THE APPRENTICE.

Otago Witness, Issue 3754, 23 February 1926, Page 84

THE APPRENTICE.

Alice A. Kenny.)

(By

(Copyright.—For the Witness.) Ever since they landed on th island, and the immediate fear of death was past, another deadly fear had been at the girl’s throat. For the crew of the boat, which had struggled through three days of storm to be beached at length upon this surfbeaten island, were as rough and reckless a group of men as ever knocked about the whaling grounds. Before the wreck ot the “Caroline” they had been mutinous and lawlees enough, and now. since the mate had been washed out of the boat and drowned, there was no officer among them. Swain, the apprentice, a talk youth, heavy-faced, and sullen, had neither authority nor character to distinguish him from the others. They had found that it was possible to maintain life on this little precipitous island, with the surf smoking around it,

And not another luring sOul but the six nurvivore. There was water, good fishing, and in a valley that divided the island a dense, but not lofty strip of forest. Dobbs, who knew the South Pacific well, was confident they were not far from the New Zealand coast, and must soon be picked np by vessels from the sperm fisheries. Meircy Fraser was not a timid r imaginative girl, she had tossed about the sea in the old Caroline with her father, since she was fifteen yean old, but now her father had gone down with his ship, was terribly alone. She knew life, and she knew men, and she knew these men, the most troublesome blackguards, her father had said, that he had ever sailed with. If only the mate had not been lost too. He was a middle-aged man with a hard, red face, and a mouth like a rat trap, but he had the heart of a lion, and she had given him the same love and trust that sue gave her father. The fe~i haunted her and choked her day ; nd night; when she slept it was on the verge of nightmare horrors. If she had only a pistol to hide in her dress! If only she had not been young, fresh faced, and pretty. Like pirates the men hung about their fire on the darkling beach, ugly black shapes, rude in their gestures and tones, the wind making the smoke stream like banners, the flames pile themselves up, leaping higher and higher like a pillar of fire, and sometimes a fountain < f sparks rise and stream seaward. The bleak, beautiful, terrifying sea walled them all A horrible thing about the difficult unnatural intercourse of the castaway group was the nearness, the increasing nearness of that undercurrent of hought and purpose to the surface. They knew she feared, and hated, and shrank from them in her isolation, and she was aware of the evil intent and greed in the direction of their minds towards her. She was like a prisoner, a doomed prisoner; she felt that she inflamed and excited them; she had anguished thoughts of throwing herself into the sea. There was not one she could trust. Two she knew had been convicts ; one was not English, a swarthy, flat-nosed man. Swain was the youngest, perhaps the least evil, out she read no hope in his secret, brooding face. She sat on a bank of sand wrapped in an old shawl, shivering a little. It was dusk, and the wind blew down the sandbank, flattening the creamy crests of the rollers, and making the dry surface sand spin eerily past her, sprinkling her clothing. making a ceaseless little whisper, a light undertone to the sea’s deep sustained roar. How heartrendingly dreary and lonesome it was. The are. with its black crouching shapes was between her and the sea. There were only four of them • visible, one was absent. Some excitement moved them. There was a burst c; sinister laughter. One of the dark shapes came towards her, watched by the others It was Moore, the ex-convict. “Hullo. Missie! What’s the good of sitting up here all by yourself?” he said impudently, and sat down beside her and put a hand familiarly on her knee. She sprang to her feet witlj a wildly thudding heart. The fellow was up as lightly as she, and caught her arm. “No, you don’t my dearie,” he said, “you listen here.” He began to say incredible things, and she stood helpless. ; The scrub behind them rustled, and Swain stepped up to the group, and gave Moore a knock on the arm that freed the girl. “None of that, you wine!” he said “She’s mine, isn’t she? I won the toss. Keep your hands off.” “Yours if von can keep her you pup! Will you fight for her?” He shouted his challenge in a voice thick with anger. There was a snddin violence and brutality in his demeanour, and the girl cowered, feeling physically sick. “Blast you! Will you fight for her?” “With this.” said Swain laconically, and showed a pistol. “Get out!” Moore fell back, shouted some obscenities. and was gone down the sandbank again. Mercy, trembling excessively, found herself alone with the apprentice in the same darkening desolation, but now the fire burned lower, down bv the sea, and spear points of stars glowed overhead. “Come with me—it’s all right.” said Swain, and‘took her wrist and led her into the scrub. “Can’t trust them—there’s a hiding place.” It was dark in the wooded valley with strange, sweet smells of growth and leafy decay. She felt helplessr Her voice choked when she tried to speak, hut she felt for Swain’s hand on her arm, and caught hold of it. apnealingly. He released her arm, and took her hand instead, and at the contact of his firm warm palm with hers the horror and despair that filled her were defeated by something strong and kind that flowed from him to her. “You——” she whispered, “you—are not had and eruel like them.” “No—no ” he muttered, “don’t tliink it.” He hid her in a little thicket, and the two of them sat here blinded by darkness. Mercy was mentally confused bv fear and misery, but Swain’s mind was following one hard, clear line of thought He had no delusions about the situation. Unless a ship came their way soon he could not save the girl from them. Tlcre were no firearms among the boat.’* crew but the revolver he had, hut they could keep him away from food and water unless he was prepared for desperate measures. He brooded blackly in the darkness, biting his nails, while the overwrought girl fell asleep beside him. The experiences of next day showed him how events would shape themselves They did not refuse him food or water, but they kept it from him so that he would have to go in among them to get It, and perhaps be involved in a scuffle, A thing he dared not risk. They were

not openly threatening, but sardonic derisive, with the manner of men towards a stripling. H'' was advised not to treat them like dirt beneath his feet, because he had a girl of his own, and they had not, but to bring her out to cat with them the same as before. Their faces and words wer- stamped with treachery. He retreated into the bush where the ,girl waited, patient, trustful, herself than she had been since the ship went down. Though the nights were almost chilly, the days were hot, and the noon sun beat through the stunted trees and filled the valley with heat. Food did not matter much yet, but the want of water became a torment. Mercy and Swain talked a little to each other; the poor girl hung on the gloomy, uncouth youth with a sort of worship, so lost was she without him. Three times he went down and endeavoured to get food and water, only to be met with ribaldry and jeers. Something very bitter and deadly entered into him as he stood at the edge of the dark, windwarped belt of trees, and looked down at the group of men, and the wet beach behind them. He let them talk, chewing a leaf to assuage his thirst, and saying nothing. It was growing late; suddenly he noticed that there were only three men where there had been four. With a curse, h" went back into the wood, going swiftly in a kind of panic. Treachery and devilment were roaming the island now. A stifled cry reached him a moment before he saw the girl, and a shock of fury went through him. Dobbs had seized her, and had a hand upon her mouth. He released her to meet the apprentice’s assault. “Now, tlign, you young ” he ejaculated. Swain met him with such a rush that both went down as they closed, and the fight that ensued was horrible. Violent, silent, animal-like, they rolled and plunged on the earth, neither able to free himself or rise. Almost fainting with fear, Mercy saw a knife in Dohb’s hand, and heard a gasp from Swain, bn the latter had a knife, too. It was over almost before she under stood what had happened. Swain rose and stood muttering and wiping his face on his sleeve. “He tried to knife me—he tried to knife me!” The other man lay quite still, and Swain led her away from the place up towards the head of the valley, where peak arose which they called Look-Out Rock. “You’ll be safe here,” he said, when she began to cry at being left alone. “I’ve got something to do. I’ll bring you water.” He went down to the edge of the bush. Tt was twilight, hut a pale luminousness that came from the sea shone through the dusk. The fire was burning brightly, and two men sat by it eating. Near at hand he saw Moore gathering sticks He signalled to him with a low whistle, and Moore approached. “Oh, it’s you, young Dick?” he said. “Yes,” said Swain sullenly. “Moore, you ain’t the worst of the lot. I’m sick of tliis; you can have the girl if you get me some water. She’s just in here.” Moore followed him into the wood. Swain loosened the knife in his belt. Up in the dark valley, at the foot of Look-Out Rock, Mercy heard a pistol shot ring out. She started and trembled, and then crouched like a wild thing, listening. A strange, angry yell rose and floated on the air, then another pistol shot, and after its echoes had died —silence—a fateful, brooding silence. She seemed a long time alone, but at length Swain came, bringing a can of water and some biscuits. She drank and drank with a feeling of bliss at the pure, cold water on her dry lips. Swain drank, too, but would not eat. He had a wound on his shoulder where Dobbs had struck, and his sleeve was stiff with blood. She slept brokenly, and. half in dreams heard his groaning in the night and muttering. “I’m a bloody villain! I’ll hang for this!” “What is it?” she quavered, touching his arm. “Are they coming?” “No—no!” he said, with chattering teeth. “There’s nothing on the island will hurt you, Miss—nothing hut ghosts —you’re safe.” “You’re shaking!” she cried. “Dick—dear Dick, you’re worn out with looking after me. Won’t you sleep while I watch.” “If you was to say a prayer,” said Swain, with a sob. At dawn he stood on Look-Out Rock, feeling how strange it was to see the pure, pale beauty of sky and sea irradiate that accursed island. But his face was set and stubborn still. He went down alone to the beach where the untended fire smouldered yet, and carried brands and brush up to make a signal fire. Two days later the American whaleship Lancaster approached the island and picked up a boat which had put off from it, a ship’s boat which contained a man and a woman, the only survivors of the Caroline.