SHORT STORY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 14924, 23 February 1912, Page 4

SHORT STORY.

COWARD AND HERO.

The words "You coward'.- cut crisply and ! ,harp through the clear, frosty air, lashing , md keen a. the wind that stirred the j .rystal-spanelcd pines and the ring of tho j ikafos upon the ice-bound surface of the , ncre- She who uttered them stood, her j lower-like face and (loop blue eves all a- , ,i,iver with contemptuous disgust. He to 1 vhom it «as addressed started, blenched | ~,.r -c rli-.'htly. his countenance immedivt,.ly H-Mimn.g'Vts mask of bronze impassi- J vl ;,t*v. 'Ih.;-.' who hoard it echoed it, j ,errotly. or in deep and angry mutter, the ; vhile "devoting themselves to their task— j .«•.. the restoring of animation to a very ;. ~ •1,-iv drowned human bene, rescued with ! iilini'te lisk from the treacherous spring : hole which had let him through the surface ■ .>! tho i,- ■'. _ ; ■ I will say if again went on tno speaker. I u>l ..,;,,. ringing out high and clear. J ■ Cowaid '." I ■ Perch,d Lament's dark face took on a , rhunge, but it was a faint sneer, as there j, •us., ulxn-i' his mental gaze a retrospect j lictnrc of [he moment when lie poured hi- ,' ire point-blank into the bruin of the lower- : .; ; bull-elephant, while the huge and mini- :■ nans fury was actually reaching forth a i i-itnk'to impale his favourite native hunt.- i mm. a gleaming, vicious tusk. Further, he ; ,:;!,; see .i man witii his horse badly j. mounded under him, spurring forth toward- 1. e-v on-sweeping line of changing Matabclo. |1 in order to reach a fallen comrade before ;' ",r> .-avages should—his own troop being it: ,' :aa and thoroughly jusutiaolo retreat—and j, ■hat man himself. These, with two or three !< ir.ore mental pictures, took, in his case, the j: sting out of iho most stinging epithet the I' human lips can frame: still, remembering that the l : p- then framing it belonged to \ y tho girl with whom he was passionately in ', love, and to a horn lie had recently become, j engago!. it seemed to count, somehow. j] "li,. -,iv .-.nil ■thin/, went on the latter, h speaking quickly. " The boy might have ji lieen drowned, and very nearly was. while |< voti sued, with your hands in your pockets, j] looking on." , j • " If your people see fit to throw open the |] mere to the rabble, the rabble must look ji after itself. 1 dare say I can risk my life j i for an adequate motive. That—isn't one!" Is The words, audible to all present, tho 1 ] contemptuous tone and nod of the head in It the direction of the ever-increasing group on j < the bank, deepened the prevailing indisrna- '< lion. Angry 'murmurs arose, and some boo- I] ing. Perhaps the presence of the squire's ji daughter alone restrained an outburst of;] iolence. i ' " 1 have no wish to talk to von any more. or ever again," said the latter. "Please j The man made no reply. Lifting his hat I ceremoniously, be turned a war. the ill- | restrained jeers which followed him falling j ■upon his ears with no other effect than to j cause him to congratulate himself upon hav- • ing given others the opnortunitv of perform- 1 ins the feat from which he had refrained. j The object of all this disturbance was i showing signs of restoration to life and con- j seiousness- Seen in the midst of the gaping . —itnd, for th.e most part, useless—crowd j which hemmed him in. he was a boy of j about thirteen or fourteen, with a debased j type of countenance, wherein the characteristics of the worst phase of London gutter- j snipe—low cunning, boundless impudence, i predatoriness, and aggressive brutality— i showed more than incipiently. Gazing upon him—having made her way through the I group Violet Courtfield was conscious of an ' unpleasant truth in those last words spoken ;' by her fiance. She was forced to own to j herself that the saving of this life assuredly , was not worth tho risking of his. Yet she had implored him to do something, and ho j ha I done nothing. He had replied there ■was nothing to bo dene; had stood, calmly looking on. while others had risked their lives, he fearing for his. Yes, fearing. It | looked like that. He had, after all, shown I as a coward in her sight, and of his past she knew very little anything to counteract her hastily formed judgment, nothing. j With a sad sinking of heart she turned | fiwav, and, avoiding all escort or companion- | .ship, took her way homeward alone. The red afterglow was fast fading into the grey of dusk, "and against it the chimney-stacks of tho Hall stood .silhouetted blackly, while farther down, above the tree-tops, the old j church tower rose square and massive. It. was Christmas Eve. The bells in tho tower rang out in sudden and tuneful chime, flinHng their merry peal far and wide over leafless woodland and' frozen meadow. They blended, too, with the ringing of the blades on the ice-bound mere, and the sound of voices mellowed by distance. But for the events of the last few minutes, to this girl now hurrying quickly along the field path, lie.- little skates dangling from her wrist, how sweet and hallowed and homelike it would all have been, glorified, too, by the presence of one. Now, anger, disgust, contempt filled her mind, and her heart was aching and sore with the void of an ideal cast. out. One was there as she struck into the garden path leading up to the terrace. He was. pacing'up and down, smoking a cigar. At sight of him all her contemptuous resentment was fanned into flame again. " Well?" he said, turning suddenly upon her. "•Well, and have you had time to reconsider your hastily-expressed opinion?" "It was not hasty; it. Was deliberate," she replied quickly. "As I said before, 1 have no words for a coward" " Yes, you did say that before, for the benefit of a mob of gaping yokels and a few social equals. And now you repeat it. Very well, good-bye." An overmastering impulse was upon the girl to linger—to oiler him the opportunity of explanation. Somehow, Lis face, his whole personality, seemed to "belie her judgment, of him. But pride, perversity, superficiality of deductive powers, triumphed. j She passed on without a word. Percival Lamont was a hardened man and a strong one. but; lie needed all his hardness and all his strength at this moment. Ho had loved this girl secretly, and at a distance, passionately and at first sight, for sorno time* before accident had brought about his engagement to her, now of three months' duration. And sho had returned' his lovo in full, or had teemed to, until this disastrous afternoon. Well, climbing down was out of the question. He had been rudely cast out of his fool's paradise, and with "grim resolution he must accept, the position and live down the loss. But the 'beautiful face, and the deep blue eyes, and the soft, wavy brown hair—could ho over tear tho recollection from out of his mind? Pest, take those awful Christmas bells though, cleaving tho night with their mockery of pence and goodwill ! Well, ho was not alone in the struggle. There was a place vacant at tho squire's dinner-table, whose destined occupant had sent in the excuse of being called away by important family business. And the squire's favourite daughter felt her eyes fill secretly, more than once as they rested upon the empty chairand noting, further, how all reference to the afternoon's somewhat tragic event was avoided with studied care, wondered if, after all, she had been precipitate an.l unjust. Well, it was too late now. The- Courtficlds came to town early in tho season, but throughout tho succession of social functions, moro or less brilliant, and more or less boring, her intimates noticed a change in Violet. All her adorers whom" formerly she had patted and made fetch-and-rarrv, she now snubbed ruthlessly, including iii ire than .mo eligibleand what formerly hud afforded her intense enjoyment, she now went through perfunctorily and listlessly. I'hi-. however, I.hey attributed to her suddenly i-Miken oil' engagement. But she was posM'-.-ed witii a feverish thirst for reading ('>■ in- a -paper-. There wore stirring doings in :-'■ ,o . Africa, lor ii was the year of that t< rvil.h- parallel of the Indian .Mutiny — only on a far smaller scale the Mata'bele '.nig; wherein hundreds of isolated h>:ropi-,.iiir were set upon treacherously and '...thiui! warning, and barbarously innssacred, irrespective of age, or sex. And in th. forefront c 1 tho pioneer defenders of the i;ev. country, with Us immense area' and sparse population, was Poreivul l.amont. J"."' ' '" name was frequently mentioned in tin- papers, and ,m one or two occasions lii' portrait I.ad appeared, anion- others to whom the sadden call hail afforded opportunity ot distinction. Then was telegraphed home the detailed account of a truly brilliant deed of ana.-. A mere handful of men. courting almost certain death, had gone to tho relict of a hard-pressed outlying post, where several women and children and a feiv half-armed men la.v besieged by swarm.ing numbers of bloodthirsty barbarian-, and had brought them out safely; fiercely, grimly contesting every inch of the way against overwhelming odds. And the leader and inspircr of this heroic hand, the saviour of his countrymen and women from the horrors of savage massacre, was Percival Lamont, whom but it few months before she, Violet Conrtfield, ' had denounced in public, with every expression of aversion and disgust, as a coward. Nor could she escape the sound of his name. In "the- ballroom, at; the dinner-table, every■where. On allsides was the deed discussed, commented on, and that but in tine key— i

BT BERTRAM MITFORD.

unbounded admiration. Moreover certain enterprising newspaper scribes laid themselves out to rake up two or three of his former feats in previous years in the same wild country, wading of which. Violet Courtfield's "blue eyes opened very widethen became dim with a blinding mist.

The year has gone round, bringing with it I Christmas Eve again, and once more the '• frozen surface of Court field Mere is covered 'with a smooth and glassy sheet. Iho ring 'of the skates is melodious upon the air, and ! gliding forms dart hither and thither; but I these are- few, only four, in fact; tor the 'mere is not rot- thrown open, and the ice. I undulating freelv, here and there with an ominous crack, is none too safe even for i these four. , . ~, , | ■' Come bark. Violet." cries a girl s clear i voice. •"You're too far out. it's awfully I thin there. Do you hear'/" as a couple of ! warning cracks dart along the heaving surface. 'Yes, do come hack. .Miss Court field," echoes the only man in the party. "You're i near the spring hole. Do come back. It's j"beastly dangerous." Violet Court field throws hack her head and ; laughs defiantly, circling ever nearer to the 1 fatal spot. One, seeing but unseen amid : th«) undergrowth beneath the black pines. i lakes in the picture—the. warm kiss of the j frosty air upon the flower-liko face, framed I so seductively in its winter furs—the curve :of the red lips, laughing mischievously, the j sparkle in the large, clear eyes, as the answer is shrilled back: | " Not for me. I'm light enough to go over even the spring hole itself— Oh—h —'." I For with the words the ice wave beneath ! her gliding feet, rises and falls like a sheet in tho breeze. A crack, and then another, then a horrid shattering sound as of shivered glass. The water, forced through the cracks, spurts upwards in blade-like lines, and. with hardly time to utter a shriek. Violet disap--1 pears, feet downwards, beneath the surface. : A great slab of blue ice, momentarily dis- ' lodged, heaves endways upwards, then settles ! down above the head of the girl. The grim mere has literally swallowed its prey. j Those who behold an- petrified with hor- ; ror. Full a hundred vards are they from the ; disaster, but the man skims straight for the I spot He can do nothing, for he is heavy • of build, and the ice will give way beneath ; hi? weight long before lie reaches her. It | will only mean one more victim. lint al- ; most instantaneously with the catastrophe a ' startling thing happens. I A man dashes forth from beneath the 1 pines, and with a loud warning shout, to . the others to keep away, he flings himself I upon the ice. and, lying fiat, propels himself ! straight for the deadly spring hole, which is | here but a score of yards trom the bank. [ Now ho is fighting his way through the ! heaving, crackling ice. now he disappears as jit gives way beneath him. Now lie is up | again, then once more, with a hiss and a I splash and the splintering ol glass-like ice, Jhe is beneath the surface again. Those on ! the bank are turned to stone. 'Will he— ! wOl they—never come up': Ah ! : .-v head shoots above the surfacetwo | heads. Panting, nearly winded with his terI rible exertion and the deadly cold numbing ;h ; . veins, Pereival Lament is treading j water, supporting Violet in a .state of ini- ' consciousness; but powerful and wiry as he j is it is :;li he can do to keep her head above the surface, j ".Sonnies!" he shouts, recognising the ! man, "there are some chopped poles lying ■ there just inside the trees. Hun, man, "and ! tlnow some out. You girls run for help— j keeper's lodge the nearest. And yell— ! for all you know how," he pants gaspingly, i for the exertion of speech has frightfully j sapped his remaining strength. j " —will they be all dav?" ho groans : through his blue and shaking lips. lie can I hear Soames tearing through the wood—then .things become mixed. The familiar landi scape is whirling round. Now lie is he- | headed— it is only the cold ice-edge | against his neck. Now ho is charging an I enemy, using Violet, held in front of him. jas a .shield. Oh, yes, of course, he is a ' coward, for did not she say so—hereon J this very spot? And those* bells? Christmas !It is always Christmas. And— Some- ; thing comes whizzing at him. A spear, and ] Ik- 13 unarmed. Well, ho will grasp it No, jit eludes him. Another He has it—grasped i hard and fast, j " Hold tight, old man. Noware you j ready?" yells a voice from the bank. "Ready? Yes. Shoot away And Percival Lament, with his unconscious charge, is hauled to the bank, he grip' j ping with death-like force the end of the fir pole under the impression that he is j warding off a hostile spear Irom his heart— but before he lapses into a dreamy slumber he murmurs something about "a* coward" and "an adequate motive." I "Gown and see her. my boy," said the old ! squire, dropping a hand 1 oh the other's shoul- ! der " She has been asking for you. How is she? None the worse, I think. She has had a good night." Violet was lying on the sofa as Pereival entered. She was rather pale and a trifle shaken, but the great eyes met his steadily, if wistfully. The morning sunlight flooded the room from the cloudlessness of the outer sky. " Can you ever forgive me?" she said. "You must—for it is Christmas morning— the day for peace-making. .Hark, there go the bells. Tell me—can you?" He sank down beside, her couch, and, taking both her hands in his, looked her in the eyos. "On one condition—darling." "It is for you to name," she said. But her answering pressure went to show that it was granted beforehand To-morrow (Saturday) we commence publication in these columns of another fascinating story. The serial is entitled " HELEN OF THE MOOR," by Alice and Claude Askew, and instalments will appear daily until its completion.