A ROMANCE OF CANNIBAL GORGE.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1191, 28 December 1894, Page 18

A ROMANCE OF CANNIBAL GORGE.

By the author of"' The City of the'Plains.'

1. This is the story of Henry Roper, and of his two sons, Jack and Thomas. t %b:. ;..-.'- '#,;> '■•'.#.. : '.'» * / Cannibal," Gorge is in the heart of the great .chain ' running north and south sixty miles inland from'the coaling township >f Westport. The Alfred River babbles out from beneath a steep hilj in the gorge, and its waters have wondeiful petrifying power. An animate or inanimate object, cast into the shallow bed, will, in a very short time, turn into stone. The leaves which fall off the trees, insects accidentally, settling in the water, arid pieces of wood,...are subject to this action. The approaches to Cannibal Gorge are forbidding. Heavily-wooded mountains, crowned with everlasting snow, seem to block the way. The deep silence of the bush is oppressive, for there is no life' in the trees. Birds there are none. Animal life is absent, and, when struggling over rotting tree-trunks, or -clambering up some steep precipice, the traveller shudders at the echo of his own footsteps. The Maruia River is suddenly come upon, crossed, and re-crossed. Then on the air is borne the fumes of the sulphur-holes one mile below the Gorge. The Maruia Plains , intervene, and there ahead of you is the black t - rent in the mountain chain from which run , the mysterious Alfred waters. 4C* 4g 4fc ***• I In the sixties, Henry Roper and his wife . and two sons left the primitive settlement at ) the mouth of the Buller River, and made i their way inland to a spot on the Maruia 3 Plains, which had been formerly selected by , the old man. With their own hands they 3 built a hut, and split the posts and rails j . necessary to fence in the selection. After q that, Roper and his two boys, Jack and Thomas, aged fifteen and thirteen respectively, .1 fossicked for gold. They got a little of the 1 metal, which once a quarter Roper used to •. take to town and sell to the bank, bringing e stores back with him on a couple of packd horses. And so things went on until the lads r had become men. Strangers would give them it a call occasionally, but there was not enough inducement for them to settle near the Gorge, a so they went away again, and told strange tales over their beer in the hotels of the ?' hermit family living away among the sulphur springs. ie On one of his trips to ijhe coast Roper toon his elder son Jack. s, He oame back alone.

' Where is the boy P' asked Mrs Roper. But the old man did not answer. His face was buried in his hands.

4 Speak, man. Where is my Jack ?' cried the woman, anxiously. She shook her husband roughly. ' Gone,' he replied with a groan. ' Fool! Gone where ?' 'To sea. The sailors gave him drink, and he would go with him.' ' And you let him go ?' 1 Yes ; I tried to keep him back, but he struck me here on the face —and went away. But it was the drink—the drink made him give his father a blow.' Thomas came forward and embraced the old man. 'He was a coward. Let me be your only son. I shall neither leave you or strike you,' he said. Boper was touched. He kissed his second son. 'Be it so,' is all he replied. But his wife wept sorely and would not be comforted. And as the months rolled by, and Jack did not return or send them word of his whereabouts, she sickened and died; and Boper and Thomas carried her to Cannibal Gorge and buried her near the Alfred River, where they knew the moisture in the ground would prevent the body from becoming destroyed. For it was Roper's intention to have her laid in the cemetery in Westpoit before he passed away himself. The years came and went. Reefton attracted notice as a mining centre, and Wevtport and Greyudouth were known far and wide for their coal. Yet Cannibal Gorge lay in among the ranges almost unknown, the mystery of its waters being rarely spoken of at all. The Ropers —father and son —plodded on, one week getting plenty of gold the next barely seeing the colour. But they had been there fifteen years, and their living cost them next to nothing. Roper was rich. When he came into the bank to sell his gold the clerks were polite, and asked him out to drink. He wa3 very old and Thomas generally came with him to look after him.

Thomas knew how many thousands his father had on deposit. 'lt will all be mine in a few years,' he thought, and he would look at the old man resentfully, as though it were time he died. ' It will all be mine some day—why wait ? ' This horrible idea made him shudder and turn pale. He could never meet his father's gaze after thac. A barrier seemed to have arisen between them. The old man noticed the change in his son's manner, and asked the cause, but Thomas was cunning, and would not give him any satisfaction. 'I fret for my mother,' he said, at which painful recollections were aroused in Roper's mind.

' I should like to see my Jack before I die,' he sighed. ' He must be dead, father,' replied Thomas. ' Yes, yes. I think so. You alone are left. You will have all the money, boy. But if Jack comes home, it shall be his. Sb shall I word my will —so have I made it.' ' Then Jack shall never come home,' inwardly observed Thomas, while aloud he remarked : 'What is wealth to me ? Give me my brother, for whom I sorrow so much.' Then he went outside, and cursed his father and Jack.

It was winter, and the ' Snow Queen ' had come down from the ranges to spend a season on the Maruia Plains. The fumes from the sulphur springs below Cannibal Gorge hung in the air like immense spirits, as though afraid to rise, lest the cold should seize and stiffen them. And high above the whitened hills rose the sparkling ranges, catching up the light from the sun as it peeped now and again through a break in the snow clouds. In Cannibal Gorge, the work of the Alfred River went on just the same. Masses of moss, torn from the banks by the frost, were turned into stone. Pieces of wood, falling from the trees owing to the weight of the icicles, Seated a little way with the slow current, then sank with the weight of their changed, nature. Unlike other streams, there was no music from this water. It rolled over its stoney bed silently, like so much oil, yet its transparency was unequalled. It forced its way through black, dismal-looking defiles, until it reached the plains, where its waters, mingling with that from the sulphur springs, lost their magic power. Jack Roper had come home. He had found his way through the snow to his father's hut, and had begged the old man's forgiveness. 1 Why did you not come soonbr, lad ?' asked Roper, weeping with joy. " 'Because I was ashamed to face you. -I ' have seen the world, but, father, in-my heart there has always been a longing to see you. That feeling has grown so strong upon me lately that I had to c'bme.' ' A.nd you are forgiven, Jack, for your dear mother's sake,' replied his father. Then Thomas, who on the arrival of bis brother had gone away into the frozen bu<?h to hide his chagrin, came into the room and pretended to. be glad to see him. 'Tell us of your travels, Jack,' he said, knowing that he could not flatter him more. So Jack kept them up till near daylight recounting his experiences. He had only re-, mained at sea a short while. After .leaving his ship he had taken to sporting, with the result that his pocket and physique were ruined. His younger brother was much bigger and stronger than he. This Thomas did not fail to notice. When they were ready to go to bed old ROper took his son's hands in his own and said, ' All my money I shall leave to you, Jack ; but you must look after Thomas, and let him want for nothing. It was your dying mother's wish.' Then he bade them good-night. Jack slept, but Thomas walked about outside in the snow in anger. Next day Roper called Tho>mas and said, ' Take your brother to your mother's grave.' ' It will snow hard to-day, father,' he answered.

' Snow ! Are you grown afraid ?' ' Not I. But Jack does not seem fit for the journey.' 'Take a blanket for him. He wants to go.' ' Very well, father,' said Thomas. So Jack and he set out for Cannibal Gorge. They had difficulty in making their way across the. plains, but when the Gorge was reached each foot of the way was dangerous, and to make matters worse a heavy snowstorm darkened the air so much as to render it impossible to see more than a few yards ahead. They crept into a hole overlooking the Alfred River and waited for an hour or so. Then, the storm abating, they went on until they came to the spot where their mother's body lay buried. Thomas removed the shingle which filled the grave with a shovel he had brought with him, and exposed to the astonished and sorrowful gaze of his brother the petrified corpse of his mother.

I Every feature, every garment was the same | as in life, only changed to stone ! Jack fell upon his knees and bent down to f kiss the face beneath him. As his lips were pressed to the hard, cold cheek he felt a crushing blow upon the back of his head. He attempted to. rise, but again came the blow, and with a stifled cry of 'Mother!' he sank upon her body, dead. Thomas buried him in the same grave as his parent, then cast the shovel, blood-stained and bent as it was, into the river. When he got home, he found his father anxiously waiting for him and Jack. Thomas walked in the door, and threw himself into a chair. ' Where is your brother P ' asked Roper. ' Is he not home yet? ' said Ihomas. ' Home yet P No. Did you not go to Cannibal Gorge P' * ' Jack went. I have been working down at the springs all day,' replied Thomas, shortly. ' The poor boy will get lost. We must look for him. My coat, boots, hat—quickly, lad, quickly,' said the old man, excitedly. ' Jack is not lost; he will get home all right,' said Thomas, in mortal fear lest his crime should be found out. 'He will be lost, I say,' yelled Roper. *Go you along the ■ ridges, while I make for the Gorge.' With that he rushed out into the darkness, heeding neither the cold or anything else. Thomas saw him go, and then returned to the hut.' ' IFfather lives through that journey, he is a wonderful man,' he muttered. 'He will either fall into one of the springs, or slip down the cliff into the river. Either will do for me, and after that good-bye to Cannibal Gorge ! ' He took the will from his father's box, and put it in his pocket: He was terribly nervous, .and went to the door a hundred times. At day-break he left the hut, and went to look for his father. There was no sign of the old man anywhere on the plains, so he proceeded to Cannibal Gorge. The effects of the previous night's storm were apparent on all sides. The snow lay thick on the ground, trees had fallen right and left, and the small creeks carried a covering of ice. By noon Thomas reached the scene of his murderous act, and the sight which met his gaze turned him horror-stiff. There sat his father, quite dead, with the bodies of his wife and elder son in his arms. Already the work of petrification had commenced on the latter corpse. One arm was partly bared showing the action of the water in a marked manner. The hair on one side of the face and parts of the clothing were turned to stone, and had the process of petrification not being disturbed by Roper, the whole body would have undergone the stoney change. * - . At first Thomas was prompted to rush from the spot; then, remembering that other eyes might ere long see this strange and horrible sight, he pushed the three bodies into the grave, covered them roughly, and left the Alfred waters to do the rest. ' #.. # # *

. Roper's hut on the Maruia Plains rots for want of a tenant, and Roper's money in the bank waits for a claimant; for Thomas was prevented by fear from endeavouring to obtain possession -of it. He left the district, none knew when. Where he is is a mystery. But in time to come some prospector may unearth the three petrified figures, two at least of which, if they could speak, might say why he went away.