Dragonfly

Otago Witness, Issue 3868, 1 May 1928, Page 8

Dragonfly

“feu

Bernard Cronin

(Copyright.—For the Otago Witness.)

CHAPTER XIX.

In Birdseye, as night fell, smoke-dwii

men were drifting back io v..l ... base. The district sweated and licked "its wounds, gazing awestricken upon- the evil magnificence of the receding Hames, Sergeant Green, half naked and wholly voice less dragged his preposterous bulk with unflagging energy from group to group. His bloodshot eyes were sombrely triumphant as they surveyed the unharmed oasis of Birdseye amid the scorched and blackened desert of the country side. With a badly burned hand he made signs to Bill Quiet who had just ridden in. The trooper threw his fire-flap—of two feet square of greenhide fastened to four feet of mulga handle—to the ground. He fell rather than dismounted from his saddle, rubbing the muck of smoke grit from his face. He said hoarsely : “ So far as we know now - Souse was the only one the fire caught. Pretty near burned to a cinder. They’re fetching what’s left of him in a bag. What say ?’’ He listened patiently to the croaking sounds at his ear, as Green fought for understanding. -“ It looks like it, sergeant. He had the horrors pretty bad last night. They’ve been coming on him for weeks. I suppose that gave him the strength to kick his way out of the shed. Must have gone right out and set the grass afire, with some notion of getting to hell quickly. Well, he’s certainly got there ...” Green nodded. He articulated, after immense effort: * ‘ want someone . . . follow up the fire . . . happened Luce . . . those three boys ...” “ I knew you would.” Quiet said. Ho lowered his head in an effort to shield his voice against the rushing, flame-haunted aftermath of wind. “ Spinifex is getting fresh horses. He’s riding with me. I don t like it, sarge. Those hills must be pietty well burned out. The fire swept right over ’em. No chance for a bandicoot even. But . . . while there’s IKe in us there s hope. God I I’m tired . • .” The sergeant tried to renew his feat of speech; but gave it up, and patted Quiet’s arm instead. They stood side by side, watching the encircling horizon of angry fjame. The night sky was incandescent almost to its zenith. The northern arc . radiated long lines of vermilhon, splotched at intervals by bursting balls of smoke. The air seemed to whimper. Spinifex appeared suddenly with the horses. He said, with a harsh chuckle as Bill Quiet turned: “ Nye’ll give me hell for staying away from Yambatilli, but I don t care. She was out of the line of fire, anyway, except for a few acres this side. They’re serving free liquor over at the pub, too, wouldn’t you know I’d have to miss that. Some blokes have all the luck.” The whole world can get drunk tonight if it wants,” Quiet excused. - Green walked heavilv towards his house nearly colliding with Warmaduke Cherry.’ paused to say jerkily: ** I thought I’d maybe sit over with Addie McMurtrie a bit, and let your missus have a breather. What with tiling tea , ns , of P eo P le . and tending to Addie and the rest of Birdseye, she must be nigh wore out. I got to do something, anyhow to take Luce and Chari oft my mind. The sergeant could only -wave his hands He wanted to say- ‘ Well, you always thought well of Addie didn t you, Uncle Marmie? She needs a man like you to make life easier for if 1 , th , at in y°nr bead, good luck to the both of you.” But so fearsome was The sound that came from his crippled throat that he subsided hastily As he plodded on once more he found ef . weariI V surrendering at l ast to thought of Luce. Hitherto he had sternly refused to dwell upon what might have befallen her Now his fear for the girl suddenly choked him. He dared not contemplate disaster . . . the thing was too horrible. And all at once he felt old and discouraged. His. fatherly affection, his delight in her. was arraigned Whf n in the face o f test. When she most needed him he had failed gr< ? Pe< ? hot, sagging eyelids. Heshook his fist in the face ofthe stenching night, rasping defiance aid threat By God, if Onslowe failed, too I’- 14 d Tc t n iP i Uer , im P<>ssible the task. . . If Onslowe hadn’t found Luce m time, never let him show himself a »ain to Albert Green. . . °

As though something of the sergeant’s passionate declamation had communicated itself to. Onslowe’s drooping thought Onriowe was himself at that moment suffering the pangs of almost certain despair, brom the fiist the luck had been against tbem. Within an hour of leaving Dragonfly Birkett.and he were forced.for their veryfives’ sake to ride parallel t'o the line of fire The rapidity with which the flames had travelled was, to Onslowe at least, wellmgh unbelievable. They were pushed west as they rode . *y e t so barely escaping destruction even ,thenS that the hoa|which leaped from th& cauld-; Ton of the melting earth scorched their Very senses. Night had discovered them • . .. men and horses both . . . turning back

over tjip charred and still smouldering ground, blear-eyed and dazed, their lungs torn with acrid smoke, their flesh shocked by the red fangs of the fire’s breath. They were drunken. with fear and anger; without hope: bewildered in their course . . Chari, Onslowe’s mind ran on dully, could have set them right. But Chari was not with them. The thud of galloping hoofs had been their only indication—as they saddled frantically in the yards—that he was gone . . that he was,playing a lone hand against the dangers which threatened Luce. There had been something demoniac in the manner of his going, as though he had been part of the elemental force with which their world had become so suddenly, so horribly, embroiled. A moment, and he had been with them, of them; another moment and he had passed inexorably from sight and hearing. The gleaming dust banks had taken him into their maw. Between Onslowe and Birkett had arisen the truce of a common passionate endeavour. The boundary-rider, savagely checking the impulse of his greater ability, rode knee to knee with the city man. Hut he left Onslowe undei’ no delusions as to the future. He said, breaking a long silence al tile crisis of their stress: “ I’m not dothis for you . . . don’t think it. You could lie and burn for all I’d care.” Onslowe had gasped: Why don’t you go on and leave me . . . and be damned to you. 1 hough I can’t see what you have against me, if it comes to that.’’. “It’s your existence I object to,” Birkett informed him grimly. “ And you can make what you like out of that.” A tussle with the panic-stricken horses had ended the brief passage at arms. Onslowe, indeed had forgotten it, as they coaxed their jaded mounts north again through the enveloping miasm? of the daikness. The skv was dewed as if with blood; the air drawn taut and acrid. Against the far wall of night there hung a spray of amber and scarlet flame. The ravished- landscape gave out no sound, as though all life but theirs had come sudoemy to a standstill. Long past midnight they were still feeling their way towards the stark impression of the hills. An oath from Birkett Struck the heaviness from Onslowe’s eyes. The houndaryrider had dismounted and was starino- at his quivering horse. He said, with indescubable bitterness: “You win all the way, don’t you? He’s gone lame on me. Bruised his near fore frot' on these blasted stones.

What can we do? ” Onslowe asked. Birkett turned in a fury. P o! •• • Get on, can’t you? Never mind me. -Make for the spur to the right there. You can’t miss it. because the fire has stripped it bare. If Luce is anywhere she s in the hollow over beyond. - There are no other hills anyway likely . ” mumbled ,Sht,1 ’ t t 0 y ° U ’”' °" slowe

.“ Isn>t it enough that you’re as you are, without this damned argument? ” Birkett derided “ I’m not Providence. Even Luce couldn t ask more of me . . Oh f- i God « sake ...” ’ 3

Onslowe, dumbly understanding, kicked his own horse to a shambling trot. He hau as it were, come at the second wind of his cohrage. Yet presently, at the faint , heart drummed s ckishly. He left his horse with the reins trailing, .and made fearful approach to the Imrse mass confronting the rise. Chari’s neck '’ ’ P ’d h f? d hldeousl y a broken chan.-.: ?• half roasted • ’ ’ And coS^revLl o^ irantic searching tek nn hX t T And K a whil <b more 6 2 ° f he ’ rode on once Steni™ H a amazedl y that the east was iipntcning. Dawn was creeping to the unveiling of the night’s tragedy. 0 Presently grey fingers of light would probe the raw ness of earth’s hurt, revealing . . what’ hiniseff tha^Go? thou £ ht . He told ciiml We? C °Th “/° ul a her Sl-r wn’ -.the night was full of ner. b>L e was in tho cleits of his brain ei B tSs rr °Th Of h - ls , bones ’ his very fingbreath ° n '^ is check wls hfr • Pounding of blood at his ears held the song of her voice +IW - , vielded the nnU- Vol ce, the oarkness xfod” 1 » for ' h!s ow 'n— ‘-Cod’ Oh God, what a fooi I’ ve been * ’ unutterable fool There i<s n" ' ’ Y-^ a^, an •■• My very dear . ” ° ne Lke her He lifted his eyes to the crystal of whitening S ky and found their siSt dimmed with an intolerable anguish. CHAPTER XX. wJjr n > tbe l° Ot c° f the cliffs Luce had -''atched rise the first smoke that heralded trie holocaust so soon to engulf Birdseye. Pre occupied a little abnormal from Die stress of her thought, she had given small heed to the significance of what she saw She liazny supposed it to be a gossamer of cloud, forerunner perhaps of the tumultuous rain, so long delayed. It was only When the grey filament slowly darkened and became’eflattened cdneWise at its apex that realisation came to'her. She stared with a kind of .sick fascination, wondering what more of evil her world- portended.

The wind had sprung from nowhere. It came out of the vacuum of the blinding heat in stealthy, sinister puffs, like tho laboured exhalations of an arousing drago It was charged with grit and dust, and the bitter alkali of the desert. Her eyes began to run and her cheeks were flayed maliciously. Yet she continued to start, her hands at her throat ... Behind her painted cliffs rose to jagged heights. They were kaleidoscopic with the brilliant mosaic of a vermillion pumice, ■jhrome ■ sandstone, snow-white crystalline limestone, and the hundred hues of jasper, agate, soft marble, ironstone and chalcedony. .At their base lay the corrosion of centuries. The smoking sands that piled the bed of a long-dry watercourse were agleam with a tiny opaque rubble that was a medley of flawed jewels. Luce already knew the mockery of their luring beauty. Garnets, rubies, onyx, emeralds cornelians ... a king’s ransom to the eye yet so small on better acquaintance as to reveal 'themselves valueless.’ A child’s lovely playground of toy jewels. It was to charm Luue with, the gay deceit of it all that old Cxrey Cardew had taken her to the spot . . . the haunt of the dragonfly. She had cried, filled with the’ disillusion of liKed childhood, at this Betrayal of her ecstacy. Carey Cardew had grown suddenly sober, she remembered, to see her passion of grief. He had he’d her fast in his lean arms, soothing her with whispered endearments, seeking to turn her attention to the mythology of his curiously transfigured thought. Ths great bluff yonder was the head of the dragonfly, the line of painted cliff was its underbody, the jungle sprouting to the right and’ left formed the diaphanous wings which it was her delight to view from the window of his room when the night was moon-struck and faery. Her child’s imagination had found easy resemblance. Here was something alive, vital, saturated with the lore of the Cardew breed. This intimate conceiving of the dragonfly’s presence, as it were, filled her with awe. It gave her a certainty of superstition almost equal to that of old Carey. Her conception had kept pace with the years, refusing to be ousted by the commonplace of existence, bhe had seen with the eye of faith. She still saw, although now to the urge of an abstract persuasion. On the face of it the jungled cliffs bore no semblance to even a magical appearance of life. They .were blank, starkly themselves; a gloriously hued chaos of peak and ledge and olive-treed terrain; somehow detached, aloof from the surrounding country. The great masses of vegetation depending in places from the heights, gave the impression of a veil to hide, the thought of the place. It seemed to brood upon its solitude, to be gathering to itself the secrecy of an age-old purpose, a dynamic fulfilment. Turning towards it now Luce had a sense of impending cleavage, something inevitable and final.

It was this sense, she frankly recognised, which had had most. to do with her presence there. The place of the dragonfly had drawn her mind like a i lodestone. Beyond and above the thought i to place herself out of reach of capture I was this imperative summons of the CarI dew symbol. She wondered if she were I not a little mad. Her happiness was dealing with facts ... the facts of Mack M'Murtrie’s death and Onslowe’s ill-defined innocence, as she had supposed it . . . not vrith mediaeval fancies. The absurdity of supposing either that she should support herself in such arid surroundings or that what she had done could in any way avail Onslowe, did not occur to her. Reasoning had played little part in her yielding to an overwhelming impulse to place herself in the protecting shadow, as it seemed to her excited imaginations, of her grandfather’s obsession. Thought of Onslowe, however, impinged upon this other, as an echo impinges upon its creating note . . . softly staccato, almost unawares, yet acidly persistent. Luce held Onslowe very fully and soberly now in her mind. She sat on a flat stone in the shade of the curtained cliff, her rebellious chin cushioned in her hand, her eyes vaguely understanding the "'enormity of threat that was belched fipm the vortex of Hie dulling sky. The flrc, she saw, was advancing under • extraordinary impulse, to the lash of the wind, which had become almost cyclonic. ' She felt no personal fear. She was unable, somehow, to see the catastrophe in its relation to her own safety. She remained in a still contemplation of her purpose towards Onslowe; the thought’ of him bitter-sweet on the palate of her mind. Luce’s impulsiveness found the manner of Mack M'Murtrie’s end quite simply to be accounted for. Onslowe—aware or unaware of the part Char] and she had played in the night’s happenings; the point was unimportant—had too evidently found excuse in the behaviour of Nell ■ Nye to speak something of his angry disgust towards the .Boss of Birdseye. i Luce, with weary reiteration, pictured the method of Mack’s retaliation. It was, she told herself, perfectly plain that his temper, already overstrained by disappointment, had flared to an unbridled violence. Personal encounter was followed by his tragic undoing. Onslowe, by accident or design, had struck the other to his death. It seemed to Luce that this conclusion was indisputable. Had not Bill Quiet come upon the very crisis of the scene, with Onslowe standing bewildered, red-handed. . it had been her passionate desire, from the moment his danger was apparent to her, to take the dread burden of his guilt to herself. She had not paused to analyse her motive beyond the fact that her very marrow became steeled to hold him from hurt. She had thanked God that she alone, not Nell Nye nor anv other,, might avail tp defeat, or, at the

worst, confuse and delay, those that would seek to bring him to. account. It did not matter in the least that some other woman than herself had furnished the occasion. Luce gave a moment of scornful thpught, at that, to Nell Nye. Her intuition was adamant that Nell would desert Onslowe at the first hint of his trouble . . had already deserted him. ...

Luce put hot hands to thrust the hair from her forehead. Smoke was drifting sluggishly into the amphitheatre of the cliffs. The acrid reek of the flames was even then apparent, although the fire was conceivably some miles distant yet. She tried to calculate how long it would take to reach the spot where she was. Suddenly she perceived that the dusk was hastening to the aid of. the overcast sky. At intervals she could see fingers of flame stabbing the fog of black smoke, and a long continuous rumbling sounded through the shrill venom of the wind. Apart from these it was extraordinary, she thought, how void hearing had ; become. Life seemed to have been suspended; there was not even the note of a bird. Nature had withdrawn all evidence of animation beyond Luce herself.

It was this enormous submission to the elements which struck through the inertia of Luce's emotions, at last to reach, the fear for self latent, in the hearts of all. Without warning her pulses leaped, her tongue clave to its bed, and a trembling seized her limbs. Of a sudden she saw that it was almost n ... a night made hideously beautiful with colour that ebbed and flowed in a tide of amber and scarlet and amethyst across a charred heavens. The air was incandescent, diabolically transparent, except where the coiling smoke broke and lifted. The wind had settled to a steady roar, the earth, top, gave out a sound, as though to the million feet of the triumphantly marching flames.

The necessity of finding some safer spot than where she stood helped to still Luce’s rising panic. She was presently able to smile stiffly at the risk her courage had run. How could she be so unthinking, she chided, as to suppose that death were all the meaning of that invisible Presence w’hose prompting she had been incapable of resisting; rather had, gladly assented to. Else life held no comfort anywhere . . . Unaccustomed tears stung her eyes. She turned impatiently to an examination of the cliffs. And on the instant a prompting came to move aside the heavy drapery of fleshy creeper. She thrust an arm through the tangle of it, expecting resistance, but meeting none. The creeper swayed aside like a hinged door, revealing cavernous depths beyond. Luce, shrinking a little at thought of creeping inhabitants, advanced gingerly, to find herself, flaring candle in hand, within a wide crevice of the cliff, bottomed with fine "wind-drift, and reaching upwards to a glittering fretwork of minute stalactites. The aptness of the discovery touched her blood to momentary faintness. She felt it savoured of the supernatural.' Not even her grandfather, she believed, had suspected that such a place existed.

Luce mused from her awe to recognition of what she must do. In the short space of her inspection it seemed, upon regaining the open, that the fire had swollen to incalculable dimensions. The smoke almost blinded her. She came again, gasping with the reek of it, to the asyet untainted air of the. crevasse, her small belongings in her arms. The curtain of creeper, opaquely sea-green in the dim light? of the candle, at onee closed itself into a barrier of heavily sapped vegetation. Luce spread her blankets on the- sand. With trembling fingers she made shift to eat of the food she had brought, but found no appetite. The candle was gluttering wildly, and presently she extinguished it. She lay flat on her face, eyes closed against the oppressive darkness, her ears. shrinking to the uproar of the wind. Momentarily it grew hotter. She began to have a difficulty in breathing. A bitterness like aloes corroded her throat and nostrils as the hours drew on. I ■ The sensation of choking passed.’She was no' longer conscious of the chaos of a -world in ashes all about her. : She lay supine under the anassthetic of unendurable heat and smoke and sound, while the night burned furiously overhead towards its horizon. Once only ghe' stirred at a cataclysmic uproar of’ falling cliff, to fling her hand upwards as though warding a blow. She said in a drugged whisper, “David . . y vou fool, David Towards daybreak she came slowly to consciousness. The crevasse reeked with smoke, but the heat had passed. ■ Not a sound met her ears as she struggled upright, and for a horrible second she had a thought that she was deaf . . . in the grey light that filtered b etween the now warped and shrunken curtain.,of creeper, she stumbled into the open, pressing her hands to her throbbing temples. The dawn was creeping like an opal mist in the wake of the vanished flames. Luce could dimly discern the havoc of their passing. The jungled hills had vanished, leaving only a stark outline of rock and earth around. The thick scrub which had masked the approach to the gully was utterly destroyed. Part of the cliff wall, crumbled by the intense heat, ..had fallen confusedly. The way of the dragonfly was no longer sheltered from the common discovery. Before her stretched an open vista of contorted landscape. But it was not of this that Luce was thinking. She was aware only of >the unnatural. silence, the queer unreality of aH about her. Her heart beat suffocatingly. There was that in the air, that filled .her with, apprehension. Again she

was knowing a sense of impending cleavage, disaster. An inexorable Power seemed to settle itself over the ruined gully, drawing the shadows upwards to revolve dizzily in the widening light of the dawn. The cathedral quiet, the confusion of hep senses, the abiding sense of the supernatural ... . . all these induced in Luce a cumulative emotion. She became suddenly rigid, her blue eyes .grown black with expectation, her ears attuned to a sudden vibration in the air that was like the whispering of a hidden host, lhe shadows were taking shapes that were curiously human. At Luce’s brain the old, vaunting motto of the Cardews began to beat insistently as though to the echo of many voices . . . Per fas et nefas ... Through right and wrong . .. bhe saw then ... and her fear vas shed like a cloak, leaving only an immense, an unspeakable wonder. The - space before her was filled with the vanished men of her blood, the dead and _ gone Cardews of all time . . . quaint, sombre figures attired in a pageantry of dccss, visored and plumed and helmeted, bizarrely beautiful in their crowded arrogance, breathing the salt of the seven seas and the dust of empires. Digby Cardew, one of Drake’s fillibusters; Grandison, soldier of fortune and mighty lover of women; Lorimer, boast of the Foreign Legion; Moi timer, Lancelot, Fitzalyg, Desborough, and others whose names she had never known; and yet others whose names were the dearest to bind her with the past. She heard her thought cry brokenly: “Father! . . . Gran’pa!”’—and struggled to go to them, but was held as though in chains. The whispering had stilled. And all at once Luce understood that they , were looking not .at her, but towards the gateway of the almost day. A sound like the gathering beat of wings was in the air. She saw their ghostly ranks divide, and Charleville Cardew . . . her brother Chari . . . last living of the name, walking blindly to meet her. His face was blackened and streaked with blood, and his eyes unseeing; but his lips were smiling. The left side of his head was crushed . . . horribly . . . hideously ... The spell that bound Luce snapped to a sudden flushing of the dawn. She caught Chari as he fell, crying his name again and again. “ Chari! Oh, dear God! O, Chari! He said distinctly: “Luce, it’s you . . . I’ve found you . . , before them all ...” » “Chari! - ’ She was kneeling beside him in an agony, “ You’re not . . . ashamed of me • . . not now ? ” “I’m holding you, dear . . . see, I’m holding you ...” “ Dear old Luce,” he said . , . And was suddenly very still. Onslowe, coming upon them a little later, found Luce standing dry-eyed and terrible. She whispered: “ David, isn’t it funny. I’m the only Cardew there is. David! David! Don’t leave me. Don’t ever leave me, or I shall die. . . . He held her closely while the storm of her anguish broke, his own eyes weakly streaming.

EPILOGUE. They were going north to Burketown in the morning, and from thence east to Cairns, where Onslowe’s married sister lived. Onsloive had arranged that Luce should stop with Anna during the months his busness needed him in Sydney. On his return to Cairns Luce was to marry him. It was already some weeks since Chari had died, but Luce was still far from well. The holiday at Cairns, Anna!s eager kindness, Onslowe had decided* should do much to ease the girl’s grief. Mrs Green had approved heartily of these plans. “ Time, thank God, heals most tilings, David. . . I want to call you David,” she had said. “ Luce must take a complete change. And now that Uncle Marmie and Jim Birkett are taking Dragonfly over on shares for Luce there’s no need for her to stay in Birdseye.” ' Onslowe’s reply was characteristic of his new-found humility. “I don’t know .what we’d have done without you and the sergeant. It’s wonderful the way lie smoothed .out the trouble over Mack’s death. Mrs Green, your husband ought to lie in the diplomatic service. Look how happy Addie is. . . .” ' : “Hush! "... that’s all finished with.” Her finger was reproving,’ warning; but her smile was warm. “Twelve good men and true said death by misadventure. That’s all we need to know. And as for. Addie . . . David,- have you noticed Uncle Marmie lately? I caught him taking her along a. great bunch of wild, flowers yesterday. Now, you must not laugh. Thank God for happiness. . .” Onslowe whs remembering the incident now as he stood with Luce in Carey Cardew’s old room at Jim Birkett was pottering about the kitchen, and from somewhere outside came the cheerful whistling of Marmaduke Cherry. “ What are you thinking of, David ? ” “ All sorts of things, Luce. Chiefly, I think, how thoroughly undeserving I am of ” She put her hand on his mouth. “ Don’t be mock humble. You know you think nothing of the kind. David, I shall hate leaving Dragonfly. To think that for nearly two whole months I haven’t Set foot on the dear place until to-day. And "you’re asking me :t<f leave it for years, perhaps.” "

• “ We’ll come back here often—aa often as we can/’ Onslowe promised. . He grinned doubtfully. “ That’s if Jim can bear to see me. But I don’t know. . . He’s a good chap, Luce. I think, somehow, lately he’s been trying to let me understand that he—well, that he’s glad for "us to be so happy. And I’ve tried to meet him there. . . .” “ There isn’t a mean thought in him,” Luce said stoutly. “ I never want a stauncher friend. David, come to the window. I just want to say good-bye to the dragonfly. The moonlight is so beautifully clear. Dear old dragonHe heard her breath catch suddenly, and put his arm about her. But his Own heart was leaping, and his voice sounded queer to his hearing. “Why, Luce ” She .said, whisperingly *. “ David, I can’t see it. David, what is it? The dragonfly isn’t there! ” “ No,” said Onslowe. He held her more closely. “You forget, dearest—the fire swept the hills bare. Even the cliffs were crumbled.”

“It isn’t there,” she. said again. “David, the dragonfly’s flown. . . .” Onslowe was curiously moved. He said, with infinit?'gentleness: “Perhaps its work is finished. I don’t pretend to understand what it has all meant. There are things we can. never understand. It’s queer. . . . “David! . , , Oh, David! ” “If I forget you,” Onslowe said brokenly, “ may God do so to me, and more also. Luce . . . that’s right. Close to me always . . . Luce! ” The End.