SKATING FOR LIFE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 442, 14 October 1869, Page 3

SKATING FOR LIFE.

. — — -+- . . [The following fragment of a most thrilling narrative is taken from the American Union. To understand the point, it is necessary to premise that Julius Olier, a halfcaste, had barbarously murdered the brother of Mr Weatherelt Champneys, a rich Canadian, who had resolved upon a deadly vengeance. It is this gentleman himself who narrates how he sought for the accomplishment of his aim.] . Night after night I lay concealed on the border of the river Scugog, awaiting the murderer. I was armed with pistols and wore skates. Skating was an amusement which I had excelled in when a school-boy, and facility in the art was of the last imporiance to my scheme of retribution. At length ho i came. It was an exquisite night; the white expanse around sparkled in the sheen of a Canadian moon, which sailed calmly through a cloudless sky. I could have shot the villain as he skated by me within fifty yards; but I would not risk the chance; and besides, my vengeance cried for a sterner fate than death by the pistol. No sooner was be past my hiding place, than with a shout of exultation I started on his track. Olier swerved a moment to see who his pursuer was; then, quick as lightning, tried to double up the river again. But I had anticipated this, and with a cocked pistol in either hand, I barred his passage. With a curse, he turned and sped swiftly down the ice. And now the race for life began. Mile after mile we swept along in silence. - An awful portentous silence it was, through which nothing broke save the hollow boom of the Bwif t steel cutting its way over the imprisoned Scugog. The moon lit me nobly to my vengeance. He could not escape me, for I found with a savage glee that I was a match for even the most swift-footed Indian. Olier became aware of this too, for now and again he would skate close to the woods, looking in vain for an apperturc. But no : there was but one outlet from this walled-in river, and that was over the fulls ! Faster and faster yet we skated towards the cataract. It could not be far off. I pictured to myself what Olier's thought's might be. Did he know whither he was hastening ? or had that awful light yet to flash on his guilty mind ? The half-bred made answer to my thought. I saw him in the pale shimmer start convulsively, and throw his arms in the air; but he

dared not stop, and on he darted again with a yell of despair, which echoed weird-like up the channel. Another sound came to my ear, and I knew- what had caused that yell of agony to burst from Olier ;— it was the dull thunder of the falls ! We were nearing them fast. Still the walls of snow shut in my victim, and every moment lessened his frail hopes of escape. One chance was left him — to distance me, and hide somewhere iv the snow from my scrutiny. Vain hope !— the wing of the bird could scarce have saved him ! Hoarser and louder grew the noise of tho waters. If I thanked the Almighty in f rantie prayer that the murderer was delivered into niy hand, I humbly trust that it may be forgiven me now. From the time I at first started on Olier's track, we maintained exactly the same distance between vs — perhaps a hundred or a hundred and fifty yards. I still grasped my loaded pistols, ready for any stratagem on the part of the murderer. And now the crash of the falls came loul and ominous on the ear; Another five minutes would decide the hunt. Suddenlj', Olier turned and stood at bay. He was not armed; I felt certain of that all along, for otherwise he would have measured strength with me before. Without abating my pace, I skated up to him, holding a pistol in each hand. Still my purpose was as fixed as ever only to shoot the villain as a last resource. When I was within twenty yards of him, the coward faltered and again turned swiftly down the river. . With a yelling laugh I pursued him, pressing still more hotly on his track. Deafening was the roar of the cataract; high into the pale sky ascended the mist of the spray, through which the splintered lines of the moonlight darted in rainbow-tinted beauty. I could see directly the jagged line of the ice, where it was broken by the rapids immediately above the cataract ; and beyond I could trace the dark volume of the Scugogv as it emerged from its prison of snow and ice. For an instant the half-bred turned his face towards me, as I pressed with concentrated hate on his footsteps ; never shall I forget the horrible despair that distorted the villain's features. It was a mercy that the sullen roar of the falls drowned his curses — I knew that he was shrieking curses on me — for they would have haunted me in after years. With the courage that is begotten of darkest despair, he dashed on to the brink of the rapids, and the next moment I was alone on the ice 1 I gazed with stern joy on the dark flood, which had seized in its resistless hands the shedder of blood, and was hurrying him over the falls, For a moment I thought I could perceive the murderer struggling in the eddies ; but the illusion, if it were one, could live only for an instant. The cataract was within pistol-shot, and as I turned up the dreary wilderness of ice and snow, I knew that the doom of the guilty skater had been fulfilled.