"YOU
CHINA
FRIDAY SUPPLEMENT, MAY 13, 1938
YOU'VE got to tell him,"
said Melainis.
"But I told him before, and he beat me," answered Alexis.
"Well, you've got to tell him again," said Melainis, and wept. Alexis kicked the ground with his heel rebelliously. With this woman's reasoning example of methods before him, why was he Not contemplating marriage? that the marriage would come off. Then, forced up against the mar- riage's impossibility, he became once more eager to defeat fate and marry Melainis. He gritted his teeth. "Yes, I will. I'll make him see sense." But immediately doubts re-arose. "And what about your father?”
"You've got to tell him too," said Melainis, "because I can't." She wept even more loudly.
There was nothing for him but to put his arm round her again and comfort her, her small dark head against his heart. "They're both fools," he said. "But don't
don't cry,
I'll speak cry. to
father my
25 soon as I get back. I'll tell him I don't care how much he's quarrelled with your father, it isn't our con- love each other and cern, we we're not going to be treated like this!"
He spoke hotly and for the mo- ment convinced himself that he would really speak up to his father as sturdily. While he held Melainis in his arms it seemed easy enough, to defy a world of fathers and get away with it; but in the back of his mind he knew that he would never nerve him- self up to such direct defiance. and that even if he did he would only make things worse. The two old men were obstinately get in their hatred of one another, and a-lover's plea wasn't going to des- troy the obsession of a dozen
years.
Melainis ceased to sob and looked up tenderly into his face. "So you'll tell them we want to
be married."
I
"Yes, I'll tell them. suppose I've got to have another try, but nothing will ever change their minds. It isn't fair. They started off like this when we were only children, and they expect us to be the same. Why couldn't one of them go away somewhere else, if things got unbearable?"
"Yes, that. what. father says. He says why didn't your father go somewhere else?"
"But why should he be the one to shift? Why couldn't your father have gone?"
They drew apart. She plucked at her blue dress with downcast eyes. "If he'd gone we wouldn't have grown up together. You're saying you're sorry.
"
"No, no, I'm not." He took her once more in his arms. She strug- gled a moment and then relaxed, with a sigh.
why are they so foolish?” The two young lovers looked down the hillside on to the vine- terraces, the orchards of fig and olive, and the strips of ripening corn. The blue Mediterranean glittered beyond; and behind them was the Plain of Sharon. Their parents were C Greeks who had taken advantage of the low. prices asked for estates confiscat- ed after the Jewish rebellion in Hadrian's reign; they had been small traders `at Caesaroa and had bought the farms cheap.after tipping the public auctioneer.
LOCUSTS TO THE RESCUE
For a while they had been friendly, helping one another to live down local opposition; then a quarrel had occurred on a mar- ket-day over some trivial mat- ters. Andron accused Cappadox of under-selling him to the olive- oil wholesalers. Cappadox dia- covered a grievance about a goat- bitch, he haggled over the price and then went for a stroll to bring down the goat-owner's con- fidence, but on his return found that Cappadox had unknowingly bought the goat.
The two farmers got drunk and fought, and the feud began. They no longer farmed even for per- sonal profit; each was concern- ⚫ed only to beat his enemy. But as the farms ran side by side on the same slope, with nothing to choose between them as to the lay of the ground, streams, or wells, there was seldom much difference in their gains · and losses. A dry year or a wet year, meant the same to both men.
"I'll tell father, I will!" re- peated Alexis fiercely.
Melainis clasped him encour- agingly. "Don't be too. angry. Just firm and sensible. We can't go on like this."
They were standing in a small thicket of evergreen-oaks on the crest of the hill, with the two farms spread out below in all the varied hues of broad-leafed grape-vines and fig-tree, green- gold grain, and grey shimmering 'olives. How prosperous and con- tented it all looked; but they, the
Short Story
heirs of this richly-bearing earth, were shut out, oppressed, starved of all that meant life.
They preferred the unexploited evergreen-oaks, with their hard glossy leaves, the sandy patch covered with thistles and weeds on the further side; for here, in this sterile spot, they could meet unwatched and unharried, and feel life prosper in their young stirring senses,
Suddenly Alexis turned and looked inland, over the thistles. "Don't you hear something?"
"No," she answered, listening through the slight sea-wind. "Yes, I do. What is it?”
There was a dull heaving noise that seemed travelling on ground rather than in the air; `a restless confused pattering. But the skies were clear, it wasn't
rain.
even seem to be much, but them."
The whole further end of the and valley had begun to roll tumble; an avalanche of locusts was descending, rising, billow- ing, scrambling over one another like a liquid mass in which the spray, twisted into live insects. "We'll have to do something about it," said Alexis helplessly. "I've
seen clouds of flying locusts, and that's bad enough, but there's no counting this lot. I don't see how we can stop them."
The
able to jump did likewise. The slaves ran back
down the slope there's millions of
to fetch the others. Alexis and his father beat at the oncoming insect-tide, smashing, crushing, disembowel- ling. But it made no difference. They could
deal with only a small space, no matter how fast they moved, and the tide swerved round them, dashed up against their very feet, swept on. They crushed, stamped, banged. The sweat ran down their bodies in the hot sunlight, their muscles ached, but no effect whatever was produced on the locusts. The slaves were now digging trenches across the crest, heaping up bon- fires of thorns and brambles, beating and clubbing. But all in vain. The locust-tide was unde- terred.
"How far back do they stretch?" asked Cappadox, glar- ing with the rage of baffled ef fort, his wet face gleaming al- most. crimson.
swarming valley-walls were already black with the tur- gid, ravaging mass.
"We'd better go back," said Melainis, "and give warning,"
They took one more look at the locust-host and horror overcame them. Forgetting all caution they sped back over the crest and down the hill. Alexis found his father on the vine-terraces.
"I saw you with that brat of a girl," said Cappadox, pulling at the beard that fringed his round, bronze-red face. "Now let me tell you once for all—”
"Father;" cried Alexis. "There's a locust-swarm up there. Mil- lions."
"The locusts can wait," said Cappadox, caustically. “I'm going to teach you to keep away from that worthless young bit of An- dron's. You only have to use your eyes and see how many other: girls there are in the countryside,
By Jack Lindsay
and yet you go and take up with the only one that you ought to abominate. If that isn't dis- respect of your father, I'd like to know what is-
"Father! Father!" pleaded Alexis. "You must come. Please Everything will be eaten."
Cappadox was about to rebuke him for employing such a shal- low subterfuge but one of the slaves raced up and stammered: "Master, the locusts are .com- ing." Cappadox was disturbed, and his wrath turned on the source of the interruption.
:
"Shut your mouth," he called to the slave. "I'll soon show you how to deal with a paltry pest like locusts. the
Get a couple of men:"
He signed to Alexis contemptu- ously, to indicate that the ques- tion of Melainis was merely shelved; and then, followed by his son and the slaves, he paced. impatiently up the slopes and across the sand. The whole valley. was spread thick with locusts; remorselessly the living carpet swarmed up the rockey walls, á couple of inches deep,, rolling, Reething, "flowing onwards.
Alexis, ran across the sandy patch and gazed down into the little valley on the other side. He gave a shout of dismay that brought Melainis racing long- legged to the spur of ground where he stood. She threw back the tousled hair from her dark, flushed face and steadied herself with her hand on his broad shoul- der
"Locusts!" he said. "Do you remember how they swarmed everywhere in early spring and then went off without much dam- age? They must have laid eggs. These are young ones; they don't
Cappadox started back, but re- fused to show any qualms or in- decision.
he "Call up all the men!" shouted. "Bring apades and cluba! And fire, too!”
He rushed at a young oak and wrenched down a bough. Alexis
+
Alexis, who had now lost his fear if not his repulsion of the locusts, answered that he'd go and see. He walked round one of the valley-sides. Each step that he took crunched out scores of the locusts, they scratched and scrabbled round his ankles and calves, but he strode on desper- ately and reached the valley-top. There he looked down on a stretch of plain-land. It was black with the locust-swarms, and the spurs of the hilla opposite. He strode back over the slithering, crunching mass, and reported to his father...
"I can't see the end of them. There isn't any land left."
Andron and his slaves were... fighting away against the locusts in the same way as the household of Cappadox, and as ineffectual- ly Slowly, foot by foot, the two farmers and their assistants were forced backwards down the hill.
Thousands on thousand of locusts had been slaughtered, - but untold: myriads were waiting to take their place, rolling, creep- ing, sliding, fluttering forward. It was a terrifying. sight, as if the earth itself had rotted into a hostile maggot-fury that threat- ened it by sheer persistent vora- city. For nothing was left under the mad, sliddering march, Some- how during their hurtled progress the locusts managed to eat.
Alexis saw the blue dress of Melainis. She was helping the men, lighting the bramble-heaps that were placed before the en- croaching locust lines.
"Well, it's as bad for him as it is for me," said Cappadox' grimly, jerking his head towards Andron, who was wildly gesti- culating, urging on his slaves.
But there was no time for talk- ing. Every moment the invaders. gained another foot. Another foot of earth disappeared as if lost for ever, abandoned to the scurrying enemies of man, the undestruoti- ble devouring bellies.
A final effort of resistance was made in front of the topmost. vine terraces. Both Cappadox and Andron mastered their forces. All available timber and thorn' boughs were collected, and long line of fire was constructed. It began as two lines, one for ench firm; but what was the use
(Continued on Page 7).
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