THE PEBBLE PATH

Evening Star, Issue 19352, 11 September 1926, Page 13

THE PEBBLE PATH

BY EDITH HOWES,

CHAPTER IX. fn the night she was awakened by the cold. The fire was out, and the wind blew icily down the wide chimney. She reached out and opened her box, and spread most of its contents over herself, but she shivered still under all her coverings. She was glad to rise with the first gleam of light and warm herself by movement. All day the wind howled, and all day she gathered wood. In under the slapping scrub she went with her axe, chopping, dragging, carrying, whipped and stung and buffeted, but unrelenting, till by nightfall she had stacked a great pile of fuel beside her doorway, making a brenkwind from the icy south as well as provision for her tiro. Some of the roots she found were thick and tough enough to burn for a considerable time.

Her mind was on fuel, her eyes were alert for it. When she wont down to the stream for water at midday she noticed an outcrop of black fibrous earth along the hank. “Peat!”’ she exclaimed thankfully. “ The peasant,' at home burn peat, and so will I.’’ She cut some blocks of it and staciccd tu.ni on the other side of her doorway. If she were to sleep in this cold-bitten land she must keep a fire going all night. Peat would enable her to do so. She tried it out that night. The peat, though wet and slow, smouldered dully even from the first, and kept the fire just alight. By rising and adding wood once or twice >ho succeeded iu keeping the hut at a Lear able temperature until morning. As the peat dried it would burn mere readily, and there would be no need for her to replenish the fire. She would cut and stack plenty of peat. The fire need never go out. Day dawned windless and clear. Wonderful to step out through the doorway and not he seized upon and rent. The inlet, fifty yards below, still heaved from the gale’s stirrings, and the little stream on the right gleamed' coldly in the grey morning light; but the stillness of the air was a blessed relief. Charlotte turned and nodded friendly to the domed height from which the stream ran down. “ 1 am coming to look over your shoulder today,” she said. “ I hope you have something to show me.” She washed, die, looped up her skirts with cords and fastened them in such a way that they should hamper her as little as possible, tied her thin black shawl overhead and shoulders, and set out for the heights, biscuit in pocket, axe in hand, hope in her heart.

She would have liked to take the gun, but the axe was necessary to cut

her way, and she could not well cany both. Yet as she went she kept sharp watch for any animals that might perchance supply food and skins, but in all that day’s journeying sho saw none, not so much as a rabbit. Sea birds there were, circling overhead or screaming down to the inlet behind her; but no land bird did sho sec, nor any laud animal.

From the hut the dome had appeared about'two miles off; in reality, as she found to her cost eventually, it was nearly three times that distance away, and the going, on the lover levels at any rate, was exhaustion itself. At first there was the mat on which to walk. Peering below in places where she could force an entrance to see whether or not any life might lurk beneath, sho discovered that many of the tree trunks ran for yards, bent parallel with the ground. Tough and gnarled and thick with ago, they yet could not raise themselves into an upright position. Sho regarded them gravely. They wore a too-eloquent testimony to the fury and prevalence of the winds.

Sho went on. Presently site came to a less unsheltered tract. Here the scrub grew as tall as that surrounding her hut, but was of a different character and less pleasing. Jt stood barostemined and black-scarred and sinister ; at the ends of the branches tufts of long, narrow, grass-liko leaves hung from protecting sheaths. Though grassliko in appearance, tho leaves were not pliable, but stiff and harsh, and, as they wore often a foot or more _in length, they added much to tho difficulty of tho journey. Beneath them grew entangling masses of creepers and ferns and prostrate lianes. Pushing and hacking her' way slowly and painfully, sho crept on and up. Sho cam© to a bog, and found herself sunk to tho ankles in cold oow> before discovering that tho hog was there. Sho tried to skirt it, but slipped into it moro than onco on her way round its edges. At times sho was overcome with weariness, and hung to a branch, panting and waiting for tho return of strength. At times sho wont moro easily. Sho came ont to lessor scrub onoo rporc. and was glad to stretch herself full length upon it, and so rest. Soon sho wont on again. At last the bush began to give way to open heathy spaces sot with great tussocks. Sho was upon tho flank of tho dome. Tho going became easier now, and sho climbed with strength renewed by hope. Up and np sho went, her eyes necessarily on her footinsz, but her mind eagerly busied with visions of what might he beyond that immense shoulder towering above her. Now the way grew rocky and rough, and at times precipitous. She clung and clambered and scrambled, sometimes rounding the rocks, sometimes pulling herself up their rugged fares, sometimes jumping from one to another. At long last she reached tho summit. Breathless and trembling, she stood beside a broken crag, and looked down on the other side of Ihe dome. No village, no house, no hut—nothing but crowded hills and dills dropping” sheer to the sea. This hind on which she had been marooned was but a little island. There was no room down there for the village she had dreamed of. no level space on which it might stand; nor could she see ary beach or hay by which this end of the island might ho entered. Before her lay only rocky points and deepness, ravines and precipices, aid the sen foaming white far below at the foot of impregnable cliff-walls. Tho only habitable land and the only entrance to it lay behind her. where the silver of the inlet threaded the green-grey of the slopes, She turned ■and looked, and for a moment the thin trail of smoke from the hut brought a warmth to her heart. It'wns, the or.'y sign of life in all that wide horiron. On every side boundless ocean stretched steel grey beneath tire rim of a sfeelgrey sky. The. island, eight or nine or perhaps ten miles across in its widest part, was hut a speck in the vast ness of the water. Sho herself, standing on its topmost peak, was a pitiful mite, an aching speck of loneliness. Intolerably small, intolerably' alone. She had buoyed herself up with hopes, kopt despair at bav with vis.ons. Now the sickness of disappointment hove*] her, shattered her control, laid her prostrate. She could stand no longer, physically or mentally. Sinking to her knees against the rock* with uplifted

Author of ‘ The Sun’s Babies,’ ‘ The Cradle Ship,’ Maoriland Eairy Talcs,’ etc., etc. [All Otago Bights Bescrved.]

hands she boat against it as against her fate. “I cannot bear it,” she moaned; “ I cannot bear it.” Sho lifted streaming eyes blindly to the heavens. “ What have I done that this should be my lot? Will You not pity me and send aid? Are You there? Can You uot hear?” After a long while she pulled herself to her feet, turned her face towards the hut, and began the descent, running desperately, stumbling, fleeing from the sight of that appalling width of waters, trying to flee from the agony of solitude that enveloped her, preyed in upon her, would not lie left behind. The wind had risen again, and bore her swiftly down upon her way. She went recklessly, heedless of her steps. She stumbled into the hut at last, and shut the door upon the shrieking desolation behind her. Almost unconsciously she stirred the smouldering peat and built a fire, then crouched before it, white-faced and wide-eyed, and utterly comfortless. Far through the night she sat there, foodless, brooding, rebelling, at tiiacs drowned in sadness, at times hotly questioning the conventional teaching her youth. “ They teach us to pray, those sbellercd ones,” she muttered. “ What do they know? God and His Mother and tho saints? I have prayed to them all for five long months in my cabin on tho Southern Seas. Yet no help has come. God? Is He a lie or a dream? Could any kindly spirit bear to see my plight and hear my supplications and not send aid ” And presently: “No one now, not even God.” Despair rolled over her in waves, tearing her from old moorings and casting her adrift upon a dark and shoreless \ea. CHAPTER X. Tct in the morning when sho woke from a short troubled sleep she was not wholly without hope. Ail expectation of aid had for the moment left her. Plainly she had seen from the summit of the dome how isolated this small island was, how lost in a vast watery world. Far from sailing routes, unmarked on any chart, how was it to be found by one in search of her. Even Angus’s devotion could not trace her here. But despair could not quench her spirit. As all outer sources of help dropped to nothingness, out of some inner strength a spark of courage had flared up.

There was ' almost an elation, as though an unknown secret self gloried in abandonment and hardship and loneliness and sorrow. It was as if it spoke quietly from its quiet place, saying to her: “ Now wo know the worst, and have faced it, you and I. We need nob be afraid any more.” To-day sho was not afraid. God or no God, there was that within herself which strangely had power to sustain her. It seemed new. Had, it lain hidden, awaiting its call, smothered beneath a multitude of dependencies? Had her doubt of God given her this assurance of strength in herself? W'hatever its origin, it firmed her stop now and calmed her thoughts and set sweetness dnee more about her mouth. Sho was not afraid. Sho would never be utterly overwhelmed, no matter howcruel the day’s fate held in store for her. Spectres of madness and selfdestruction need leer in upon her no more. She would live, ami she would retain her sanity. Returning from the stream,with fresh water in her pail, she slopped in pleased surprise. A bird had llovvu through tho brushtops and settled on tliq woodstack by her door, peering at her through bright, inquisitive eyes. A blackbird it was, rather like a starling, she thought, though blacker and glossier, and ornamented with a tassel of white leathers at its throat. ‘‘ll it would but, stay there while I got tho guu and load itl u she said to herself; lor she was hungry, and this was fresh meat. But at that moment the bird opened its_ throat and sent forth a call so golden in its quality that her heart stood still to listen. Never had sho beard from any bird a note so dear, so sweet, so melodious, so rich as this that came forth now from this sudden songster in her grey wilderness. ‘‘And 1 would have killed it,” she remembered, tears of joy^and remorse springing to her eyes. I'roin behind the hut there came an answering call, exquisite as tho first. A second bird flew in tire wood stack beside her mate, and there the two stood looking, shining and beautiful, untouched by any tear of man.

. Have you brought me companionship, you lovely things?” she asked softly. At the sound of her voice they rose startled, soaring above her, and gazing at her with bright, curious eyes. They flew over the hut and away tltrough the scrub out of sight, dropping jewelled music through 'the air as they went. .Sho stood listening till the last fine echo died away, then sighed happily and went light-footed about the preparation oi 'her morning meal of porridge. She felt Jess alone now. The birds had flown away, but they wore on the island, strangely, sweetlv, on this unlovely island.' Site would see them, hoar them again. She was companioned. She had no means but the sun of computing the time. To-dav no sun shone only a still, silvery light drenched sc i\ and scrub. She must gauge the progress of the dav part I v by the intensity of the light, partly by her own hunger and weariness, as the hours passed. About midday, as she judged the time, she took gun and knifeAiid set of! westward to explore the coast. “ There arc gulls and other big sea birds,” she said. “1 will shoot them it I can find nothing else. Their skins should make warm coverings.” The tide was out, and she was able re make her way along the shore, .sometimes on sandy beaches, sometimes among rocks and slippery, weedcovered _ boulders, sometimes 'scrambling painfully over scrub-clothed promo no tones round which there was no sort of footway.

She pulled herself to Live top of one such promontory, the highest, she had yet encountered. She looked over its ridge, and stood still with a shock of surprise. Below lay a sheltered core, with a strip of yellow beach overhung by the tallest scrub she bad yet seen on the island. A duster of rocks, half submerged, stood in the sea entrance to the covo. and the waves broke against those and rolled in long shallow curves up tho shore.. But, it was not the shape nor shelter of the cove that had brought her to a standstill. Tt was some strange air of being inhabited that it possessed. What was it? What gave her that instant sensation? She looked round the cove tremblingly. Ah, that was it! those round, tunnel-like openings into the hush that led from the beach in all directions. Bounded and smooth and darkly shadowed. Were they lairs? Did savage boasts lurk within, ready to spring out upon her if she crossed the beach ? Big beasts they, must be. She waited' wd watched. No move-

moot in the little bay. It lay as still and apparently unoccupied as the shores sho had already traversed, soundless but for the rolling rhythm of the breakers. Her eyes found a tunnel into. which the light struck, brightening its whole interior. Nothing lurked there. She loaded her gun and cautiously descended the bank till she stood on tho sand of tho beach. With trigger ready she walked slowly across tiro _ little bay, peering into every opening as she passed. All were empty. She was relieved, yet disappointed, for wild animals would have meant skins and food. , Sho climbed the further side of the cove and went on, finding the shore grow steeper and more and more difficult, till it rose at last to sheer impregnable cliff. At that sho turned and went back.

When she came to the cove it gave her again tliat sharp sense of occupation. What were those tunnels, so rounded and smooth, and unlike anything else she had seen? Some creature must have made them. Yet she found nothing. They were empty still. Sho crossed the bay, but found she could not leave it. it fascinated her. She ought to hurry on her hutward way, for the early winter dusk was coming on; yet she stood long looking down upon the yellow beach, wondering, unwilling to depart until she had begun to solve the mystery. A sleek head showed on the incoming wave. Another and another followed it; the water was dotted with heads. The creatures reached the shore, they rose up and waddled across tho sand, dozens, scores, hundreds of them, one after another, one after another, brown and golden, black and silvery, roaring and calling, making for tlie rocks and the tunnels, or stretching themselves lazily out on the sand. Seals! Seals returning full-fod from the sea to their sleeping places. The tunnels were explained. So the island was not so desolate as it had seemed. Here were food and warmth at least. Charlotte had not, dreamed of such a wealth of life hidden round the corner of the coast, since it was there, it was her part to make use of it. She descended softly towards the cove again, until shea came to a ledge of rock on which she would rest her gun. Looking down the slope, she saw a young seal not a dozen paces away, sprawled out on just such a ledge _a* that on which she lay. She look aim and fired. Tho roar of the gnn echoed round the cove, and as the smoke cleared she watclied the seals nose uncasilv in the air, staring about in momentary perturbation. Next moment they went on with their life ns lie fore; the shot had no significance for them, they bad never been hunted. That one on the ledge lay still, with a shattered head. Presently she went down to it; but the skinning promised to bo ft long o.nd difficult tiksk, anci night was coming fast. She cut a steak from beneath its blubber, and. carrying that homo to her cooking potsupped well. (To be continued.)