THE GARDEN OF GOD.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18388, 2 May 1923, Page 5

THE GARDEN OF GOD.

- BY H. BE VERE STACPOOLE. , Author, of "The Blue ) Lagoon," ;';"' Pools of it' Silence," " The Keel of -Stars," etc., etc. :

' \ (Copyright.)

BOOK II

THE CHILDREN RETURN.

CHAPTER ' (Continued).

She; had been accustomed to help in clearing away after meals, but this . morning she just sat and watched. There was not much;, clearing to be done, but Kearney had always been particular that no scraps or fish bones were left about, to bring the robber crabs round scavenging,, or the gulls. A dirty camp has always followers, so the scraps were shot into the lagoon, then the plates bad to be cleaned and put away on their shelf in the house. Dick, thinking she was maybe lazy or tired, did not bother, he finished his business and stamped out the fire, reckoning that if Kearney. • wanted food when he cam* back he cv>uld cook it for himself— but where had Kearney gone to. and why was he so long away?

He had not taken the dinghy. The little .boat was moored at its usual place by the bank, he must have gone off in " the woods. . - ' . '

;'," Katafa." -said Dick, after running to the boat '•■ to see if Kearney had taken the fishing tackle, v always Jke.pt' in a little locker in the stern sheets, " what makes Kearney so long away ? Hie has not taken the lines to fish with from the boat." : ; .' " Perhaps," said Katafa, " he is on the reef.'' ._;;;*;. ";■;-;■/.. ' " "--. ; " No." replied the boy, "for ho has not taken the boat." ':- ,;■ ..;.■ T '' ■ j . i" Perhaps he is among the tall trees." Dick half shook his head as if in doubt. Then, raising ; his voice, he cried again: ■"*.' Hal, ■ emonai—Jim! Hai! Hai !";;(;■" : A far-off echo in the trees caiight the hail and sent it back. : " Hai! hai" faint, yet clear came * the echo, dying off to a silence troubled ; only by the sound of the 'reef.. , >';;';.; : ; : ;' :V;: ■ "He answers,'.' \ said i Katafa, "but he is too far away, he cannot come." There was a grove on the south beach of Karolin that v had an echo; call there and you would hear. the spirits of the de- 1 parted answering you, jeering yon in your j Own voice. : She did not believe that the ] spirit of Kearney was answering Dick> J some old spirit of the grove, maybe, but I not Kearney. She .■; knew that Kearney was not among the trees, and she spoke in ■ mockery. -' : . / ;v ■ ' • ':.;- y. ->, 1 ■ Dick knew that it was only ;an echo/ He gave another shout, .and then, dropping the business as ; a bad job, and Kear- 1 ney from his mind, rati off to the boat to overhaul the fishing tackle. ': When he | had finished he came back for her to go j fishing and found her busy with ;a - huge j old; grandfather cocoanut and one'; of the Barlow knives salved from the wreck. :. She must have gono into the hous* to get the knife, but Dick never thought of I that, the work she was on held him. J She had frayed away the brown: husk into v a sort of frill, and ; was ;busy now son the fac© of it, making; eyes in; it ; and 'the semblance of a nose and mouth. A new idea had come to Katafa, a cornmonsensical idea, ; and -it ' was this. Manawa ; was the active god of : Karolin; frightful, capricious, striking right and left ; when; invoked and sometimes hitting the ; invoker. v; She had ; brought him; tm : her twice, and the ".first time hoi htfd roared over the ; lagoon f and broken ; her canoe," angry no doubt '•'. at \ having .■!■ been baulked by the god of the -little; ships; the second time, last night, he '. was; much more satisfactory in: his behaviour. ; But Katafa Had a "dim suspicion that, had he not found Kearney and, taken him to himself, he would have found her,.'an4 this suspicion..was perfectly well founded -—he would. I She determined not to deal with him again. Now on Karolin there was another god; Nan. ■ Very: old',, amiable, the president of ■ r the cocoanut groves, the ;^puraka patches and-4he;pahdanus trees, a sort of minister of agriculture, but much beloved, honoured and j feted. Nan, hr fact, wa* more than a god, he - was the symbol «of Karolin, >• just as th© British flag : : is the symbol •of > 'Britain. His ";;, old carved cocoanut face was to be found in all th» houses and the sight of it to a ; Karolinit* was as the sight of the Union Jack tn an Englishman, v*if; - : ; VY ; "^V"i.:..'■; Katafa's idea was to make a symbol of Nan and stick up on the southern reef, the, commonsensicat part of the business was thej idea of using; the deity as.> a signal, If any fishing canoe from'Karolin were to ' sight' that : effigy ; erected on ! the reef, it would come in to explore, and, if Katafa anything of the Karolinitos, it would hot leave till the whole -place had been searched for the persons who had dared ;to ; erect the ; image of }. the cocoanut god on an alien shore.;. For not only : would they ; consider that; the • god had -been trifled with, which )\ was bad-, but that his virtue had "been diluted, which was worse. He belonged exclusively to Karolin, and if he went ; spending his powers on other : islands it would be all the worse for Karolin. K; ; \ ':■:; Dick watched the girl as she sat working away on a business as bloody and desperate as } that of i filling a shell with high explosive. ; Any little trifling thing beyond the routine of daily life would interest Dick, and now, squatting on his heels, the fishing utterly forgotten, ;he followed every movement of the knife ias it worked away; at; the mouth of the deity, which was anything but an imitation" of a rot bud. J" What aro you doing that for 1" asked he. • ; V;,>-;;;,:;--"■; * ; " You were saying but yesterday that the fish were growing smaller in the lagoon," replied she, glancing with head aside at the progress of her work, as a woman might glance at a Dictur« she is painting. '.>. ' ..." I know," he replied, " but what are you doing that for?" " Tin's will bring big fish to the lagoon," replied she darkly. She saw, as she spoke, not the grotesque Ju-ju she was gazing at, but the sun blaze on the waters of Karolin. the azure and chatoyance of tho?* depths where j the gulls were always fishing," the great \ distance,*, where a mind '■ could soar in ; freedom, resting on nothing, caring for; nothing, heedless of everything,; She saw the wind and the sun and the. breakers falling on the coral, for the people there she" had no more feeling than she had for Dick or the departed Kearney; they were only to her as shadows or ghost*. The place was everything. Perhaps the old knew how to practice the taroinan tabu, and used it on cats with partial effect, or an effect that has worn out through the ages, cat*, for whom places are more real than i people, who live in to strange a world of their own almost beyond human touch. ; She could see, as she worked, the big canoes landing and. taking her back, as for what they might do to Dick, the neither thought nor cared. „' ■ "But how V asked Dick. "I will show you/' said she, " bat first get me what I want." She gave him some directions, and off he went to the groves, taking the axe with him, returning in half an hour or so dragging after him an Bft. sapling, straight as a fishing rod, four inches thick at the base and tapering gradually to its extremity. She examined the point of, the sapling, then making a hole at the base of the cocoanut, she drove the point in so that the thing was fixed on tight. Then between them they carried the affair to the dinghy, placed it long way* with the frightful face staring down at the water over the stern,,; got in, and pushed off. ;. Dick sculled under her direction, using the oars with a will and vastly intrigued with this new game of attracting big fish, he half expected to see them coming after the boat ; or coming up the: lagoon lured by this strange . bait.; :; Nothing appeared, however, the dinghy passed an. followed down the long arm of the lagoon, passed the break and the virion of blazing eea beyond, reached the them part of the reef and tied og,

The wind.was fresh this? morning and ;: the waves oh the outer ! beach -of the: reef ■ ; came in curving and dear; as if cut from ; ; aquamarine:bursting :: -/tinp / snow and v.-.' thunder, sheeting over the coral and suck- ■■.- ing back only to form- and■; burst again, the I breeze brought the , sprry : and v the mewing ; : of the gulls i and the scent of ■■•,-.. a -thousand square ; : leagues ;; of sea;;vKatafa. her hair blowing '.in; ; the wind, stood>- for <; a.; moment -looking south, south where Karolin lay, the great: ; lagoon in its forty mile clip of reef, sending its fume and song to tiesky, ana 1 the sun making haze of the distances. Then she turned .to Dick who was standing: beside her supporting Nan. '•'•■'; >" Ho could not; tell yet how. the bait was to be used. "With the common sense born in him from his father he was beginning to suspect the whole business as being unpractical; however, he said ' nothing, and when she began to search about; for a crack in the coral ; or some convenient hole to take the base of the sapling, he helped. They found one some sft. deep, erected the pole, secured it from rocking r with lumps of loose coral and sand, and then stood to look at their work. The-. thing was hideous, fantastic and stamped | with : the seal of the South Seas. The « breeze blew too frill on the thing's head, and as the sapling swayed slightly in the wind, the grotesque and grinning head seemed nodding toward ; Karolin. '■>• "Ehu!" cried Dick, *' but how will that bring the big fish V .«•'.' They will come from there," said Katafa, pointing" south. _ •i Dick looked -toward the south, he, saw . nothing but sea, ; gulls, and sky. Then he turned to the dinghy, the girl following him. ,\? ■' "•■ •'"■; "

CHAPTER XVI. THE MONTHS 1-ASS. \ ; Under, the sea surface lies « world , I ruled by laws of which;:we : know littla ;» ;; or nothing. We know that the ■ shoals, ■■■ ■■ have roads that they follow and j that some master - law keeps the balanc© so ; that the ocean's population is checked and : ; '; - restrained to certain limits, that the pala •■; ;<..;. change their feeding ground for somo mys- ;„ terious reason, and f that for some ; other ;; !•■;:■ reason equally mysterious the .lagoons are ; ;'| poisoned periodically so "■. that the fish be- "i come uneatable, but no man knows how v ,; i or why the poisoner nses his art, or why, as in the instance of palm tree, some lagoons are immune. V No one can teh why the fish ran small , at times as they had been running in Palm Tree Lagoon, when : the •• big - bream '. had V yi£ taken themselves off of late, and the ' schnapper and gar fish rarely scaled more than a few pounds. ' ' , Nan, on the southern reel, grinning out , to sea, had.- done - ' nothing, and as the months" passed, sliding away in long rib- - bons of coloured days, Dick from tune ; f , to time rubbed the fact in;: Katafa saying . nothing. She was not;expecting bream. ' .. She was expecting the long canoes from t ; Karolin, and as tho montf* passed And•, : thev did; not come, sho might ;havo;lc*t.; r «; heart only that she had- something; eke to: think about—Dick:. • '"' The relationship between the two had v ;y: altered subtly. For a long:timesome three months or -Dick had ; remembered : Kearney, .ondering what had; become of him, even hunting about the I ,woods spasmodically in the chance of coming on him. Dick knew nothing of death. Kearney had gone, that * was all, but -where? ./:'"•'■ ' "' ■ This incessant referenco to ■ Kca'n'y had - _ - / stirred .something in tho girl's , mind ;': against Dick, a: vague antagonism of the.-' typo that had been bred by Kearney, bofore ho hit her on tho back with the : _ tia"wood ball. • ' On Karolin she had never felt?antagonism, or hatred to anyone of tho human phantoms that surrounded her. -It hud ■. been reserved for Kearney by his attempt to hit her' with; the seaweed ) stick, [and his success in hitting her with the - : ; ball,; to humanise J her to; the point' of ' ! being able to feel aversion and hate. i s This antagonism against Dick was " helped by the fact that ho had put her in tier place- Without a direct word, yet in a hundred little .ways, he made her ." feel that ho was tho > superior being, or 1 thought.. himself • 'so. ' Keeping still-to her shack m the trees,, sho yet ; came ! to.meals just as she had done on tlbe morning after Kearney's disappearance, taking? her seat boldly,-close to. the boy, and showing no trace .of the , old diffidence andi humility, . but,, unchiv- + - airbus as a dog, ! Dick' gave her tho worst ofHho fish and,; while reserving to himself the high .office of cleaning tho plates, ■ gave her the rubbish on ! a leaf to fling, into the lagoon. >, Fishing, out in the. boat, : /. rfnd on the reef it was the same. Dick , " first, Katafa nowhere. That is perhaps how sex first came be- ' tween these two, making a foot mat of : the female for the use of his lordship, j Dick sex, a law of nature from tho workings of which Katafa was for evor barred, v out by Taminan. The law. which Le Juan"':' had; implanted Jn; hwt sub-consciousness ;.. had shown its teeth at Kearney because he had attempted to touch her, condemning her to eternal isolation. Was it showing its teeth, at: Dick because he was a , V man , ;

Katafa only/knew tSiafc Dick was going thoYway -of; Kearney in her mind, turning from an almost Abstraction into nornc- r' :j thing .she could; resent and dislike for >- some reason that she could not fathom, for he had never made any attempt to ■ touch her. • : -'" : ;\:ii'.,'' : v / '" : ,''^' One day when Dick had taken the dinghy fishing away beyond the cape, he i returned:: elate and^trinmphanfc.^ ; i "Katafa!" shouted he as he. brought I the boat up to tho bank. ;, "The big-fish * have come!" The girl, lying in the shade of th« trees by the house, sprang to .her feet. , The vision of the Karelin flashed ; before ;S he* eyes, destroying; everything for ' * I moment,- then eh© came' running to the . bask. ■ \. .'/' " Whereare"they V cried she. 7; \y'///;;. Y. L " There,'.' replied Dick, pointing to the"' boat wheer a brace of big bream lay,' red , I and silver in the sunlight. U '-~ \ .: jjs It was like a blow between i'Wio,eyes..'-.'.'.-";-.;V.|;'; : I She tat crouched on the bank, watchling him with a dark look on her face jas he hauled -them on shore. Nan Iwi ; fooled her nicely, but her animosity was ; not against Kan, but -Dick, and next ! day when he went off gaily with a single fish spear to the reef, he found that the point had been blunted, tho fishing lines • began to break without apparent; ; reason, and a lobster hung up one night. '. ■.■■',■■"' va.s gone in the/ morning If he had chewed gum, big gum would -. have gone in the lagoon after the lobster. It was the earno old game she, - had played -with Kearney, and, like Kearney,:."; Dick suspected nothing of what it all meant—or what it portended, v The rainy season cam© and made Dick ' busy mending a hole that had suddenly come in the roof of the house. It passed,' ; Wring - the island greener than ever, and ; v ;: the birds preparing to mate. *■ " A'.' "" , Nan, on his stick on the southern reef, v-V-'.-was beginning to show signs of wear and: weather, gulls roosting on his crown bad left a white patch that did not add to :: bis beauty, and the winds, forever bend- ',- ing and straightening the sapling, had, loosened his head, so that■ it woggled *-.'.'' bit, making at times a dick-docking - noise, as though he were clucking his tongue with impatience. But all things • have their time and season, and had he been god of the, lagoon instead of \ the V cocoanut trees and panaka patches, he might have known that.the pandanas Mason had arrived at Karelin, ■, " -", They had fish pond* there stocked with sea fish to tide them oyer the bad time, but those. pond fish were never ; quite as -. good as fresh fish : from the sea, ; and ad-, venturous spirit* would put oat sometime* long distances after the real, article, and, unable to carry fire with them, eat their catches jaw. , ~ * " A raw sea- fish i* better than a cooked pond fish," was a proverb -with: them, and one morning -when DLk took - the dinghy round to the eastern beach/. ;■ after banana*, the /proverb ; bore "; fruit. He had secured his bananas and plL&cod them on the sand.- ready .- for shipment.. '- when the idea suddenly took him Of fiav- . ing a look ;at the goliywog on the reef, - IHe rowed over, . and no sooner.-: had h*>.'/ I landed on the coral than away across tho sea ho saw a canoe. It was longer i than the. canoe of -Katafa,; if was stand- /;.;., [ ing in toward the reef, and .when the > occupant caught sight of him, a cry came, ■ across the water, fierce and sharp (ike the rending of calico. : ; V' : '' ; : : /W/v:/ : /:/' [ (To be continued daily »i