. It is there, also, that the wild fuschia and convolvulus grow in profusion. And there my mother lived and watched the lark soar up into the blue and listened to its liquid notes."

She paused, and the clasp of her hand tightened on his.

"I was only little when my mother died and my father brought me to this land—but I remember so clearly the beautiful country of my people."

She raised her eyes to the small white moon, which looked like the dead face of a girl floating on the surface of dark waters.

"In my land there are many legends," she said dreamily. "A forefather of the lark that my mother loved, one day said —"I'll climb above the blue sky and find Rangi." So he flew up—up, singing a song of praise, until he was quite close to the stars. They were so bright and beautiful, and he felt such a wee thing in a big space, that he grew frightened, and in his mad flight he brushed against the stars and dislodged them and they fell to earth. And the white stars are now called clematis. Then Eangi, finding that his Btars had disappeared, grew very angry and searched the sky with his awful eye for the cause. He espied the poor little lark, who was still singing his Te Deum, and fixed on him such a blinding glare that the lark fell and was dashed to pieces on a tree. Where its blood splashed, the tree burst into the red flowers of the rata, which the dusky Maori maidens wear in their hair."

She fell silent, and her lover said: "Ah, Reena, you cannot find any beauty in my land ?"

"No," she said sadly. "It is so vast and cruel it frightens me. When my father died and his brother and wife took me to their home I cried myself to sleep every night. Ah, those dreadful gum trees that seem to be watching and waiting, always watching and waiting! Uncle and aunt never knew how I longed and prayed for the land of my mother. "You understood," she said softly, and her eyes we«e full of light. "You did not keep telling me that Australia was a beautiful land—a wonderful land— a land to be loved. You let me speak Of my mother's country. That was when I first loved you." He drew her to him and they kissed again. Presently he teased her: "Reena, I think you are all little Maori maiden." He lifted to his lips a lock of her hair. "This is the gift of your princess mother; also the dark pallor of your skin—and those red lips of love—" She interrupted, touching her eyes with the tips of her fingers, gravely: "These are the gift of my father's people." "Yes," he agreed eagerly. "They are as blue as an Australian summer sky." She sighed, half regretfully. "My mother's eyes were as dark as the night about us—and they shone like the moon." She put her lips to his ear, and whispered: "My heart must also be the gift of my father's people because it loves you." When the moon had gone, and the air had grown chill with the coming of the dawn, they swayed in a parting embrace ia the shadow, of the trees. .. T. .

The first place in the Short Story Competition is given this month to Mrs. M. Honey, 11, Kerr Street, Devonport, for her story, "Flames." One story has been sent without name or address.

"Don't forget, Reena, I will meet you at this spot to-night fortnight," he whispered, repeating what he had already told her many times. She inclined her head, weighted with its heavy hair. Her arms tightened their clasp. She shivered, and said, with a catch of the breath, "someone passed over my grave." Suddenly she was dreadfully afraid of something. It lay like a dead weight upon her soul. "Squatter Wilkinson is a dangerous man! I don't like—" The unspoken words died upon her Hps. "Haven't I told you hell be on the water, going to England, next week? There's nothing to fear, Reena." A dog howled long and eerily as she stole on stockinged feet along the wooden verandah of her uncle's house. She plunged through the open window, her heart beating fast, and undressed in a frenzy of haste. The 6un was getting up before she fell asleep. She dreamed that she was the little lark which had been dashed to pieces on the rata tree long, long ago. The trees moaned drearily, lashed by a wind that was warm and carried with it the faint aroma of burnt-up grasses and ferns. A big, old moon, tinged, with red, threw a hard light upon the sleeping land. Ngreina sat—a small figure, with bent shoulders—at the entrance to the little cave. Her eyes anxiously searched the bush for the appearance of a well-known form. He was late—later than she had ever known him to be—and the fear that something had happened to her lover grew stronger each minute. She swayed her body gently from side to side, and her fingers tapped the earth in slow rhythm. A confusion of thoughts tumbled through her brain. Every nerve

was keyed up. Her heart raced madly whenever a twig snapped, a bough creaked or the bushes rustled.

The long minutes passed. She lost all count of time, but guessed that it must be growing very late. She thought drearily: "He won't come now," and lived in anticipation the cruel hours that must pass before she could hear any news of her lover. Her eyes smarted with the strain she had put upon them, and she closed them for a few seconds. When she looked again she saw a hatless, dishevelled figure spring out from the black shadows. The blood in her veins seemed to freeze. His face and hands v «were scratched and bleeding, and his clothes were torn. He panted deeply and dreadfully for breath. He caught her to him, and she could hear the wild thudding of his heart. "Reena, they're after me! Squatter Wilkinson laid a trap! There's only one chance—they don't know who it is they are tracking. You can save me—you only! The grass and ferns—gather armfuls quickly, and make a big bonfire." He fumbled in his pockets and pushed into her lifeless hand a box of matches. "The fire will check their advance. The wind is blowing in the right direction. \ou've only a few minutes. I'm done, I can't go much further—if I can only reach the river I'll be safe." Ngreina gazed at him in horror. "If the fire cannot be checked—the wind is very strong—it means that many homes will be ruined, and perhaps lives lost." "Reena, it is mv only chance of escape," he pleaded desperately. "If vou love me you will do this thing. You could not face life knowing you had sent me to gaol — it would be a long sentence. Reena, Reena, you can save me if you will!" His eyes burnt into hers. He kissed her despairingly with dry, hot lips— kissas that filled her heart with pity that was torture. Then the hunted thing, the man she loved, fled into the bush. She stood for perhaps thirty seconds, motionless, her hands crushing the box of matches above her breast. Her eyes were like those of a dead person. Stumbling blindly among the trees, falling and picking herself up, she gathered the first armful of dead bracken. Little sounds, like the cry of a dumb animal in pain, issued from her lips. She did not notice that the wind had changed suddenly, having veered round to the opposite direction, until her task was finished. So great was her relief and thankfulness that she almost swooned. But her mind cleared quickly.

The awful responsibility had been taken out of her hands—but, to her, it was the end. If her lover, by a miracle, reached the far away river, and safety, how could she honour a man who had asked of her such a price? She would love him always, yes, even after she was dead, but to love without respect and trust was worse than ten thousand deaths. She moaned and rocked her body from side to side —her head bent, arms hiding her face. A vision of him, handsome and debonnair, appeared before her eyes, and stabbed her heart. He would forget his Maori maiden. . . and marry a girl of his own land . . . who would never know that his soul was a leprous thing .... The idea maddened the distraught girl. She beat her head on the hard ground and called aloud in the tongue of her mother. The faint baying of a dog roused her. She sprang up, and listened, eyes dilated. The matches scattered at her feet. She stooped hurriedly and collected them with trembling fingers, packing them into the broken box. One lighted—and the whole box of matches spurted into flame. She threw it from her—far, and the blazing thing lodged in the middle of the heap of grass and fern 6he had collected. Instantly it was in flames. For several seconds Ngreina did not grasp the awful significance of what she had unwittingly done. Then it burst upon her with overwhelming force. Those cruel tongues of fire would consume her lover! They would overtake him long before he could gain the river. She felt so weak that she could scarcely keep her feet. Her whole body shook. Then, with a wild despairing scream, she ran towards the advancing flames, beating the air with her little brown hands, as if she strove with her puny strength to force them back. As they swept over her, for the last time, the trembling note of a bellbird rang out in an alien bushland.