[FOURTH PRIZE.] FATE'S FINGER.

Otago Witness, Issue 2387, 30 November 1899, Page 41 (Supplement)

[FOURTH PRIZE.] FATE'S FINGER.

(Otago Daily Times and Wilm-is ChrUtm

AM mooch content to be here," said the Professor, with a liu^e fatsigh, plumping himself, as all his companions had done, into a '"•■-Lira bush. He mopped his broad hrow with a scarletcotton hamlker-

chief, and gazed round the little grassy flat that was squeezed between: the great mountain and the high embankment of the moraine.

His fellow-travellers sighed, giggled, and grunted their fervid assents. Mrs Salkin sighed as she gingerly felt the swollen tip of her red-hot nose, and wondered why she had been persuaded to leave her commodious family residence in a Melbourne suburb to squat on a mountain side. Mr Sa-lkin grunted. He was a little plump man with a. habit; of rubbing his hands and looking at you with his head on one side mat proclaimed his ordinary avocation. He had a never-ceasing thirst for knowledge, and his little black note book and pencil were continually in requisition. The human taps he turned on were at first flattered; then they felt bored. But Mr Salkin had visions of a neat volume with his name on the frontispiece as author, and was relentless in his search after truth. He was skurrying his poor home-keeping wife round the world at lightning speed, while ever she cast behind her longing glances for her babies and her house. The grandest scenery was naught to her. She would worry about little Jimmy's croup while she gazed at Aorangi, and be calculating what the butcher's bill should come to in her absence, when one thought she was rapt in admiration of the great Sutherland Waterfall.

The giggle proceeded from Miss Strong. Years ai.3o. when her colouring had not run and her hair was indigenous, some man, alack day, had told Adelaide Stron<' her laugh was purest music, and had called hor his Allegra. Ever since, Miss Strong had punctuated most of her remarks with merriment, and much converse with her was calculated to produce the deepest melancholy. She, in default of worthier prey, was striving to make an impression on the Teutonic heart of the Professor. As yet she felt she had made slow progress. Only Jack, the boy who had driven the old packhorse, and a woman who sat upright on a boulder, were silent. The lad was gathering sticks to boil the billy with, and aiming stones at the curious keas who were

nas Annual JS99 Prize Talc Competition. )

squawking round the little hut where the party were to spend the night. The woman, with thin hands clasped on her knee, was watching with keen- eyes the little curving path by which they had come down the hill into the valley. Und vhere is your goot husband, Mrs Vestlock?" asked the suave irofessor of the silent watcher.

"And Miss Merivale?" tittered Miss Strong. " They are not "hurrying themselves."

" She was very tired, and had to rest," said the cold, clear voice of Mrs. Westlock. " I daresay my husband has had to help her." "I'm positive she's as strong as a horse," Adelaide remarked spitefully. " Sh^ tramped up and down all day yesterday with the men, and played hide-and-seek in the evening. Those American girls look as they were made of rose leaves and' soap bubbles, but they're cast-iron as regards amusement."

• My Sophia, 'as just that complexion of Miss Merivale's, " mournfully said Mrs Salkin, her thoughts with her absent offspring. " Porridge and fresh milk every mornin', and Eno's fruit salt once a week in the 'ot weather — that's what done it, I always say. Not but what Mr Salkin 'ad a lovely skin before 'c took to trapesin' about."

" Jane," said her husband sharply — he had been imb bing scientific knowledge from the Professor — " just listen ! We are now upon the glacier. A glacier moves, moves always down the valley."

" Lor ! " exclaimed Jane, preparing for flight to some more stable ground.

"No, Jane, there is no occasion for alarm. The motion is imperceptible. This is a moraine we are now resting upon. Simply a coating over the ice below ! "

"■ Like a merang on a queen puddin' ! " murmured the docile learner.

" The Professor tells me, Jane, that billions of years ago "

A delightful ripple of laughter relieved his unwilling audience. Against the distant purple hills, on the crest of the rise, stood a short-skirted slender little figure, alpenstock in hand. A tall, broad-shoul-dered man rose uy behind it, and waved his wide-awake cheerily to the group below. Then, taking his little companion's hand, the two ran, like children, down the steep path until they landed with breathless laughter in the very heart of the totara bushes where the rest were sitting.

BY BUGGLESMITH.

"Professor, fan me, please!' Take a big lily 'leaf," commanded the imperious little lady in blue, as she stretched out two ridiculously small 1 hob-nailed boots, and leant a' burly brown head back among the fragrant foliage. "How you must' have rushed, you good people, instead of lingering over the beauties of Nature. ' Mr Westlock and 1 interviewed 'the roadmen. They gave us tea — ugh ! such stuff," and the pretty mouth •writhed with remembrance. "Mr Salkin, please get me something to take the taste out of my mouth. Oh ! for a mint julep ! The tiny American girl lounged among the' branches like a pocket empress. She always focussed every group around herself. The ' Professor, with a bland -and fatuous smile, waved the green leaf backwards and forwards ; Mr Salkin was skirmshmg among the commissariat for the wherewithal to quench her thirst, and finding nothing but pannikins and tinned jam, and Jim Westlock, his shapely length stretched on the gravel close by, watched the piquant face with his soul in his eyes.

She was not pretty. Mrs S'llklr — be r oi< she had merged into a mere mother — had been better-looking, and Adelaide's regular if severe features had been spoken of, ten years or so ago, as classic. Faith Merivale's nose was an uncompromising snub, her mouth wide, her eyes d.rk — bin not soft or large. But a cream and rose skin, bright brown hair with crisp golden lights and dusky shadows, and the very sweetest of voices, made up an attract ye personality. Gay, insouciant, outspoken — impudent, Adelaide Strong called her — Faith had had all her life, since she had worn open-work socks and cambric frocks, an adoring male audience. Her Aunt Jerusha — at present dozing the sunny hours away in an extra stout hammock under the trees ten miles ,away — was her obedient subject. She followed humbly the swish of Faith's silk-lined skirts, or knew, by a lifting of the dainty eyebrow, when she was to stay behind

On this occasion she had had no difficu!tv in discovering her duty, for her loving niece had assured her she was looking bilious, and that the trudge would be too much for her. Aunt Jerusha assented cheerfully. She was fat and scant of breath, and to her an alpine tramp had no charms. So she dozed under the green and '"oio. branches while Faith was playing a lone hand in the little game she was amusing herself with. Her hard little heart was touched at last. Jim Westlock's great beauty, comely giant that he was, had captured her vagrant fancy at first sight. Now all the little world among the mountains had noticed the man's devotion to the and his neglect of his silent wife. " The more shame too," had said Adelaide Strong to the Professor the night before. She had drawn him out into the misty moonlight only, alas ! to listen to a panegyric on lager beer. "He married his wife, poor creature, for her money. She has heaps, made it in bone-dust, whatever that is, — at least her father did. And no one could refuse Jim Westlock when he came a-wooing. Though after all, what is mere beauty, dear Professor, to a loving heart? She might have known he didn't care for her. She's very plain — don't you think so, Professor? So dull and so difficult to talk to?"

Professor Muller pursed up his lips and bent his shaggy eyebrows before he answered :

" Mrs Vestlock 'as a very strange eye somedimes. I 'aye seen de same look in de eyes of a woman in Berlin — and she murdered her schwester after," he added reflectively.

With a tiny scream and the perennial giggle, Adelaide had begged the portly Professor to talk of something more cheerful. But she had remembered his words, and from her low seat in the bushes she was watching the upright, defiant figure with the thin hands clasped round the knees. Her keen eyes were quick to notice the tense white knuckles, and the dull glitter in the half-closed eye. The woman was suffering, and Adelaide felt she hated the childish creature that sat in her absurd short skirts and twisted men's hearts round her tiny fingers.

In Mary Westlock's mind hatred, love, and envy struggled together. She was ugly. She knew it herself, and had known it all her life. She would have given all her money for the beauty that sways men's hearts. She loathed the soft ripple of laughter and the gay sallies of Faith Merivale, but she had "never fancied for a moment she had ' her "husband's love. It was a bargain in which, she gave all and got nothing save a najfriej — a name she had grown to hate. ' ' '

The picnic tea was finished in the little hut. Faith had mounted the highest bunk with quite an unnecessary amount of male assistance, and sat swinging her dainty black silk ankles and patent leather shoes perilously near to the Professor's head, now adorned with a gaudy smoking cap. Adelaide, whose feet were not her strong point, sat discreetly on one end of the stool, a weird contrivance apt to tip up unless evenly balanced. Tinned meat, bread and jam, and tea in pannikins, had been vastly enjoyed by all, and the men voted a cigar in the moonlight was the one thing needful to perfect their bliss. The shadows were creeping over the mountains, and the west was barred with gold ; the clear, pale sky overhead was flecked with rosy clouds ; . the exquisite ice-peak that stood, a giant sentinel, at the head of the glacier was glorious in the sunset flush, and the nearer rocky cliffs were crimson. Far up among the unseen ice precipices an avalanche thundered, smiting the stillness with a threatening sound. A belated kea wailed overhead. Jack, busy scrambling up the rocks for mountain lilies for Miss Merivale, was whistling shrilly " Why don't you marry the girl?" Adelaide, who had been posing against a rock in an* attitude in which, years ago, she had been painted, laughed aloud at the discord of the song with the evening peace and beauty, and Faith with pretty entreating gestures and persuasive words, begged Jim Westlock to sing something. And then in that little alpine valley was sung that sweetest of

love songs, "To Anthea." The rich voice rose and fell with the quaint passionate words and floated across the little valley till the great rock barrier of the moraine sent back an echo. The silent, pale-faced woman watched her piquant rival grow strangely grave and drop her brown head 'on her little hand. As the song finished the Professor let out a great " Ach " of satisfaction, and Adelaide exclaimed on the beauty of the words and the utter faith of the lover.

"He was a fool," suddenly said Mrs WestlocK, contemptuously, with a harsh laugh, "or else a knave. Anthea probably was an heiress. That sweetens lovers' tongues."

A dead silence followed, and Jim Westlock's face grew white with passion. Adelaide could have hugged Mrs Salkin when that good lady burst into the conversational blank with some statistics as to her Caroline's musical ear, and it was astonishing how eloquent all, save Jim, his wife, and Faith Merivale, waxed on the subject.

In the grey of the dawn, as the four women lay in ,the inner room of the little hut, Mary, who had been staring with sleepless eyes at the glimmering square of window, rose on her elbow and looked across at her companions in the opposite bunks. Mrs Salkin, with vaseline and cot-ton-wool on her sunburnt nose, was snoring. She was happy, perhaps concocting in her dreams suet puddings, or patching little Jimmy's knickers.

In the bunk below, her soft brown hair curling over a crimson shawl she had tossed across the coarse pillow, lay Faith Merivale, smiling like a little child in her sleep. A great sapphire shone on the little hand that was resting on the edge of the bunk, 'ihe unequalness of things struck Mary

Westlock. The dainty girl lying there had everything — friends, freedom, gaiety, love, while she had nothing ; not even what she had thought she could buy with her money, her husband's heart. Proud and shy and plain, Mary had been always lonely, and the eloquent love-making of Jim Westlock was a revelation to the orphan heiress. Her grim old father she could just remember ; her mother she had learnt only six months ago had ended her life — in an asylum. The horror of madness brooded over the sorrowful creature. A happy woman might have defied it and deadened the footsteps of the Nemesis with her children's prattle and her husband's tender words. But to Mary the nights were terror, the days sorrow. She had never told her husband of her fear.

As Mary looked at the slim little figure lying there, a great hatred rose in her heart. Stepping out of her bunk, she caught up a penknife lying on the bench, and crouched beside the sleeping girl. Her dull eyes narrowed and glittered, and the thin lips grew tense over the white teeth. In a minute, less, maybe, she could drive the smiling life out of the girl, and then Jim might ....

" Are you not afraid of catching cold, Mrs Westlock?" said the clear, sharp voice of Miss Strong, who, awakened, was leaning out of the bunk above. " You had better lie down and cover yourself up. These alpine dawns are treacherous."

Trembling and wan, Mary crept back to her bed and covered her face with her hands. It had come, then, the grim, shapeless shadow. She had been mad, and but for Adelaide Strong's interference might have been a murderess. The great tears rolled down her thin cheeks. But she made no sound. She had been accustomed since her marriage to weep silently.

The glacier valley was as yet brimmed with mist, and only the topmost peaks were struck into glory by the sun when the party was astir. With chatter and

laughter Miss Merivale brushed out her prefety hair, wh le Adelaide Strong watched her in grim silence, wondering if she had dreamt the grim little scene of a few hours ago. Mrs Westlock was pale and languid. " The woman's a dolt," thought Faith as she watched through the veil of her hair the weary awkward fingers. "No wonder she makes Jim miserable."

" The top of the mornin' to ye, Mr Westlock ! Herr Professor, guten morgen ! I don't know your sweet native tongue, Mr Salkin, or I should address you in such. It's perfectly lovely up here in the 1 mountains. I feel newly made ! " Faith said gaily.

"' Ach, charming Fraulein, zliere vas no need for you to oe new-made," quoth the Professor, with a courtly bow.

Jim Westlock added nothing to the compliment. He did not even glance at the pretty, trim figure. All night long his honour and his love had been striving together, and his honour, thank Uod! had won. Something in his wife's tone and look as She said "Good night" had made him wakeful. Sticking the scrap of candle on the post of his bunk he had idly taken up a book from his knapsack. It was a tiny volume of Rossetti which his wife had brought. It was by no means his taste in literature. Fluttering the pages, a sprig of white heather slipped out on the rug across the bed. Memories of the grey, windy day on the moor, the moaning sea, and the tender promises as the heather was given flashed across his mind. His posy had been thrown away long ago ; hers was dead as the love it recalled. Jim Westlock blushed to think how he had kept his vows to the lonely, girl, .and there in the little hut, amid the snoring of the

Professor, he resolved to make amends. i

But he got no chance in the morning. His wife was silent and distrait, assenting vaguely to all plans. i

An hour later, all were trudging up the glacier between great ice-hummocks, where noisy streamlets rippled in their frozen channels. Before them rose a range of glorious mountains, their ice crests and soitly-rounded summits showing clear against the dark-blue sky. Ever ahead tripped the little figure in blue, climbing, with exult- ' ing cries, some high ice-knoll to see what lay beyond, or peering, curious-eyed into a j crevasse. Half an hour ago the Professor and Mr and Mrs Salkin had been safely deposited in a place where the latter was assured there was no possibility of an ava- ' lanche. Adelaide had stayed with the , Professor, and had been last seen with j adoring eyes upturned to her Teutonic ' swain, who was discoursing at length on the formation of ice-tables, while Mr Sal- } kin was energetically taking notes. Miss Merivale called a halt just where a huge chasm opened its gruesome white lips. Holding tight on to Jim's aim, she bent over and gazed into the amethyst and emerald depths. Far below, an invisible horror, the bottom lay, and gurgling groans ' rose up as from some prisoned soul. Mrs Westlock, from her boulder close by, , watched the pair on the edge of the ere- , vasse with so whitely wan a face that the little lad feared she was fainting.

" I'm going on a dozen yards to photo- i graph this view," said Jim. " You two take a rest, and be ready to pose on this ' hillock when I whistle."

"We'll look our very charmingest," cried '> Faith brightly. " I intend to stand and ' sing the ' Star-spangled banner ' at the ! top of my voice. I want to shout for delight of the loveliness."

" Shout away," said Jim laughing, " it'll do you good. Are you very tired, dear? " he asked his wife. '

" No," she said, slowly, " not very. Til soon feel better." As he passed her their eyes met, with so sad and desperate a look in hers that Jim longed to tell her of his new resolve. But the little lad was ahead and Faith's clear eyes on them, and he passed on in silence.

The American girl arranged herself and her alpenstock to best advantage on her ice-pedestal, humming the while a' line from "To Anthea." The sound seemed to move the listener to action. This was her destiny, then. Fate had led her here, thought the distraught brain, to win back her husband.

" Come along, Mrs Westlock," cried Faith, as the clear whistle sounded across the glacier.. "You must be in the photograph, too. For goodness' sake, don't slip or pusn me, or I shall fall into that hideous crevasse."

Very quietly Mrs Westlock stole up behind Miss Merivale. Then silently she pushed her down the slippery slope — down — down — to the horrible blue moaning depths. Scream ■ after scream burst from Faith as she • slipped and fell, clutching with frantic fingers at treacherous ice-crusts, and seeing above her, over the edge of the hillock, the glittering eyes of a mad woman. One little second the small bleeding hands struggled to hold to the brink, and then the girl fell. There was a second's ghastly silence, and then a little splash, and , after that another silence, broken only by the hideous chuckle and gurgle of the water below.

Jim . and the lad came with desperate haste over the ice. They had heard the screams, and seen bhe girl slip. On the

edge of the chasm crouched a white-faced, gleaming-eyed woman, crooning, as she rocked herself to and fro,

Bid me to die, and I will die

Upon the gallows tree; and dabbling her fingers in a little pool of blood that crimsoned the snow. Mary Westlock was mad at last.

No one ever knew that the white-haired woman in the asylum who all day sang one love-song was a murderess. Another sad proof of the dangers of mountaineering — that was what the papers said, and the Alpine Club discussed bhe mistake of the party not keeping together, and the error of their going unroped upon a crevassed glacier. Mrs Westlock, it was stated, had lost her reason witnessing her friend's horrible death. Adelaide and the Professor are now married, and they have ideas, which they keep to themselves, about the little American girl's death.

Jim Westlock toad no doubt. In the depths of his remorseful heart he felt that his selfish blindness was to blame for the blotting out of two lives. He now lives in another country than New Zealand, and in the peace and prosperity of these later years, basking as he does in the adoration of a second wife who manages him so deftly that he fancies he is lord of 'his own household, the old tragedy has grown blurred and indistinct. - But now and again the ghastly horror of tlie yawning whitelipped crevasse with the pale-faced creature smiling into its depths stops his laugh and chills his heart. And, though he still sings, no one can persuade him to sing "To Anthea." His wife is one of the many who can never understand his objection to the sweetest of love-songs, and Jim Westlock has no inclination to tell her his rea-