THE TIME OF THE FAIR.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 20137, 24 December 1928, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE TIME OF THE FAIR.

}}) ||j By MONA TRACY. jjj

" How should I '!" replied Yisscher calmly, '' Since that is a, business of which I kno\f Jess than yourself." Tho two men looked at each oilier, A gleam of amusement shot into the captain's muody eyes. li I imagine the council will sit long today," Tasman remarked drily. " Affairs will not seem to its liking, What matter ?" " Great matter!"' Yisscher exclaimed petulantly. " [ am scarce minded to spend a holy day in listening to v. iiuly speech-making. Even tho conned at Hatavia does not sit at tho time of tho Fair!" "Yet if s intrigues proceed just 'he sanje," Tasinan said. " Fpiphanv or other holiday —they are one to the Fast India, Company. Money is to lie made at Fair time as readily as at any other." Yisscher looked out at the three islets. " Not here," he complained. Xot here." " Who can say for certain ?" Tasman demanded abruptly. " No one," Yisscher admitted. " Hut it appears a grim, unkindly land. In Murderers' l!av we lay close to the shore. Did any man of us see pepper, clovc-s, spices? Were there trees bearing mvrobulans 1 Saw you natives rearing on laments "[ gold or precious stones': Saw* you silks, pearls, ginger?" "Faugh! Yon weary me!" exclaimed Tasman hotly. '' You aie no better than others of the council. Always comes th:s cry of booty, booty! Gold and nioie gold! Are spices and silver all of glory "They would suffice me." said the practical Yisscher, " so I could obtain me a competency of them." " And the pride of discovery for discovery's sake means naught to you '.'' " Well enough," quoth Francis Yisscher. " Well enough. But 1 confess I had rather find a new spice island than a score of unfruitful continents."Tasman did not answer. In Yisscher's ready materialism ho found the key to his own discontent, the urieusy feeling that (hero wa'i n(i fortune to the voyage. 'J lie pilot-major, although he detested the wordy deliberations ot the council, nevertheless saw eye to eye with the others. He was after booty, riches. In reality lie despised Tasnian's _ discoveries because they had yeilded him nothing, not even the chance to make trade. Ile was a huckster by instinct, a trader by birth So were they tilL of them—the Council of Hatavia, Van Dieincn and tho rest, the ships' council, too. Fven the eyes of the fair Yrouw Maria, lie recalled, were shrewd behind their smiles. Traders, batterers, hucksters, all of them! It was in no pleasant frame of mind that he went below to attend the meeting of the council. Fven the plaintivelybored face of Francis Yisscher did not awaken him to his usual grim amusement. When ho spoke, it was with unwonted airiness. His words hinted nothing of the splendour of discovery. What use? He read the faces of the council. Seed could not sprout in sterile ground. Hootv, not glory, was their objective. Bringing himself to speak without emotion, he pointed to his officers thai they could well afford the time further to explore Staten Land, It might hold rielvei unimaginable, the wealth of the Spauiads' LI Dorado. It might, said Tasman, be F1 Dorado itself. The council heard liim stonily. Herealised the attitude of his officers, and cursed them below his breath.. They did not oven discuss tho possibility of further exploring Staten Land; as if by tacit agreement they passed, at once to thu rosier prospect of finding tho passage to L'hiliway. Chili was rich. With God's lid tiiev would wrest it from tho Spaniards anil sail lion;?, loaded up with booty. Booty! Trade! Sitting, gazing moodily before him, Abel Tasman knew that he hated the words. He eyed Yisscher sarcastically us tho pilot-major set to explaining just the best route by which they could find the Chili passage. Yis seller, ho whs grimly pleased to observe, looked uncomfortable beneath the direct gaze of his captain. But, with a niniblenoss that compelled Tasman to reluctant ldmiration, ho wriggled through somelotv; and the council of officers, little tviser for his talk of this and that latitude, but looking owlishly knowledgeable, ipplatidod his remarks, where they had loan! those of Tasman in silence. When every man hud had his say, the •esoliition of tho council was recorded, l'asmau did not dissent. Again, what iso? He held Yisscher and the others n contempt. Of himself, also, he was icornful. He perceived only too clearly vliat he was—the tool of their, covetousicss, thu pander to their greed Away hen, from this mysterious countrv of

The sou whs grey us a gull's wing, grey as tlio windless sky. There waH a liazo of bout, hanging like) a quivering film from shimmering sky to shlmmerhig sea. Seen through it, the walls of thu three islets weie olivo green and dun, ■Green an<l dun, broken only where they jnet the grey, grey sea by splashes ot vivid crimson. There was something ominous in tha very colour of the flowering trees that thrust their gnarled trunks out of tho cliffs, thought tho man. Standing on the poop of his littlo vessel, lie regarded thorn with a frown. Then lie turned away im-> patiently. The (lowers were the colour of lite good Dutch blood ho had so lately seen spilled. A forbidding, inhospitable colour, red j and this land, this fascinating, unknown land that he had happened upon was lipped with it !

lie observed the sea; but he found little more of comfort in the horizon than ho had got .from the land. This ocean was not like the Java .Seas of his pleasant j memory. There, sailing hiiher and thither among the .Spice Islands, lighting, forI aying, or harrying those devil's spawn | iho .Spaniards, he knew his courses. The | stars wcro unvarying, the seas sufficiently ! well charted. Here, unfamiliar eonstellai tions swam into tho heavens, null the { north star was not. The grey sheen of j the sea was like a treacherous mask, the I smiling face of the witch who sought to destroy. For many days now, Abel Tus- . man had had I lie conviction that there ! was no fortune to his voyage. 1 . ! Hut why? lie asked tho question of ' himself, and asked it again, while his I hawk's eyes roved the horizon. Xot always had he felt thus —certainly not upon illie day on which he had been honoured j bv tho commands ol' the Council of j ISataviu. He was their picked man, the ! captain whom they believed could disj cover for I hem the ardently-desired pus* 1 sage to Chiliway. No less a personage j than Anthony Van Diemen had spoken I the East India Company's faith in him: | and Yrouw Maria, between her glances of j curiosity, had vouchsafed him one of the ; smiles that (knowing her for a scornful j lady) he was aware she bestowed sparsely j upon such as were of his humble rank. .V proud man had been Abel Janszoon 1 Tasinan that day; and a confident, with | Francis Yisscher to he his pilot-major, and ; the prospect before them of obtaining, in ! the naive words of the Hatavia -Council, i good booty in the South Seas, i Now, Tasman admitted to himself, con- | fidence had forsaken him. Marvellous, unforseen discoveries had been granted him, it was true. -Van Diemen's Land | first, then this great Staten Land ("'later i changed to New Zealand), surely the Terra Australis of the old-world cosmoj graphers. Yet, upon the very shores of them lie was lost, as lost as a little child | that had ventured out to sea in a cockle- ! shell shallop, ile had found Yan Diemcn's | Land, Staten Land. Hut what were | they ? Where was the passage to Chili- ! way ? Where was Hatavia ? And what ■ lay between Staten Land and Java, across 'the leagues of that blandly smiling sea? ! Lost—like a child in tho midst of a | treacherous ocean. Grey sea, and dun and | green land, with the stain of good Dutch blood along tho shore. . . . i Below him tho Heemskerck's crew, I lounging at the rails, stared at the islets with curious eyes. At tho side of thu Zeehaen, but u stone's throw away, he observed a shallop being got ready fur the bringing ot' her oflicerw to one of tho endless conferences that every day deter* mined tho course of the ships. Abel Tasman frowned again. 110 did not cure for tho ships' council. Its deli* burutions bound his hands in no small measure, Tho olljcers who composed it wore so eminently sane, their resolutions so persistently smug. The killing of tho three poor fellows in Murderers' IJav they had described as a " detestable deed," A detestable deed it was, anil no doubt of it; but, from his point of view, to bo expected as a hazard of tho discoverer's life. No uno had regretted tho murder more than himself; y>t, he told himself, Abel Tasman was not tho man to up anchors und floe from thu scene of his splendid discovery because of the loss of a man or two. Nor could he be persuaded that the Dutch ships would not have been still in Murderers' Buy hail tho natives been observed to bo wearing ornaments of gold or of silver, He was bitterly awtire i

Stuten Land, away from Murderers'* Bay uiul Cape Maria Van Diemen! Away from tiio thieo islets tlmt lie lutd tiurned the Kings because lie had encountered them on .Kpiphany JJuv! Away, on their huckstering voyage across Magellan's splendid ocean! ix>t the council have its will! There was u deal to see to during the afternoon, for tlie council hud determined that the ships must he away in the morning. To tho sailors Tastnati felt he owed some consideration; they had uncomplainingly borne tho hardships of a long and difficult voyage. Ho ordered that a pig should bo killed for their meal, and that giits should be distributed. And he spoke a pot of arrack /or each man. It was the time of tho Fair, the festival commemorating the visit of the three wise men of the Kast to tho infant Jesus. "Peace on earth, good will fo men," had said the angel. On HeemsUerck and Zeehaen tlmt night Tasman was toasted in fiery arrack. There was singing of carols, a roaring of ballads, dancing and revelry; but Tasman in his cabin, whither ho had ordered that none should follow, pushed his meat aside. His goblet of Flanders wine sat at his elbow, tinlasted. This night was the most bitter of all his life. . . . Grey, still, was the sky at dawn, and dun and olive the laud. The heat-haze no longer quivered, for a little breeze had come up with the light, bringing promise of a good sailing wind. The Zeeiiaen, having the more favourable passage, was the first to move from the shelter of the islets. The Ueemskerck followed, her crew in the highest of spirits. On the poop, erect- and hawkeyed, stood Abel Jansuoou Tasman, directing the course. Once clear of the islands they met with a wind fair for the east. East, and the passage to Cliiliway ! Beyond that, booty and Batavia! Tho sun came up. With his ship beyond any possible snare in the way of sunken rocks, Tasman raised his head ami looked back at the land that he. had found . . . and lost. "Some day, some other man will come upon Staten hand." ho mused aloud. '• Some day, some time, another man. a greater than T. will explore it, as 1 have yearned to explore it, and for nothing more than for the glory of discovery." He sighed, " But 1 do not think it will be a man of my lace,", he linished. in troubled tones. "f..- we .. . have failed . . They had failed. Ho knew why. I Sera use they v.ore not adventurers. Because, lil;e those of the Spaniards, whose mighty empire was even now mouldering to decay, their dreams were all of wealth. Because, being a nation of merchants, they could not lift np their eyes to look beyond spices and cinnamon and gold. "Staten Land will make grea! name of some other man." thought Jas man. "'But the gloiv is not lor me. Not for me. . . ." Of a sudden the clouds, parie I. Mai b>sun shone forth. It caught the < vest* of the Three Kings, crowning them m ;l splendour ot gold. .Amber and silvc l " v. iv> tho slopes, and whore lhey fan into :he

sea, ihe red-flowering noes were like ljj>R—. , liiooil ? \m. they were rubies. spill''" along llie shore. .\bel Tasrnan caught Ins breath. "Not for me," " Not for mo." he muttered drearily.