FICTION

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLIX, Issue 251, 21 September 1929, Page 6

FICTION

“DUST.” (By Armine Yon Tempski.) A right stirring adventure story, opulent in achievement, :i “tour-de-force” rich in flashes of fierce colour — dashed off by a daring artist hand. In glowing fancy and arresting beauty, many of its word pictures of landscape and sea-scape recall bits out of Donne Byrne's “Destiny Bay.” There indeed the Celtic and the Oceanic genius appear to find common ground, a like sympathy, and something of a common interpretation and fulfilment; both alike putting something of the tempestuous glories of a Tintoretto into their word-painting, and, by way of corollary. 1 am sure, for my part, that it takes an Irishman or a Highland Scot to fully understand Polynesian folk lore, or fully and sympathetically to deal with problems of Polynesian psychology. The theme of the tale is the reclamation of a barren island—wilderness of red soils, trampled into powder by the hooves of thousands of wild goats, dissolving away, year by year.

into dust clouds on the breath of the mighty trades. Shorn by man's heedless hands the hanging woods had disappeared that once attracted the cloud 9 as tho South Wind brought them up, and precipitated the kindly rain to make the hills and valleys green with grass and herb and trees yielding fruit in their season, and tlie whole face of tho land now lay a rainless waste—- , scorched, dried up and desolate. How to re-forest, re-grass and put - stock to feed onco more on Kahoolawe, i the neglected, the dimmed in lustre, , the last and loneliest of that fair i paruro of ocean jewels, The Eigiit > Green Isles of Hawaii? This was the 1 problem. Keen practical men had tried - to solve it again and again, but had > only found failure. A youthful hero, i child of a secret marriage, the disi owned, the rejected son of a prominent - business citizen of Honolulu, eager to i make his way in life, and greatly dar- : ing, takes on the herculean task of re- ; claiming this dreary No Man’s Land, the reputed haunt of opium smugglers ; and desperate broken men. How, with i the aid of a faithful Japanese foreman ■ and a handful of native workmen, ho < faces mighty labours in the open, fights • treachery in camp and resists, almost • to the loss of his own life, the over- ! ttires of the sly free-traders and the , crafty intrigues of his mean, dishonest

1 and most unnatural father—and out of ; failure plucks at longth a magnificent ■ success—is a truly bracing story of i youthful grit and hardihood. IS'ollio, the heroine of an eventful and absorbt ing love story, is a charming creature in green and gold, and dainty as a daffodil—an eminently gracious and tvinning personality. Steadfast through many a dark hour of trouble and sorrow, she wins her heart's desire at , last, and weds her brave young lover, triumphant in his great light- against the hostile forces of wind and sea and howling wilderness. The closing chapter is tensely, compellingly dramatic. Suddenly there falls the final, but unavailing stroke of the envious Dark Elemental Powers, in the shape of a monstrous tidal wave, sweeping down upon the green garden as it is now blossoming out of the dust, all to swallow up the labour of years and bring Love’s bright young dream to nothingness. But the mighty waters, repulsed from the cliffs, sink sullenly murmuring hack, and subside into their deeps. One life alone is snatched in sacrifice. Kahoolawe is saved; the angry gods are appeased and Love is left still the lord of all. '*