The Mystery of Choice

by Robert W. Chambers

  THE KEY TO GRIEF.

  The wild hawk to the wind-swept sky The deer to the wholesome wold, And the heart of a man to the heart of a maid, As it was in the days of old.

  KIPLING.

  I.

  They were doing their work very badly. They got the rope around hisneck, and tied his wrists with moose-bush withes, but again he fell,sprawling, turning, twisting over the leaves, tearing up everythingaround him like a trapped panther.

  He got the rope away from them; he clung to it with bleeding fists; heset his white teeth in it, until the jute strands relaxed, unravelled,and snapped, gnawed through by his white teeth.

  Twice Tully struck him with a gum hook. The dull blows fell on fleshrigid as stone.

  Panting, foul with forest mould and rotten leaves, hands and facesmeared with blood, he sat up on the ground, glaring at the circle ofmen around him.

  "Shoot him!" gasped Tully, dashing the sweat from his bronzed brow; andBates, breathing heavily, sat down on a log and dragged a revolver fromhis rear pocket. The man on the ground watched him; there was froth inthe corners of his mouth.

  "Git back!" whispered Bates, but his voice and hand trembled. "Kent,"he stammered, "won't ye hang?"

  The man on the ground glared.

  "Ye've got to die, Kent," he urged; "they all say so. Ask LeftySawyer; ask Dyce; ask Carrots.--He's got to swing fur it--ain't he,Tully?--Kent, fur God's sake, swing fur these here gents!"

  The man on the ground panted; his bright eyes never moved.

  After a moment Tully sprang on him again. There was a flurry of leaves,a crackle, a gasp and a grunt, then the thumping and thrashing of twobodies writhing in the brush. Dyce and Carrots jumped on the prostratemen. Lefty Sawyer caught the rope again, but the jute strands gaveway and he stumbled. Tully began to scream, "He's chokin' me!" Dycestaggered out into the open, moaning over a broken wrist.

  "Shoot!" shouted Lefty Sawyer, and dragged Tully aside. "Shoot, JimBates! Shoot straight, b' God!"

  "Git back!" gasped Bates, rising from the fallen log.

  The crowd parted right and left; a quick report rangout--another--another. Then from the whirl of smoke a tall formstaggered, dealing blows--blows that sounded sharp as the crack of awhip.

  "He's off! Shoot straight!" they cried.

  There was a gallop of heavy boots in the woods. Bates, faint and dazed,turned his head.

  "Shoot!" shrieked Tully.

  But Bates was sick; his smoking revolver fell to the ground; his whiteface and pale eyes contracted. It lasted only a moment; he startedafter the others, plunging, wallowing through thickets of osier andhemlock underbrush.

  Far ahead he heard Kent crashing on like a young moose in November,and he knew he was making for the shore. The others knew too. Alreadythe gray gleam of the sea cut a straight line along the forest edge;already the soft clash of the surf on the rocks broke faintly throughthe forest silence.

  "He's got a canoe there!" bawled Tully. "He'll be into it!"

  And he was into it, kneeling in the bow, driving his paddle to thehandle. The rising sun gleamed like red lightning on the flashingblade; the canoe shot to the crest of a wave, hung, bows dripping inthe wind, dropped into the depths, glided, tipped, rolled, shot upagain, staggered, and plunged on.

  Tully ran straight out into the cove surf; the water broke against hischest, bare and wet with sweat. Bates sat down on a worn black rock andwatched the canoe listlessly.

  The canoe dwindled to a speck of gray and silver; and when Carrots, whohad run back to the gum camp for a rifle, returned, the speck on thewater might have been easier to hit than a loon's head at twilight. SoCarrots, being thrifty by nature, fired once, and was satisfied to savethe other cartridges. The canoe was still visible, making for the opensea. Somewhere beyond the horizon lay the keys, a string of rocks bareas skulls, black and slimy where the sea cut their base, white on thecrests with the excrement of sea birds.

  "He's makin' fur the Key to Grief!" whispered Bates to Dyce.

  Dyce, moaning, and nursing his broken wrist, turned a sick face out tosea.

  The last rock seaward was the Key to Grief, a splintered pinnaclepolished by the sea. From the Key to Grief, seaward a day's paddle, ifa man dared, lay the long wooded island in the ocean known as Grief onthe charts of the bleak coast.

  In the history of the coast, two men had made the voyage to the Key toGrief, and from there to the island. One of these was a rum-crazed pelthunter, who lived to come back; the other was a college youth; theyfound his battered canoe at sea, and a day later his battered body wasflung up in the cove.

  So, when Bates whispered to Dyce, and when Dyce called to the others,they knew that the end was not far off for Kent and his canoe; and theyturned away into the forest, sullen, but satisfied that Kent would gethis dues when the devil got his.

  Lefty spoke vaguely of the wages of sin. Carrots, with an eye tothrift, suggested a plan for an equitable division of Kent's property.

  When they reached the gum camp they piled Kent's personal effects on ablanket.

  Carrots took the inventory: a revolver, two gum hooks, a fur cap, anickel-plated watch, a pipe, a pack of new cards, a gum sack, fortypounds of spruce gum, and a frying pan.

  Carrots shuffled the cards, picked out the joker, and flipped itpensively into the fire. Then he dealt cold decks all around.

  When the goods and chattels of their late companion had been divided bychance--for there was no chance to cheat--somebody remembered Tully.

  "He's down there on the coast, starin' after the canoe," said Bateshuskily.

  He rose and walked toward a heap on the ground covered by a blanket. Hestarted to lift the blanket, hesitated, and finally turned away. Underthe blanket lay Tully's brother, shot the night before by Kent.

  "Guess we'd better wait till Tully comes," said Carrots uneasily. Batesand Kent had been campmates. An hour later Tully walked into camp.

  He spoke to no one that day. In the morning Bates found him down onthe coast digging, and said: "Hello, Tully! Guess we ain't much hell onlynchin'!"

  "Naw," said Tully. "Git a spade."

  "Goin' to plant him there?"

  "Yep."

  "Where he kin hear them waves?"

  "Yep."

  "Purty spot."

  "Yep."

  "Which way will he face?"

  "Where he kin watch fur that damned canoe!" cried Tully fiercely.

  "He--he can't see," ventured Bates uneasily. "He's dead, ain't he?"

  "He'll heave up that there sand when the canoe comes back! An' it'sa-comin'! An' Bud Kent'll be in it, dead or alive! Git a spade!"

  The pale light of superstition flickered in Bates's eyes. He hesitated.

  "The--the dead can't see," he began; "kin they?"

  Tully turned a distorted face toward him.

  "Yer lie!" he roared. "My brother kin see, dead or livin'! An' he'llsee the hangin' of Bud Kent! An' he'll git up outer the grave fur tosee it, Bill Bates! I'm tellin' ye! I'm tellin' ye! Deep as I'll planthim, he'll heave that there sand and call to me, when the canoe comesin! I'll hear him; I'll be here! An' we'll live to see the hangin' ofBud Kent!"

  About sundown they planted Tully's brother, face to the sea.

  II.

  On the Key to Grief the green waves rub all day. White at the summit,black at the base, the shafted rocks rear splintered pinnacles,slanting like channel buoys. On the polished pillars sea birdsbrood--white-winged, bright-eyed sea birds, that nestle and preen andflap and clatter their orange-coloured beaks when the sifted spraydrives and drifts across the reef.

  As the sun rose, painting crimson streaks criss-cross over the waters,the sea birds sidled together, huddling row on row, steeped in downydrowse.

  Where the sun of noon burnished the sea, an opal wave washed, listless,noiseless; a sea bird stretched one listless wing.

  And into the silence of the waters a canoe glided, bronzed by thesunlight, jewelled by the salt d
rops stringing from prow to thwart,seaweed a-trail in the diamond-flashing wake, and in the bow a mandripping with sweat.

  Up rose the gulls, sweeping in circles, turning, turning over rock andsea, and their clamour filled the sky, starting little rippling echoesamong the rocks.

  The canoe grated on a shelf of ebony; the seaweed rocked and washed;the little sea crabs sheered sideways, down, down into limpid depths ofgreenest shadows. Such was the coming of Bud Kent to the Key to Grief.

  He drew the canoe halfway up the shelf of rock and sat down, breathingheavily, one brown arm across the bow. For an hour he sat there. Thesweat dried under his eyes. The sea birds came back, filling the airwith soft querulous notes.

  There was a livid mark around his neck, a red, raw circle. The saltwind stung it; the sun burned it into his flesh like a collar ofred-hot steel. He touched it at times; once he washed it with cold saltwater.

  Far in the north a curtain of mist hung on the sea, dense, motionlessas the fog on the Grand Banks. He never moved his eyes from it; he knewwhat it was. Behind it lay the Island of Grief.

  All the year round the Island of Grief is hidden by the banks of mist,ramparts of dead white fog encircling it on every side. Ships give itwide berth. Some speak of warm springs on the island whose waters flowfar out to sea, rising in steam eternally.

  The pelt hunter had come back with tales of forests and deer andflowers everywhere; but he had been drinking much, and much wasforgiven him.

  The body of the college youth tossed up in the cove on the mainlandwas battered out of recognition, but some said, when found, one handclutched a crimson blossom half wilted, but broad as a sap pan.

  So Kent lay motionless beside his canoe, burned with thirst, everynerve vibrating, thinking of all these things. It was not fear thatwhitened the firm flesh under the tan; it was the fear of fear. Hemust not think--he must throttle dread; his eyes must never falter, hishead never turn from that wall of mist across the sea. With set teethhe crushed back terror; with glittering eyes he looked into the holloweyes of fright. And so he conquered fear.

  He rose. The sea birds whirled up into the sky, pitching, tossing,screaming, till the sharp flapping of their pinions set the snappingechoes flying among the rocks.

  Under the canoe's sharp prow the kelp bobbed and dipped and parted; thesunlit waves ran out ahead, glittering, dancing. Splash! splash! bowand stern! And now he knelt again, and the polished paddle swung anddipped, and swept and swung and dipped again.

  Far behind, the clamour of the sea birds lingered in his ears, tillthe mellow dip of the paddle drowned all sound and the sea was a sea ofsilence.

  No wind came to cool the hot sweat on cheek and breast. The sun blazeda path of flame before him, and he followed out into the waste ofwaters. The still ocean divided under the bows and rippled innocentlyaway on either side, tinkling, foaming, sparkling like the current ina woodland brook. He looked around at the world of flattened water, andthe fear of fear rose up and gripped his throat again. Then he loweredhis head, like a tortured bull, and shook the fear of fear from histhroat, and drove the paddle into the sea as a butcher stabs, to thehilt.

  So at last he came to the wall of mist. It was thin at first, thin andcool, but it thickened and grew warmer, and the fear of fear dragged athis head, but he would not look behind.

  Into the fog the canoe shot; the gray water ran by, high as thegunwales, oily, silent. Shapes flickered across the bows, pillars ofmist that rode the waters, robed in films of tattered shadows. Giganticforms towered to dizzy heights above him, shaking out shredded shroudsof cloud. The vast draperies of the fog swayed and hung and trembled ashe brushed them; the white twilight deepened to a sombre gloom. And nowit grew thinner; the fog became a mist, and the mist a haze, and thehaze floated away and vanished into the blue of the heavens.

  All around lay a sea of pearl and sapphire, lapping, lapping on asilver shoal.

  So he came to the Island of Grief.

  III.

  On the silver shoal the waves washed and washed, breaking like crushedopals where the sands sang with the humming froth.

  Troops of little shore birds, wading on the shoal, tossed theirsun-tipped wings and scuttled inland, where, dappled with shadow fromthe fringing forest, the white beach of the island stretched.

  The water all around was shallow, limpid as crystal, and he saw theribbed sand shining on the bottom, where purple seaweed floated, anddelicate sea creatures darted and swarmed and scattered again at thedip of his paddle.

  Like velvet rubbed on velvet the canoe brushed across the sand. Hestaggered to his feet, stumbled out, dragged the canoe high up underthe trees, turned it bottom upward, and sank beside it, face downwardin the sand. Sleep came to drive away the fear of fear, but hunger,thirst, and fever fought with sleep, and he dreamed--dreamed of arope that sawed his neck, of the fight in the woods, and the shots. Hedreamed, too, of the camp, of his forty pounds of spruce gum, of Tully,and of Bates. He dreamed of the fire and the smoke-scorched kettle, ofthe foul odour of musty bedding, of the greasy cards, and of his ownnew pack, hoarded for weeks to please the others. All this he dreamed,lying there face downward in the sand; but he did not dream of the faceof the dead.

  The shadows of the leaves moved on his blonde head, crisp with clippedcurls. A butterfly flitted around him, alighting now on his legs,now on the back of his bronzed hands. All the afternoon the bees hungdroning among the wildwood blossoms; the leaves above scarcely rustled;the shore birds brooded along the water's edge; the thin tide, sleepingon the sand, mirrored the sky.

  Twilight paled the zenith; a breeze moved in the deeper woods; a starglimmered, went out, glimmered again, faded, and glimmered.

  Night came. A moth darted to and fro under the trees; a beetle hummedaround a heap of seaweed and fell scrambling in the sand. Somewhereamong the trees a sound had become distinct, the song of a littlebrook, melodious, interminable. He heard it in his dream; it threadedall his dreams like a needle of silver, and like a needle it prickedhim--pricked his dry throat and cracked lips. It could not awake him;the cool night swathed him head and foot.

  Toward dawn a bird woke up and piped. Other birds stirred, restless,half awakened; a gull spread a cramped wing on the shore, preened itsfeathers, scratched its tufted neck, and took two drowsy steps towardthe sea.

  The sea breeze stirred out behind the mist bank; it raised the featherson the sleeping gulls; it set the leaves whispering. A twig snapped,broke off, and fell. Kent stirred, sighed, trembled, and awoke.

  The first thing he heard was the song of the brook, and he stumbledstraight into the woods. There it lay, a thin, deep stream in the graymorning light, and he stretched himself beside it and laid his cheekin it. A bird drank in the pool, too--a little fluffy bird, bright-eyedand fearless.

  His knees were firmer when at last he rose, heedless of the drops thatbeaded lips and chin. With his knife he dug and scraped at some whiteroots that hung half meshed in the bank of the brook, and when he hadcleaned them in the pool he ate them.

  The sun stained the sky when he went down to the canoe, but the eternalcurtain of fog, far out at sea, hid it as yet from sight.

  He lifted the canoe, bottom upwards, to his head, and, paddle and polein either hand, carried it into the forest.

  After he had set it down he stood a moment, opening and shutting hisknife. Then he looked up into the trees. There were birds there, ifhe could get at them. He looked at the brook. There were the prints ofhis fingers in the sand; there, too, was the print of something else--adeer's pointed hoof.

  He had nothing but his knife. He opened it again and looked at it.

  That day he dug for clams and ate them raw. He waded out into theshallows, too, and jabbed at fish with his setting pole, but hitnothing except a yellow crab.

  Fire was what he wanted. He hacked and chipped at flinty-lookingpebbles, and scraped tinder from a stick of sun-dried driftwood. Hisknuckles bled, but no fire came.

  That night he heard deer in the woods, and cou
ld not sleep forthinking, until the dawn came up behind the wall of mist, and he rosewith it to drink his fill at the brook and tear raw clams with hiswhite teeth. Again he fought for fire, craving it as he had nevercraved water, but his knuckles bled, and the knife scraped on the flintin vain.

  His mind, perhaps, had suffered somewhat. The white beach seemed torise and fall like a white carpet on a gusty hearth. The birds, too,that ran along the sand, seemed big and juicy, like partridges; andhe chased them, hurling shells and bits of driftwood at them till hecould scarcely keep his feet for the rising, plunging beach--or carpet,whichever it was. That night the deer aroused him at intervals. Heheard them splashing and grunting and crackling along the brook. Oncehe arose and stole after them, knife in hand, till a false step intothe brook awoke him to his folly, and he felt his way back to thecanoe, trembling.

  Morning came, and again he drank at the brook, lying on the sand wherecountless heart-shaped hoofs had passed leaving clean imprints; andagain he ripped the raw clams from their shells and swallowed them,whimpering.

  All day long the white beach rose and fell and heaved and flattenedunder his bright dry eyes. He chased the shore birds at times, till theunsteady beach tripped him up and he fell full length in the sand. Thenhe would rise moaning, and creep into the shadow of the wood, and watchthe little song-birds in the branches, moaning, always moaning.

  His hands, sticky with blood, hacked steel and flint together, but sofeebly that now even the cold sparks no longer came.

  He began to fear the advancing night; he dreaded to hear the big warmdeer among the thickets. Fear clutched him suddenly, and he lowered hishead and set his teeth and shook fear from his throat again.

  Then he started aimlessly into the woods, crowding past bushes,scraping trees, treading on moss and twig and mouldy stump, his bruisedhands swinging, always swinging.

  The sun set in the mist as he came out of the woods on to anotherbeach--a warm, soft beach, crimsoned by the glow in the evening clouds.

  And on the sand at his feet lay a young girl asleep, swathed in thesilken garment of her own black hair, round limbed, brown, smooth asthe bloom on the tawny beach.

  A gull flapped overhead, screaming. Her eyes, deeper than night,unclosed. Then her lips parted in a cry, soft with sleep, "Iho!"

  She rose, rubbing her velvet eyes. "Iho!" she cried in wonder; "Inah!"

  The gilded sand settled around her little feet. Her cheeks crimsoned.

  "E-ho! E-ho!" she whispered, and hid her face in her hair.

  IV.

  The bridge of the stars spans the sky seas; the sun and the moon arethe travellers who pass over it. This was also known in the lodges ofthe Isantee, hundreds of years ago. Chaske told it to Harpam, and whenHarpam knew he told it to Hapeda; and so the knowledge spread to Harka,and from Winona to Weharka, up and down, across and ever across, woofand web, until it came to the Island of Grief. And how? God knows!

  Weharka, prattling in the tules, may have told Ne-ka; and Ne-ka,high in the November clouds, may have told Kay-oshk, who told it toShinge-bis, who told it to Skee-skah, who told it to Se-so-Kah.

  Iho! Inah! Behold the wonder of it! And this is the fate of allknowledge that comes to the Island of Grief.

  * * * * *

  As the red glow died in the sky, and the sand swam in shadows, the girlparted the silken curtains of her hair and looked at him.

  "Eho!" she whispered again in soft delight.

  For now it was plain to her that he was the sun! He had crossed thebridge of stars in the blue twilight; he had come!

  "E-to!"

  She stepped nearer, shivering, faint with the ecstasy of this holymiracle wrought before her.

  He was the Sun! His blood streaked the sky at dawn; his blood stainedthe clouds at even. In his eyes the blue of the sky still lingered,smothering two blue stars; and his body was as white as the breast ofthe Moon.

  She opened both arms, hands timidly stretched, palm upward. Her facewas raised to his, her eyes slowly closed; the deep-fringed lidstrembled.

  Like a young priestess she stood, motionless save for the sudden quiverof a limb, a quick pulse-flutter in the rounded throat. And so sheworshipped, naked and unashamed, even after he, reeling, fell heavilyforward on his face; even when the evening breeze stealing over thesands stirred the hair on his head, as winds stir the fur of a deadanimal in the dust.

  * * * * *

  When the morning sun peered over the wall of mist, and she saw it wasthe sun, and she saw him, flung on the sand at her feet, then she knewthat he was a man, only a man, pallid as death and smeared with blood.

  And yet--miracle of miracles!--the divine wonder in her eyes deepened,and her body seemed to swoon, and fall a-trembling, and swoon again.

  For, although it was but a man who lay at her feet, it had been easierfor her to look upon a god.

  He dreamed that he breathed fire--fire, that he craved as he had nevercraved water. Mad with delirium, he knelt before the flames, rubbinghis torn hands, washing them in the crimson-scented flames. He hadwater, too, cool scented water, that sprayed his burning flesh, thatwashed in his eyes, his hair, his throat. After that came hunger,a fierce rending agony, that scorched and clutched and tore at hisentrails; but that, too, died away, and he dreamed that he had eatenand all his flesh was warm. Then he dreamed that he slept; and when heslept he dreamed no more.

  One day he awoke and found her stretched beside him, soft palms tightlyclosed, smiling, asleep.

  V.

  Now the days began to run more swiftly than the tide along the tawnybeach; and the nights, star-dusted and blue, came and vanished andreturned, only to exhale at dawn like perfume from a violet.

  They counted hours as they counted the golden bubbles, winking witha million eyes along the foam-flecked shore; and the hours ended, andbegan, and glimmered, iridescent, and ended as bubbles end in a tinyrainbow haze.

  There was still fire in the world; it flashed up at her touch and whereshe chose. A bow strung with the silk of her own hair, an arrow wingedlike a sea bird and tipped with shell, a line from the silver tendon ofa deer, a hook of polished bone--these were the mysteries he learned,and learned them laughing, her silken head bent close to his.

  The first night that the bow was wrought and the glossy string attuned,she stole into the moonlit forest to the brook; and there they stood,whispering, listening, and whispering, though neither understood thevoice they loved.

  In the deeper woods, Kaug, the porcupine, scraped and snuffed. Theyheard Wabose, the rabbit, pit-a-pat, pit-a-pat, loping across deadleaves in the moonlight. Skee-skah, the wood-duck, sailed past,noiseless, gorgeous as a floating blossom.

  Out on the ocean's placid silver, Shinge-bis, the diver, shook thescented silence with his idle laughter, till Kay-oshk, the gray gull,stirred in his slumber. There came a sudden ripple in the stream, amellow splash, a soft sound on the sand.

  "Iho! Behold!"

  "I see nothing."

  The beloved voice was only a wordless melody to her.

  "Iho! Ta-hinca, the red deer! E-ho! The buck will follow!"

  "Ta-hinca," he repeated, notching the arrow.

  "E-to! Ta-mdoka!"

  So he drew the arrow to the head, and the gray gull feathers brushedhis ear, and the darkness hummed with the harmony of the singingstring.

  Thus died Ta-mdoka, the buck deer of seven prongs.

  VI.

  As an apple tossed spinning into the air, so spun the world above thehand that tossed it into space.

  And one day in early spring, Se-so-Kah, the robin, awoke at dawn, andsaw a girl at the foot of the blossoming tree holding a babe cradled inthe silken sheets of her hair.

  At its feeble cry, Kaug, the porcupine, raised his quilled head.Wabose, the rabbit, sat still with palpitating sides. Kay-oshk, thegray gull, tiptoed along the beach.

  Kent knelt with one bronzed arm around them both.

  "Iho! Inah!" whispered the
girl, and held the babe up in the rosyflames of dawn.

  But Kent trembled as he looked, and his eyes filled. On the pale greenmoss their shadows lay--three shadows. But the shadow of the babe waswhite as froth.

  Because it was the firstborn son, they named it Chaske; and the girlsang as she cradled it there in the silken vestments of her hair; allday long in the sunshine she sang:

  Wa-wa, wa-wa, wa-we--yea; Kah-ween, nee-zheka Ke-diaus-ai, Ke-gah nau-wai, ne-me-go S'ween, Ne-baun, ne-baun, ne-daun-is ais. E-we wa-wa, wa-we--yea; E-we wa-wa, wa-we--yea.

  Out in the calm ocean, Shinge-bis, the diver, listened, preening hissatin breast in silence. In the forest, Ta-hinca, the red deer, turnedher delicate head to the wind.

  That night Kent thought of the dead, for the first time since he hadcome to the Key of Grief.

  "Ake-u! ake-u!" chirped Se-so-Kah, the robin. But the dead never comeagain.

  "Beloved, sit close to us," whispered the girl, watching his troubledeyes. "Ma-cante maseca."

  But he looked at the babe and its white shadow on the moss, and he onlysighed: "Ma-cante maseca, beloved! Death sits watching us across thesea."

  Now for the first time he knew more than the fear of fear; he knewfear. And with fear came grief.

  He never before knew that grief lay hidden there in the forest. Now heknew it. Still, that happiness, eternally reborn when two small handsreached up around his neck, when feeble fingers clutched his hand--thathappiness that Se-so-Kah understood, chirping to his broodingmate--that Ta-mdoka knew, licking his dappled fawns--that happinessgave him heart to meet grief calmly, in dreams or in the forest depths,and it helped him to look into the hollow eyes of fear.

  He often thought of the camp now; of Bates, his blanket mate; of Dyce,whose wrist he had broken with a blow; of Tully, whose brother he hadshot. He even seemed to hear the shot, the sudden report among thehemlocks; again he saw the haze of smoke, he caught a glimpse of a tallform falling through the bushes.

  He remembered every minute incident of the trial: Bates's hand laidon his shoulder; Tully, red-bearded and wild-eyed, demanding hisdeath; while Dyce spat and spat and smoked and kicked at the blackenedlog-ends projecting from the fire. He remembered, too, the verdict, andTully's terrible laugh; and the new jute rope that they stripped offthe market-sealed gum packs.

  He thought of these things, sometimes wading out on the shoals,shell-tipped fish spear poised: at such times he would miss his fish.He thought of it sometimes when he knelt by the forest stream listeningfor Ta-hinca's splash among the cresses: at such moments the featheredshaft whistled far from the mark, and Ta-mdoka stamped and snortedtill even the white fisher, stretched on a rotting log, flattened hiswhiskers and stole away into the forest's blackest depths.

  When the child was a year old, hour for hour notched at sunset andsunrise, it prattled with the birds, and called to Ne-Ka, the wildgoose, who called again to the child from the sky: "Northward!northward, beloved!"

  When winter came--there is no frost on the Island of Grief--Ne-Ka, thewild goose, passing high in the clouds, called: "Southward! southward,beloved!" And the child answered in a soft whisper of an unknowntongue, till the mother shivered, and covered it with her silken hair.

  "O beloved!" said the girl, "Chaske calls to all things living--toKaug, the porcupine, to Wabose, to Kay-oshk, the gray gull--he calls,and they understand."

  Kent bent and looked into her eyes.

  "Hush, beloved; it is not _that_ I fear."

  "Then what, beloved?"

  "His shadow. It is white as surf foam. And at night--I--I have seen----"

  "Oh, what?"

  "The air about him aglow like a pale rose."

  "Ma cante maseca. The earth alone lasts. I speak as one dying--I know,O beloved!"

  Her voice died away like a summer wind.

  "Beloved!" he cried.

  But there before him she was changing; the air grew misty, and her hairwavered like shreds of fog, and her slender form swayed, and faded, andswerved, like the mist above a pond.

  In her arms the babe was a figure of mist, rosy, vague as a breath ona mirror.

  "The earth alone lasts. Inah! It is the end, O beloved!"

  The words came from the mist--a mist as formless as the ether--a mistthat drove in and crowded him, that came from the sea, from the clouds,from the earth at his feet. Faint with terror, he staggered forwardcalling, "Beloved! And thou, Chaske, O beloved! Ake u! Ake u!"

  Far out at sea a rosy star glimmered an instant in the mist and wentout.

  A sea bird screamed, soaring over the waste of fog-smothered waters.Again he saw the rosy star; it came nearer; its reflection glimmered inthe water.

  "Chaske!" he cried.

  He heard a voice, dull in the choking mist.

  "O beloved, I am here!" he called again.

  There was a sound on the shoal, a flicker in the fog, the flare of atorch, a face white, livid, terrible--the face of the dead.

  He fell upon his knees; he closed his eyes and opened them. Tully stoodbeside him with a coil of rope.

  * * * * *

  Iho! Behold the end! The earth alone lasts. The sand, the opal wave onthe golden beach, the sea of sapphire, the dusted starlight, the wind,and love, shall die. Death also shall die, and lie on the shores ofthe skies like the bleached skull there on the Key to Grief, polished,empty, with its teeth embedded in the sand.

  A MATTER OF INTEREST.