THE GARDEN OF GOD.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18381, 23 April 1923, Page 4

THE GARDEN OF GOD.

BY H. DE VERE STACPOOLE. Author of " The Blue Lagoon/* " Pools of ; Silence," ,-" The Reef of Stars," etc., etc

[(Copyright.);

BOOK II

JEHE CHILDREN RETURN.

CHAPTER in—(Continued.)

■ The first pool they reached was lovely, like a jeweller's shop window for colour; rose-red and amber coral, pink and purple sea anemones, tiny shells like golden buttons, and strip's of emenild fucus showed up through the diamond clear water, but there was no game, only a little fish like & sardine (Jiat flitted here and there, and a " piker *" no bigger than a saucer pumping , itself along. Dick took aim, at the jellyfish with his pointed cane and speared it plumb through the centre. Now then," said Kearney, noting the fact,' and not for the first time, that the child had allowed for refraction. "Shoulder your stick an' come along, we've no time to be playin'—Christmas!" A crab with a body the size of a penny bun and legs three foot long had elevated itself from a cleft in the coral after the fashion of a camera when set up. It seemed to take a snapshot of the oncomer and then, legs in a hurry and body wobbling as if on springs, passed over into the water on the lagoon side. *' Crab," cried Dick. Tie length of the legs differentiated the creature from its fellows. It looked more like a huge spider than a crab, but the red} craft born in the child was not to be deceived, the movement of the creature was enough for him.

The pool beyond held a trapped Jew-fish which fell a victim to Mr. Kearney cjViUng to the.fact that the pool itself was small: in the great pools, floored with sand ana - showing the silvery gleam of mullet and the scarlet of rock cod, little or nothing could be done with the spear. It did not matter; the lines gave thorn Jill the fish they wanted from the lagoon, and this business wag more in the nature of sport. They wandered along in the blazing sunshine inspecting the pools and exploring the pot holes, killing squids and turning over the heaps of coloured fuci left by the outgoing tide. A polished rock would sometimes move, disclose itself as a hawk-bill turtle and plunge into a pool, shells of crabs and whelks lay every- j , where and great haliotis. shells empty of everything but the whisper of the sea. Here, among the weeds, you could find the flacker, claws of octopi, big as the claws .of a tiger, and there, on the slab coral polished like window glass by the washing of the sea, huge sea slugs, the size of »parsnips. *' Kersnoy preferred the reef to %i island. There was ' more air" and, as a rule, out here /he ; was ; lost to everything but the interests around him, pleased as the child with the ever-varying wonders of the {dace. There was always something new eft by the tide. Last time in" the biggest of the - pools a chambered nautilus was flailing' like a lost galleon, the most ex- \ quisite dream nature. 'A bit beyond they had come upon the skull of a whale, whosei; tongue _ had been torn out by orcas and whose body 'had ' been devoured by sharks. 1 .■>:-'■ .-',':-'.' ''.'.'■• To-day, however, Mr. Kearney seemed to have :' little interest '■■. in the ; business of the, reof Ahe {i was bothered. Lestrange had been ; going very " much to pieces'' of . late, \ physically mores than mentally. ;; His I heart; was troubling him. . Sometimes he would be all right and sometimes he would have to sit down to rest ; after .a little ex- ■ ertion. He had "gone ' haggy" under the eyes and wasn't himself at all. Thelfact ; that the schooner was getting long overdue did : not help matters... Kearney, ; as :he prodded about in 'the ; pools, would sometimes stand erect and . gaze =away off into the north; but in the north ; there was nothing: but the • brim- : ming • sea broken only by , ■ the wing of a j distant gull/ \ ' ,-/ I ■ "About eleven o'clock they turned back. i Lestrange/ was inowhere,-, to be seen, but he often went wandering; in, the woods, and Kearney, having put, the spears ; ' aside, set to work preparing the mid-day ■. meal. . - , ' : , I , When it was'ready* and: the fish cooked j to &i tarn,J Lestrange hadv not yet come '.'; back. However, he was sometimes late and the! child was hungry, so they set to, tho sailor grumbling:',.to-; himself like a housewife ,;.: whose V cooking -V has ; been ■■•' slighted. - „• ■ :.-.';''' -'• .'.''.-.; "Wonder- where he . can have got to/' said ihe , to',,. himself. \ ■■: " Tomfoolin* about *in . them woods." ' - After the meal he sat down with his back to a tree and lit a pipe; the pipe ; finished he.-' lay oh his back with his hands; behind his .head, looking up .at tho leaves/moving; gently in the wind. Next moment he,;was; asleep, <„- :. He slept several; hours, and when he . awoke * Lestrange had ■ not; yet come back. ;: He was j nowhere & to; be seen, and Kearney, how seriously -; alarmed,- after a glance into the house, stood ; looking, about him, now toward the lagoon, now. toward the. woods. ;ij Then % seeing '].. Dick, i who had .roused from 'deep and was playing about, he caught the child by the hand 'and made toward .the trees.- : v ■'.• The act ; was : unconscious, it was as 1 though the sudden sense of loneliness had made him seize the child's hand for com'panionship.::;:u7■:;:■'.: ■ :■•-''■;•■'..'•■•''. Dick, '; nothing loth } and divining some new ; gam v; trotted ; beside him till they reached the trees, amidst which the sailor plunged, child in j hand. s ' He halted tag a few yards. and began to shouti ppf ■^ : ; "Hi! : ■ Are ye thereT. Are ye there ? Hi! Hi!" '" • '"■ child, laughing, took up the "call, his smali 1 voice sounding through the woods. ■~ *. -/ ■•• •" '• -'. . "Hi! Hi! Hi!'* ''--■ No answer. _ -' ,' v »/.'/' " They r; plunged deeper into the groves, and the twilight alleys of the coco palms and the 'stretches 'of pandanas and bread fruit heard the calling of the man and the child, to which only V the :'wind in the j branches made reply. ■ .'■ ;

CHAPTER IV,

THE MUST GLIMPSE 01 THE DEMOS. ] "He's gone," said Kearney.The child . was asleep in the house and he had.taken his seat, alone by the/water's edge. The tide was running out of the lagoon under the sunset and a faint chuckle of water against the ribs of the tied-up dinghy was the only response. Tired out, he had taken his seat near the little boat as if for the sake of company, and with the pipe in hi 3 mouth, was chucking bits of coral at the water. ' Dick had left them kicking about on tho sward; they had been his playthings, but he had outgrown them.•. " Gone West,", said Kearney, chucking the hist of them far out and watching the ripples as they spread, "and Lord knows where he's dropped in them

■woods." ~>.:-.•'•-.. .. _ He had i done his best,. beating the trees and shouting arid hallooing, hunting right up to where tho groves halted before the rise of the summit and returning with the tired-out Dick on his shoulder. There was no chance that the missing man was lying somewhere disabled with a sprained ankle or broken leg. He would have heard the shouting and made answer.-.. Lestrange had "gone west," he had dropped; maybe by reason of his heart giving' out, and was lying somewhere in those woods, lost beyond discovery. . •• ■ " m ' '■ Leaning now on his elbow with his pipe, which" had gone out, between his teeth, Kearney stared at tho water Before ■" him. ;--' ; i :•'■'■ ■•'■'• ■•;.-/■:., , •■>••'■,-■ ■'. ;' ; V- ; ;."-\.;-;r.-.;.v : ' ■ . The' swirls in it as it moved gently ■ with the out-going tide seemed part of his trouble. >■. The Baratonga had not re- , turned.- >;Lestrange was sure dead some- ' where *©r>; : another in those woods and f. here r he .was. left ~ alone with the child. sSVhat; was to. be the end of it all? ; ■

The/sound :of the reef was loud to-night and his -. mind, travelling back, caught again the sound of the rollers 'on that night so long ago. Ho could hear them still, even-spaced, solemn, funerealyes, the Raratonga was gone Beyond. any manner of doubt, Lestrange was gone like the ship, and here he was left alone with the child— what was to be the end of it all? _• , Too tired for concentrated thought, the general proposition framed itself loOseK and vaguely in his mind, unanswerable, expecting an answer no more than that other proposition nature had once or twice placed before him, making him ask himself "what are them stars?" : Then a frightful yawn sounded through the dark, the sound of someone spitting into the lagoon, and a voice, grumbling and deep addressing itself to the gathering night. • ™ That — hooker!"

Kearney had risen. Ho also seemed to "Save shovelled all his troubles on to the back of the Raratonga. It is a way with complaints of misfortunes on shipboard, bad food, hazing officers •or Cape Horn weather are rarely addressed to the proper quarters—the ship takes it all—" That — hooker." If he hadn't sailed on the Raratonga all this wouldn't have happened. Dusk, almost in a moment had turned to night, and, just as though a door had Been closed, the breeze from the sea died off, leaving the lagoon water unruffled. Right before Kearney lay the vast pool from ten to six fathoms deep, beyond which lay the broken water "that made navigation to the reef so difficult. The pool lay black aa ebony, ebony polished and silvered with star light. As the sailor cast his eyes over it he saw moving beneath the surface a long thin line of light. It was a deep sea pala, six feet in length, narrow as a sword, a fish that rarely enters lagoon waters and never unless at night. This phosphorescent ghost from tne outer sea circled"' the pool in a grand curve and then, followed by a train of silvery-golden bubbles, vanished. At night, especially when the moon was away, you could see the lagoon fish like ghostly - shadows beneath the water. The phosphorescence varied. To-night it was intense and as the pala vanished a garfish flashed along chased by a bream thrice its size; the bream seized the garfish in a whirl of phosphorescent light. It was like a fight between fireworks fading off in a luminous mist; as the attacked and attacker drove farther up tho pool, the mist remained for a moment slowing fading and dispersing; it was blood. Kearney, forgetting everything else for the moment, stood watching as the night life of the lagoon disclosed itself, showing visions never revealed to the day. Great eels passed frilled with fire, and a whipray, a yard across turned as it went, over and over, like a leaf blown by a leisurely wind. ■ Then, looming up from the deep entrance to the pool, came something that was not a fish. Something that walked the floor of the lagoon to-night spreading terror before it as it went, so that in an instant the pool flashed black free of all fish traces and, showing nothing: but the newcomer.

What Kearney saw was exactly like the Bole of a great oak tree sawed off at the branches and roots, glowing and pulsating with phosphorescence and crawling like a - cat . on the floor of the pool. In its ; fore front two broad lamps burned with an emerald light, now brilliant, now smoky, and from around the lamps seifpentin a tendrils a foot thick at the base, spread and twined through the water, jsearching, feeling, exploring, now radiating out like a fan, now up-writhing like the locS of Ittedusa.x ■•. ', ■ It was a barrel-shaped decapod twentyfive feet , in length and" over fifteen feet in circumference. - .; It had risen with the night from come cave far Below the, outer reef and strayed into the lagoon, either across the reef or by way of the Break*.: When he ; had . got % full view of the thing, one glance was enough for Kearney. He turned away and made for the house. The child was fast asleep, and he crept jin beside it. Dick was company after that sight, and ; though the child slept without a sound or a stir, the knowledge that it was there lessened - the feeling of lonesomeness. Lying on his side on liestrange's bedding, he could t see the door- | way, and beyond the doorway the starshowered night stood as if watching him. [ If that. thing were come out of the j "lagun" and appear at the doorway with | those two lamps—God! 'He tried to for- | get it by thinking of Lestrange, and then j tried to forget j Lestrange by ; thinking of the Raratonga. : - it Bowers, Bully ; Stevens, Jerdeih— the fo'c'sle crowd appeared before him, individually, J then collectively, and they were leading him off into dreamland when a voice hailed him. ' - ';■;/' ,

' .It was LesErange's voice, thin and far away, like a voice in: a gramophone. Leaning up on ■■ his elbow he listened nothing. Then ;he sank back, still listen] —nothing. ■■'"■'•. •'. Next ; morning, when he awoke and turned out into the bright early morning sunshine, he looked around him as though. in . search ;of someone or some sign that would tell him of the vanished one's fate. >"'.'- ; '. '■'■:■'' ' '..., .

But the lagoon lay as blue in the morning light as though it had never shown him the spectre of the night before, and the trees of God's Garden gave no hint of the form that lay amidst the groves, dead of a worn-out heart. , ■

CHAPTER V.

"God bless my soul," cried Mr. Kearney; "come in. What are you doin' there „ Get an oar over if you can; get an oar over, I tell ye." It was three weeks or so after the departure of Lestrange. Kearney was busy over something near the house, and looking up had caught sight of Dick. , i Dick had got into the dinghy, '• untied her, and pushed out with the boat hook; that the tide was on the ebb didn't matter to Dick. ; Hanging over the stern and pretending to fish, Kearney's voice had roused him, and he stood now, balancing himself, and considering the situation created by his own act. > . V/ '. ; ' . s ,■> :■. • A little over three and a-half years of age, he was as strong and big as a child of- five, but he was neither big nor strong enough to man the sculls,-and the dinghy was drifting £ towards > the % capo of wild cocoanuts, beyond which lay the .lagoon stretch reaching to the break and the sea. Then, attending to Mr. Kearney's directions, he got a scull over on the port side, got it into the cup. the rowlock, and, still standing up, tried to pull, making a terrible mess of the business. "Heaven!" cried Kearney. "You've done it now. Pull it in; that ain't no good; you're getting her farther out." He came running along the bank to the little cape, hoping the boat would drift close enough for him to catch it by the gunwale. Ho couldn't swim. Dick had pulled the scull ip, and was standing, showing no sign of fear, as the dinghy, which had twisted sideways a bit owing to the efforts with the scull, altered its position and came along, bow on, nearing the cape now, but at least a yard too far away to be seized. "Boat huk!" cried Kearney. "Stick but the boat huk. Lord alive, look slippy!" Before the words were spoken, Dick had grasped the idea. He seized the boat hook, raised it- aloft with a mighty effort, and, as the dinghy closed with the cape, let the end drop into the hands of the sailor. Kearney drew the boat to the bank. Then, getting into the little craft, he took the sculls and rowed back. Ho neither scolded nor shook the child as another might have done; Dick had acted so sensibly and so pluckily that the sailor had no heart to "be harsh with him',' but the incident had /'a profound effect upon tho mind of Kearney, and the future of Dick. The question "what -would have happened to the little devil if he'd gone drifting off" suggested another question to the mind of the'sailor. The question what would happen to the , child if he, Kearney, were drifted off in the dinghy, or if he went west suddenly like Lestrange.'' ' t ' .... _ - « He knew himself to be in full health and strength. All the same, the question presented itself and made him consider it. ':,''■/:[ _■ .*."■■ ; (To be continued daily.) :