"A living tattoo," thought Edwin. The sight of those curiously drawn
lines was enough to proclaim a native.
Some Maori chief, the boy was inclined to believe by his good
English-made saddle. The tall black hat he wore might have been
imported from Bond Street at the beginning of the season, barring the
sea-bird's feathers stuck upright in the band. His legs were bare. A
striped Austrian blanket was thrown over one shoulder and carefully
draped about him. A snowy shirt sleeve was rolled back from the dusky
arm he had raised to attract Edwin's attention. A striped silk scarf,
which might have belonged to some English lady, was loosely knotted
round his neck, with the ends flying behind him. A scarlet coat, which
had lost its sleeves, completed his grotesque appearance.
"Goo'-mornin'," he shouted. "Coach gone by yet?"
"The coach is upset on that narrow road," answered Edwin, pointing to
the ravine, "and no one can pass this way."
"Smashed?" asked the stranger in tolerable English, brushing away the
ever-ready tears of the Maori as he sprang to the ground, expecting to
find the treasure he had commissioned the coachman to purchase for him
was already broken into a thousand pieces. Then Edwin remembered the
coachman had left a parcel at the hut as they passed; and they both went
inside to look for it. They found it laid on the bed at the back of the
hut--a large, flat parcel, two feet square.
The address was printed on it in letters half-an-inch high: "Nga-Hepe,
Rota Pah."
"That's me!" cried the stranger, the tears of apprehension changing into
bursts of joyous laughter as he seized it lovingly, and seemed to
consider for a moment how he was to carry it away. A shadow passed over
his face; some sudden recollection changed his purpose. He laid his
hand persuasively on Edwin's shoulder, saying, "Hepe too rich, Nga-Hepe
too rich; the rana will come. Hide it, keep it safe till Nga-Hepe comes
again to fetch it."
Edwin explained why he was waiting there. He had only scrambled out of
the fallen coach to call the roadman, and would soon be gone.
"You pakeha [white man] fresh from Ingarangi land? you Lee?" exclaimed
the Maori, taking a letter from the breast-pocket of his sleeveless
coat, as Edwin's surprised "Yes" confirmed his conjecture.
The boy took the letter from him, and recognized at once the bold black
hand of a friend of his father's whose house was to be their next
halting-place. The letter was addressed to Mr. Lee, to be left in the
care of the coachman.
Meanwhile, the roadman had reached the scene of the overturn just as the
navvy had succeeded in getting the door of the coach open. Audrey and
Effie were hoisted from the arms of one rough man to another, and seated
on a ledge of rock a few feet from the ground, where Mr. Lee, who was
still busy with the horses, could see the torn gray cloak and waving
handkerchief hastening to assure him they were unhurt.
Poor little Cuthbert was crying on the ground. His nose was bleeding
from a blow received from one of the numerous packages which had flown
out from unseen corners in the suddenness of the shock.
"Mr. Bowen," said the navvy, "now is your turn."
But to extricate the stout old gentleman, who had somehow lamed himself
in the general fall, was a far more difficult matter.
The driver, who scarcely expected to get through a journey without some
disaster, was a host in himself. He got hold of the despairing
traveller by one arm, the roadman grasped the other, assuring him, in
contradiction to his many assertions, that his climbing days were not
all over; the navvy gave a leg up from within, and in spite of slips and
bruises they had him seated on the bank at last, puffing and panting
from the exertion. "Now, old chap," added the roadman, with rough
hospitality, "take these poor children back to my hut; and have a rest,
and make yourself at home with such tucker as you can find, while we get
the coach righted."
"We will all come down and help you with the tucker when our work is
done," laughed the navvy, as the three set to their task with a will,
and began to heave up the coach with cautious care. The many
ejaculatory remarks which reached the ears of Audrey and Mr. Bowen
filled them with dismay.
"Have a care, or she'll be over into the water," said one.
"No, she won't," retorted another; "but who on earth can fix this wheel
on again so that it will keep? Look here, the iron has snapped
underneath. What is to be done?"
"We have not far to go," put in the coachman. "I'll make it hold that
distance, you'll see."
A wild-flax bush was never far to seek. A few of its tough, fibrous
leaves supplied him with excellent rope of nature's own making.
Mr. Bowen watched the trio binding up the splintered axle, and tying
back the iron frame-work of the coach, where it had snapped, with a
rough and ready skill which seemed to promise success. Still he foresaw
some hours would go over the attempt, and even then it might end in
failure.
He was too much hurt to offer them any assistance, but he called to
Cuthbert to find him a stick from the many bushes and trees springing
out of every crack and crevice in the rocky sides of the gorge, that he
might take the children to the roadman's hut. They arrived just as
Nga-Hepe was shouting a "Goo'-mornin'" to Edwin. In fact, the Maori had
jumped on his horse, and was cantering off, when Mr. Bowen stopped him
with the question,--
"Any of your people about here with a canoe? I'll pay them well to row
me through this gorge," he added.
"The coach is so broken," said Audrey aside to her brother, "we are
afraid they cannot mend it safely."
"Never mind," returned Edwin cheerily; "we cannot be far from Mr.
Hirpington's. This man has brought a letter from him. Where is
father?"
"Taking care of the horses; and we cannot get at him," she replied.
Mr. Bowen heard what they were saying, and caught at the good news--not
far from Hirpington's, where the Lees were to stop. "How far?" he
turned to the Maori.
"Not an hour's ride from the Rota Pah, or lake village, where the Maori
lived." The quickest way to reach the ford, he asserted, was to take a
short cut through the bush, as he had done.
Mr. Bowen thought he would rather by far trust himself to native
guidance than enter the coach again. But there were no more horses to
be had, for the coachman's team was out of reach, as the broken-down
vehicle still blocked the path.
Nga-Hepe promised, as soon as he got to his home, to row down stream and
fetch them all to Mr. Hirpington's in his canoe. Meanwhile, Edwin had
rushed off to his father with the letter. It was to tell Mr. Lee the
heavy luggage he had sent on by packet had been brought up from the
coast all right.
"You could get a ride behind Hirpington's messenger," said the men to
Edwin, "and beg him to come to our help." The Maori readily assented.
They were soon ascending the hilly steep and winding through a leafy
labyrinth of shadowy arcades, where ferns and creepers trailed their
luxuriant foliage over rotting tree trunks. Deeper and deeper they went
into the hoary, silent bush, where song of bird or ring of axe is
listened for in vain. All was still, as if under a spell. Edwin looked
up with something akin to awe at the giant height of mossy pines, or
peered into secluded nooks where the sun-shafts darted fitfully over
vivid shades of glossy green, revealing exquisite forms of unimagined
ferns, "wasting their sweetness on the desert air." Amid his native
fastnesses the Maori grew eloquent, pointing out each conical hill,
where his forefathers had raised the wall and dug the ditch. Over every
trace of these ancient fortifications Maori tradition had its fearsome
story to repeat. Here was the awful war-feast of the victor; there an
unyielding handful were cut to pieces by the foe.
How Edwin listened, catching something of the eager glow of his excited
companion, looking every inch--as he knew himself to be--the lord of the
soil, the last surviving son of the mighty Hepe, whose name had struck
terror from shore to shore.
As the Maori turned in his saddle, and darted suspicious glances from
side to side, it seemed to Edwin some expectation of a lurking danger
was rousing the warrior spirit within him.
They had gained the highest ridge of the wall of rock, and before them
gloomed a dark descent. Its craggy sides were riven and disrupted,
where cone and chasm told the same startling story, that here, in the
forgotten long ago, the lava had poured its stream of molten fire
through rending rocks and heaving craters. But now a maddened river was
hissing and boiling along the channels they had hollowed. It was
leaping, with fierce, impatient swoop, over a blackened mass of
downfallen rock, scooping for itself a caldron, from which, with
redoubled hiss and roar, it darted headlong, rolling over on itself, and
then, as if in weariness, spreading and broadening to the kiss of the
sun, until it slept like a tranquil lake in the heart of the hills. For
the droughts of summer had broadened the muddy reaches, which now seemed
to surround the giant boulders until they almost spanned the junction.
Where the stream left the basin a mass of huge logs chained together,
forming what New Zealanders call a "boom," was cast across it, waiting
for the winter floods to help them to start once more on their downward
swim to the broader waters of the Waikato, of which this shrunken stream
would then become a tributary.
On the banks of the lake, or rota--to give it the Maori name--Edwin
looked down upon the high-peaked roofs of a native village nestling
behind its protecting wall.
As the wind drove back the light vapoury cloudlets which hovered over
the huts and whares (as the better class of Maori dwellings are styled),
Edwin saw a wooden bridge spanning the running ditch which guarded the
entrance.
His ears were deafened by a strange sound, as if hoarsely echoing
fog-horns were answering each other from the limestone cliffs, when a
cart-load of burly natives crossed their path. As the wheels rattled
over the primitive drawbridge, a noisy greeting was shouted out to the
advancing horseman--a greeting which seemed comprised in a single word
the English boy instinctively construed "Beware." But the warning, if
it were a warning, ended in a hearty laugh, which made itself heard
above the shrill whistling from the jets of steam, sputtering and
spouting from every fissure in the rocky path Nga-Hepe was descending,
until another blast from those mysterious fog-horns drowned every other
noise.
With a creepy sense of fear he would have been loath to own, Edwin
looked ahead for some sign of the ford which was his destination; for he
knew that his father's friend, Mr. Hirpington, held the onerous post of
ford-master under the English Government in that weird, wild land of
wonder, the hill-country of the north New Zealand isle.
*CHAPTER II.*
*THE WHARE BY THE LAKE.*
A deep fellow-feeling for his wild, high-spirited guide was growing in
Edwin's mind as they rode onward. Nga-Hepe glanced over his shoulder
more than once to satisfy himself as to the effect the Maori's warning
had had upon his young companion.
Edwin returned the hasty inspection with a look of careless coolness, as
he said to himself, "Whatever this means, I have nothing to do with it."
Not a word was spoken, but the flash of indignant scorn in Nga-Hepe's
brilliant eyes told Edwin that he was setting it at defiance.
On he spurred towards the weather-beaten walls, which had braved so many
a mountain gale.
A faint, curling column of steamy vapour was rising from the hot waters
which fed the moat, and wafted towards them a most unpleasant smell of
sulphur, which Edwin was ready to denounce as odious. To the Maori it
was dear as native air: better than the breath of sweet-brier and roses.
Beyond the bridge Edwin could see a pathway made of shells, as white and
glistening as if it were a road of porcelain. It led to the central
whare, the council-hall of the tribe and the home of its chief. Through
the light haze of steam which veiled everything Edwin could distinguish
its carved front, and the tall post beside it, ending in a kind of
figure-head with gaping mouth, and a blood-red tongue hanging out of it
like a weary dog's. This was the flagstaff. The cart had stopped beside
it, and its recent occupants were now seated on the steps of the whare,
laughing over the big letters of a printed poster which they were
exhibiting to their companions.
"Nothing very alarming in that," thought Edwin, as Nga-Hepe gave his
bridle-rein a haughty shake and entered the village. He threaded his
way between the huts of mat and reeds, and the wood-built whares, each
in its little garden. Here and there great bunches of home-grown
tobacco were drying under a little roof of thatch; behind another hut a
dead pig was hanging; a little further on, a group of naked children
were tumbling about and bathing in a steaming pool; beside another
tent-shaped hut there was a huge pile of potatoes, while a rush basket
of fish lay by many a whare door.
In this grotesque and novel scene Edwin almost forgot his errand, and
half believed he had misunderstood the hint of danger, as he watched the
native women cooking white-bait over a hole in the ground, and saw the
hot springs shooting up into the air, hissing and boiling in so strange
a fashion the English boy was fairly dazed.
Almost all the women were smoking, and many of them managed to keep a
baby riding on their backs as they turned their fish or gossiped with
their neighbours. Edwin could not take his eyes off the sputtering
mud-holes doing duty as kitchen fires until they drew near to the
tattooed groups of burly men waiting for their supper on the steps of
the central whare. Then many a dusky brow was lifted, and more than one
cautionary glance was bestowed upon his companion, whilst others saw him
pass them with a scowl.
Nga-Hepe met it with a laugh. A Maori scorns to lose his temper, come
what may. As he leaped the steaming ditch and left the village by a gap
in the decaying wall, he turned to Edwin, observing, with a pride which
bordered on satisfaction: "The son of Hepe is known by all men to be
rich and powerful, therefore the chief has spoken against him."
"Much you care for the chief," retorted Edwin.
"I am not of his tribe," answered Nga-Hepe. "I come of the Ureweras,
the noblest and purest of our race. Our dead men rest upon the sacred
hills where the Maori chiefs lie buried. When a child of Hepe dies," he
went on, pointing to the mountain range, "the thunder rolls and the
lightning flashes along those giant hills, that all men may know his
hour has come. No matter where the Hepe lay concealed, men always knew
when danger threatened him. They always said such and such a chief is
dying, because the thunder and lightning are in such a place. Look up!
the sky is calm and still. The hills are silent; Mount Tarawera rears
its threefold crest above them all in its own majestic grandeur. Well,
I know no real danger menaces me to-night."
"I trust you are right, Nga-Hepe, but--" began Edwin quickly. The Maori
turned his head away; he could admit no "buts," and the English boy made
vain endeavours to argue the question.
A noisy, boisterous jabbering arose from the village as the crowd
outside the grand whare hailed the decision of the elders holding
council within. Dogs, pigs, and boys added their voices to the general
acclamation, and drowned Edwin's so completely he gave up in despair;
and after all he thought, "Can any one wonder at Nga-Hepe clinging to
the old superstitions of his race? In the wild grandeur of a spot like
this it seems in keeping."
So he said no more. They crossed the broken ground. Before them
gleamed the waters of the lake, upon whose bank Nga-Hepe's house was
standing--the old ancestral whare, the dwelling-place of the Hepes
generation after generation. Its well-thatched roof was higher than any
of the roofs in the pah, and more pointed. The wood of which this whare
was built was carved into idol figures and grinning monsters, now black
and shining with excessive age.
The garden around it was better cultivated, and the ample store of roots
and grain in the smaller whare behind it told of the wealth of its
owner. Horses and pigs were snorting and squealing beneath the hoary
trees, overshadowing the mud-hole and the geyser spring, by which the
Maori loves to make his home. The canoe was riding on the lake, the
lovely lake, as clear and blue as the sky it mirrored.
The sight of it recalled Edwin to his purpose, and he once more
questioned Nga-Hepe as to the whereabouts of the ford.
"Enter and eat," said the Maori, alighting at his low-browed door.
The gable end of the roof projected over it like a porch, and Edwin
paused under its shadow to take in the unfamiliar surroundings. Beneath
the broad eaves huge bundles of native flax and tobacco were drying. In
the centre of the long room within there was a blazing fire of crackling
wood. But its cheerful welcome seemed to contend with a sense of
desertion which pervaded the place.
Nga-Hepe called in vain for his accustomed attendant to take his horse.
No one answered his summons. He shouted; no answer. The wooden walls of
the neighbouring pah faintly echoed back his words. All his men were
gone. He muttered something in his own tongue, which Edwin could not
understand, as he led the way into the long room. In so grand a whare
this room was divided into separate stalls, like a well-built stable.
An abundance of native mats strewed the floor.
The Maori's eyes fell upon the corner where his greenstone club, the
treasured heirloom of many generations, leaned against an English rifle,
and on the boar's tusks fixed in the wall at intervals, where his spears
and fishing-rods were ranged in order. By their side hung a curious
medley of English apparel. The sweeping feathers of a broad felt hat
drooped above a gaudy table-cloth, which by its many creases seemed to
have done duty on the person of its owner. Edwin's merriment was excited
by the number of scent-bottles, the beautiful cut-glass carafe, and many
other expensive articles suspended about the room--all bearing a silent
testimony to the wealth of which Nga-Hepe had spoken. Two happy-looking
children, each wearing a brightly-coloured handkerchief folded across
their tiny shoulders in true Maori fashion, were grinding at a
barrel-organ. One fat little knee served as a pillow for a tangle of
rough black hair, which a closer inspection showed him was the head of a
sleeping boy.
Nga-Hepe's wife, wearing a cloak of flowered silk, with a baby slung in
a shawl at her back, and a short pipe in her mouth, met him with soft
words of pleading remonstrance which Edwin could not understand.
Her husband patted her fondly on the arm, touched the baby's laughing
lips, and seated himself on the floor by the fire, inviting Edwin to
join him.
The sleeping boy gave a great yawn, and starting to his feet, seemed to
add his entreaties to his mother's. He held a book in his hand--a
geography, with coloured maps--which he had evidently been studying; but
he dropped it in despair, as his father only called for his supper.
"Help us to persuade him," he whispered to Edwin in English; "he may
listen to a pakeha. Tell him it is better to go away."
"Why?" asked Edwin.
"Why!" repeated the boy excitedly; "because the chief is threatening him
with a muru. He will send a band of men to eat up all the food, and
carry off everything we have that can be carried away; but they will
only come when father is at home."
"A bag of talk!" interrupted Nga-Hepe. "Shall it be said the son of the
warrior sneaks off and hides himself at the first threat?"
"But," urged Edwin, "you promised to row back for Mr. Bowen."
"Yes, and I will. I will eat, and then I go," persisted Nga-Hepe, as
his wife stamped impatiently.
Two or three women ran in with the supper which they had been cooking in
a smaller whare in the background. They placed the large dishes on the
floor: native potatoes--more resembling yams in their sweetness than
their English namesakes--boiled thistles, and the ancient Maori
delicacy, salted shark.
They all began to eat, taking the potatoes in their hands, when a wild
cry rang through the air--a cry to strike terror to any heart. It was
the first note of the Maori war-song, caught up and repeated by a dozen
powerful voices, until it became a deafening yell. Hepe's wife tore
frantically at her long dark hair.
The Maori rose to his feet with an inborn dignity, and grasped the
greenstone club, taking pride in the prestige of such a punishment.
Turning to Edwin he said: "When the ferns are on fire the sparks fall
far and wide. Take the horse--it is yours; I give it to you. It is the
last gift I shall have it in my power to make for many a day to come.
There lies your path through the bush; once on the open road again the
ford-house will be in sight, and Whero shall be your guide. Tell the
old pakeha the canoe is mine no more."
The woman snatched up the children and rushed away with them, uttering a
wailing cry.
Edwin knew he had no alternative, but he did not like the feeling of
running away in the moment of peril.
"Can't I help you, though I am only a boy?" he asked.
"Yes," answered Hepe's wife, as she almost pushed him out of the door in
her desperation; "take this."
She lifted up a heavy bag from the corner of the whare, and put it into
his hands. Whero had untied the horse, and was pointing to the distant
pah, from which the yells proceeded.
A band of armed men, brandishing clubs and spears, were leading off the
war-dance. Their numbers were swelling. The word of fear went round
from lip to lip, "The tana is coming!"
The tana is the band of armed men sent by the chief to carry out this
act of savage despotism. They had been on the watch for Nga-Hepe. They
had seen him riding through the pah. All hope of getting him out of the
way was over.
Father and mother joined in the last despairing desire to send off
Whero, their little lord and first-born, of whom the Maoris make so
much, and treat with so much deference. They never dreamed of ordering
him to go. A freeborn Maori brooks no control even in childhood. But
their earnest entreaties prevailed. He got up before Edwin. He would
not ride behind him, not he, to save his life. He yielded for the sake
of the horse he loved so well. He thought he might get it back from the
young pakeha, but who could wrest it from the grasp of the tana? Perhaps
Nga-Hepe shared the hope. The noble horse was dear to father and son.
"Oh, I am so sorry for you!" said Edwin as he guessed the truth; "and so
will father be, I'm sure." He stopped in sudden silence as another
terrific yell echoed back by lake and tree.
He felt the good horse quiver as they plunged into the safe shelter of
the bush, leaving Hepe leaning on his club on the threshold of his
whare.
Edwin's first care now was to get to Mr. Hirpington's as fast as he
could. But his desire to press on met with no sympathy from his
companion, who knew not how to leave the spot until his father's fate
was decided. He had backed the horse into the darkest shadow of the
trees, and here he wanted to lie in ambush and watch; for the advancing
warriors were surrounding the devoted whare, and the shrieking women
were flying from it into the bush.
How could Edwin stop him when Whero would turn back to meet his mother?
The rendezvous of the fugitives was a tall karaka tree--a forest king
rearing its giant stem full seventy feet above the mossy turf. A
climbing plant, ablaze with scarlet flowers, had wreathed itself among
the branches, and hung in long festoons which swept the ground. The
panting women flung themselves down, and dropped their heavy burdens at
its root; for all had snatched up the nearest thing which came to hand
as they ran out. One had wrapped the child she carried in a fishing-net;
another drew from beneath the folds of the English counterpane she was
wearing the long knife that had been lying on the floor by the dish of
shark; while Whero's mother, shaking her wealth of uncombed hair about
her like a natural veil, concealed in her arms a ponderous axe.
The big black horse gave a loving whinny as he recognized their
footsteps, and turning of his own accord, cantered up to them as they
began to raise the death-wail--doing tangi as they call it--over the
outcast children crying for the untasted supper, on which the invaders
were feasting.
"May it choke the pigs!" muttered Whero, raising himself in the stirrups
and catching at the nearest bough, he gave it a shake, which sent a
shower of the karaka nuts tumbling down upon the little black heads and
fighting fists. The women stopped their wail to crack and eat. The
horse bent down his head to claim a share, and the children scrambled to
their feet to scoop the sweet kernel from the opened shell. The hungry
boys were forced to join them, and Edwin found to his surprise that leaf
and nut alike were good and wholesome food. They ate in silence and
fear, as the wild woods rang with the shouts of triumph and derision as
the rough work of confiscation went forward in the whare.
With the much-needed food Edwin's energy was returning. He gave back
the bag to Whero's mother, assuring her if her son would only guide him
to the road he could find his own way to the ford.
"Let us all go farther into the bush," said the oldest woman of the
group, "before the tana comes out. The bush they cannot take from us,
and all we need the most the bush will provide."
The weight of the bag he had carried convinced Edwin it was full of
money.
Whero's mother was looking about for a place where she could hide it; so
they wandered on until the sun shone brightly between the opening trees,
and they stepped out upon an unexpected clearing.
"The road! the road!" cried Whero, pointing to the gleam of water in the
distance, and the dark roof of the house by the ford, half buried in the
white blossom of the acacia grove beside it.
"All right!" exclaimed Edwin joyfully. "You need go no farther."
He took the bridle from Whero, and turned the horse's head towards the
ford, loath to say farewell to his strange companions. As he went at a
steady trot along the road, he could not keep from looking back. He saw
they were burying the bag of treasure where two white pines grew near
together, and the wild strawberries about their roots were ripening in
the sun. The road, a mere clearing in the forest, lay straight before
him. As Nga-Hepe had said, an hour's ride brought him to Mr.
Hirpington's door.
The house was large and low, built entirely of corrugated iron. It was
the only spot of ugliness in the whole landscape. A grassy bank higher
than Edwin's head surrounded the home enclosure, and lovely white-winged
pigeons were hovering over the yellow gorse, which formed an
impenetrable wall on the top of the bank. A gate stood open, and by its
side some rough steps cut in the rock led down to the riverbed, through
a tangle of reeds and bulrushes. Like most New Zealand rivers, the bed
was ten times wider than the stream, and the stretch of mud on either
side increased the difficulties of the crossing.
Edwin rode up to the gate and dismounted, drew the bridle through the
ring in the post, and entered a delightful garden, where peach and
almond and cherry trees brought back a thought of home. The ground was
terraced towards the house, which was built on a jutting rock, to be out
of the reach of winter floods. Honeysuckle and fuchsia, which Edwin had
only known in their dwarfed condition in England, rose before him as
stately trees, tall as an English elm, eclipsing all the white and gold
of the acacias and laburnums, which sheltered the end of the house.
The owner, spade in hand, was at work among his flower-beds. His dress
was as rough as the navvy's, and Edwin, who had studied Mr. Hirpington's
photograph so often, asked himself if this man, so brown and brawny and
broad, could be his father's friend?
"Please, I'm Edwin Lee," said the boy bluntly. "Is Mr. Hirpington at
home?"
The spade was thrown aside, and a hand all smeared with garden mould
grasped his own, and a genial voice exclaimed, "Yes, Hirpington is here,
bidding you heartily welcome! But how came you, my lad, to forerun the
coach?"
Then Edwin poured into sympathetic ears the tale of their disaster,
adding earnestly, "I thought I had better come on with your messenger,
and tell you what had happened."
"Coach with a wheel off in the gorge!" shouted Mr. Hirpington to a chum
in-doors, and Edwin knew he had found the friend in need, whose value no
one can estimate like a colonist.
Before Edwin could explain why Nga-Hepe had failed in his promise to
return with his canoe, Mr. Hirpington was down the boating-stairs,
loosening his own "tub," as he called it, from its moorings. To the
Maori's peril he lent but half an ear. "No use our interfering there,"
he said. "I'm off to your father."
A head appeared at a window overlooking the bed of rushes, and two men
came out of the house door, and assisted him to push the boat into the
water. The window above was thrown open, and a hastily-filled basket was
handed down. Then a kind, motherly voice told Edwin to come in-doors.
The room he entered was large and faultlessly clean, serving the
threefold purpose of kitchen, dining-room, and office. The desk by the
window, the gun in the corner, the rows of plates above the dresser,
scarcely seemed to encroach on each other, or make the long dining-table
look ashamed of their company.
Mrs. Hirpington, who was expecting the "coach to sleep" under her roof
that night, was preparing her meat for the spit at the other end of the
room. The pipes and newspaper, which had been hastily thrown down at
the sound of Mr. Hirpington's summons, showed Edwin where the men had
been resting after their day's work. They were, as he guessed, employes
on the road, which was always requiring mending and clearing, while Mr.
Hirpington was their superintendent, as well as ford-keeper.
His wife, in a homely cotton dress of her own making, turned to Edwin
with the well-bred manner of an English lady and the hearty hospitality
of a colonist.
"Not a word about being in the way, my dear; the trouble is a pleasure.
We shall have you all here, a merry party, before long. There are worse
disasters than this at sea." She smiled as she delayed the roast, and
placed a chop on the grill for Edwin's benefit.
The cozy sense of comfort which stole over him was so delightful, as he
stretched himself on the sofa on the other side of the fire, it made him
think the more of the homeless wanderers in the bush, and he began to
describe to Mrs. Hirpington the strange scene he had witnessed.
A band of armed men marching out of the village filled her with
apprehension. She ran to the window overlooking the river to see if the
boat had pushed off, and called to the men remaining behind--for the
ford was never left--to know if the other roadmen had yet come in.
"They are late," she said. "They must have heard the coachman's 'coo,'
and are before us with their help. They have gone down to the gorge.
You may rest easy about your father."
But she could not rest easy. She looked to the loading of the guns, put
the bar in the gate herself, and held a long conference with Dunter over
the alarming intelligence.
But the man knew more of Maori ways than she did, and understood it
better. "I'll not be saying," he answered, "but what it will be wise in
us to keep good watch until they have all dispersed. Still, with Hepe's
goods to carry off and divide, they will not be thinking of interfering
with us. Maybe you'll have Nga-Hepe's folk begging shelter as the night
draws on."
"I hope not," she retorted quickly. "Give them anything they ask for,
but don't be tempted to open the gate. Tell them the coach is coming,
and the house is full."
A blaze of fire far down the river called everybody into the garden.
Some one was signalling. But Dunter was afraid to leave Mrs.
Hirpington, and Mrs. Hirpington was equally afraid to be left.
A great horror fell upon Edwin. "Can it be father?" he exclaimed.
Dunter grasped the twisted trunk of the giant honeysuckle, and swung
himself on to the roof of the house to reconnoitre. Edwin was up beside
him in a moment.
"Oh, it is nothing," laughed the man--"nothing but some chance traveller
waiting by the roadside for the expected coach, and, growing impatient,
has set a light to the dry branches of a ti tree to make sure of
stopping the coach."
But the wind had carried the flames beyond the tree, and the fire was
spreading in the bush.
"It will burn itself out," said Dunter carelessly; "no harm in that."
But surely the coach was coming!
Edwin looked earnestly along the line which the bush road had made
through the depths of the forest. He could see clearly to a considerable
distance. The fire was not far from the two white pines where he had
parted from his dusky companions, and soon he saw them rushing into the
open to escape from the burning fern. On they ran towards the ford,
scared by the advancing fire. How was Mrs. Hirpington to refuse to open
her gates and take them in? Women and children--it could not be done.
Edwin was pleading at her elbow.
"I saw it all, Mrs. Hirpington; I know how it happened. Nga-Hepe gave
me his horse, that I might escape in safety to you."
"Well, well," she answered, resigning herself to the inevitable. "If
you will go out and meet them and bring them here, Dunter shall clear
the barn to receive them."
Edwin slid down the rough stem of the honeysuckle and let himself out,
and ran along the road for about half-a-mile, waving his hat and calling
to the fugitives to come on, to come to the ford.
The gray-haired woman in the counterpane, now begrimed with mud and
smoke, was the first to meet him.
She shouted back joyfully, "The good wahini [woman] at the ford has sent
to fetch us. She hear the cry of the child. Good! good!"
But the invitation met with no response from Whero and his mother.
"Shall it be said by morning light Nga-Hepe's wife was sleeping in the
Ingarangi [English] bed, and he a dead man lying on the floor of his
forefathers' whare, with none to do tangi above him!" she exclaimed,
tearing fresh handfuls from her long dark hair in her fury.
"Oh to be bigger and stronger," groaned Whero, "that I might play my
game with the greenstone club! but my turn will come."
The blaze of passion in the boy's star-like eyes recalled his mother to
calmness. "What are you," she asked, "but an angry child to court the
blow of the warrior's club that would end your days? A man can bide his
hour. Go with the Ingarangi, boy."
"Yes, go," urged her companion.
A bright thought struck the gray-haired woman, and she whispered to
Edwin, "Get him away; get him safe to the Ingarangi school. Nothing can
reach him there. He loves their learning; it will make him a mightier
man than his fathers have ever been. If he stays with us, we can't hold
him back. He will never rest till he gets himself killed."
"Ah, but my Whero will go back with the Ingarangi boy and beg a blanket
to keep the babies from the cold night wind," added his mother
coaxingly.
"Come along," said Edwin, linking his arm in Whero's and setting off
with a run. "Now tell me all you want--blankets, and what else?"
But the boy had turned sullen, and would not speak. He put his hands
before his face and sobbed as if his heart would break.
"Where is the horse?" he asked abruptly, as they reached Mrs.
Hirpington's gate.
"In there," said Edwin, pointing to the stable.
The Maori boy sprang over the bar which Dunter had fixed across the
entrance to keep the horse in, and threw his arms round the neck of his
black favourite, crying more passionately than ever.
"He is really yours," put in Edwin, trying to console him. "I do not
want to keep the horse when you can take him back. Indeed, I am not
sure my father will let me keep him."
But he was speaking to deaf ears; so he left Whero hugging his
four-footed friend, and went in-doors for the blankets. Mrs. Hirpington
was very ready to send them; but when Edwin returned to the stable, he
found poor Whero fast asleep.
"Just like those Maoris," laughed Dunter. "They drop off whatever they
are doing; it makes no difference. But remember, my man, there is a
good old saying, 'Let sleeping dogs lie.'"
So, instead of waking Whero, they gently closed the stable-door; and
Edwin went off alone with the blankets on his shoulder. He found
Nga-Hepe's wife still seated by the roadside rocking her baby, with her
two bigger children asleep beside her. One dark head was resting on her
knee, the other nestling close against her shoulder. Edwin unfolded one
of the blankets he was bringing and wrapped it round her, carefully
covering up the little sleepers. Her companions had not been idle. To
the Maori the resources of the bush are all but inexhaustible. They
were making a bed of freshly-gathered fern, and twisting a perfect cable
from the fibrous flax-leaves. This they tied from tree to tree, and
flung another blanket across it, making a tent over the unfortunate
mother. Then they crept behind her, under the blanket, keeping their
impromptu tent in shape with their own backs.
"Goo'-night," they whispered, "goo' boy. Go bush a' right."
But Edwin lingered another moment to tell the disconsolate mother how he
had left Whero sleeping by the horse.
"Wake up--no find us--then he go school," she said, wrinkling the patch
of tattoo on her lip and chin with the ghost of a smile.
*CHAPTER III.*
*A RIDE THROUGH THE BUSH.*
The fire by the white pines had died away, but a cloud of smoke rose
from the midst of the trees and obscured the view. A faint rumbling
sound and the dull thud of horses' feet reached Edwin from time to time
as he ran back to the ford.
A lantern was swinging in the acacia tree. The white gate was flung
open, and Dunter, with his hand to his ear, stood listening to the
far-off echo.
A splash of oars among the rushes, and the shock of a boat against the
stairs, recalled him to the house. Edwin ran joyfully down the steps,
and gave a hand to Mr. Bowen.
"We are not all here now," the old gentleman said. "Your father stuck
by the coach, and he would have his daughters with him, afraid of an
open boat on a night like this."
Then Edwin felt a hand in the dark, which he knew was Cuthbert's; and
heard Mr. Hirpington's cheery voice exclaiming, "Which is home
first--boat or coach?"
"Hard to say," answered Dunter, as the coach drove down the road at a
rapid pace, followed by a party of roadmen with pickaxe on shoulder,
coming on with hasty strides and a resolute air about them, very unusual
in men returning from a hard day's labour.
The coach drew up, and Mr. Lee was the first to alight. He looked
sharply round, evidently counting heads.
"All here, all right," answered Mr. Hirpington. "Safe, safe at home, as
I hope you will all feel it," he added, in his heartiest tones.
There was no exact reply. His men gathered round him, exclaiming, "We
heard the war-cry from the Rota Pah. There's mischief in the wind
to-night. So we turned our steps the other way and waited for the coach,
and all came on together."
"It is a row among the Maoris themselves," put in Dunter, "as that lad
can tell you."
The man looked sceptical. A new chum, as fresh arrivals from the mother
country are always termed, and a youngster to boot, what could he know?
Mr. Hirpington stepped out from the midst of the group and laid his hand
on Mr. Lee's shoulder, who was bending down to ask Edwin what all this
meant, and drew him aside.
"I trust, old friend," he said, "I have not blundered on your behalf,
but all the heavy luggage you sent on by packet arrived last week, and
I, not knowing how to take care of it, telegraphed to headquarters for
permission to put it in the old school-house until you could build your
own. I thought to do you a service; but if our dusky neighbours have
taken offence, that is the cause, I fear."
Mr. Lee made a sign to his children to go in-doors. Edwin led his
sisters up the terrace-steps, and came back to his father. The coach
was drawn inside the gate, and the bar was replaced. The driver was
attending to his horses; but all the others were holding earnest council
under the acacia tree, where the lantern was still swinging.
"But I do not understand about this old schoolhouse," Mr. Lee was
saying; "where is it?"
"Over the river," answered several voices. "The government built it for
the Maoris before the last disturbance, when the Hau-Hau [pronounced
_How How_] tribe turned against us, and went back to their old
superstitions, and banded together to sell us no more land. It was then
the school was shut up, but the house was left; and now we are growing
friendly again," added Mr. Hirpington, "I thought all was right."
"So it is," interposed Mr. Bowen, confidently. "My sheep-run comes up
very near to the King country, as they like to call their district, and
I want no better neighbours than the Maoris."
Then Edwin spoke out. "Father, I can tell you something about it. Do
listen."
They did listen, one and all, with troubled, anxious faces. "This
tana," they said, "may not disperse without doing more mischief. Carry
on their work of confiscation at the old school-house, perhaps."
"No, no; no fear of that," argued Mr. Bowen and the coachman, who knew
the Maoris best.
"I'll run no risk of losing all my ploughs and spades," persisted Mr.
Lee. "How far off is the place?"
"Not five miles across country," returned his friend. "I have left it in
the care of a gang of rabbiters, who have set up their tents just
outside the garden wall--safe enough, as it seemed, when I left."
"Lend me a horse and a guide," said Mr. Lee, "and I'll push on
to-night."
The children, of course, were to be left at the ford; but Edwin wanted
to go with his father. Dunter and another man were getting ready to
accompany him.
"Father," whispered Edwin, "there is the black horse; you can take him.
Come and have a look at him."
He raised the heavy wooden latch of the stable-door, and glanced round
for Whero. There was the hole in the straw where he had been sleeping,
but the boy was gone.
"He must have stolen out as we drove in," remarked the coachman, who was
filling the manger with corn for his horses.
The man had far more sympathy with Nga-Hepe in his trouble than any of
the others. He leaned against the side of the manger, talking to Edwin
about him. When Mr. Lee looked in he stooped down to examine the horse,
feeling its legs, and the height of its shoulder. On such a congenial
subject the coachman could not help giving an opinion. Edwin heard, with
considerable satisfaction, that the horse was a beauty.
"But I do not like this business at all, and if I had had any idea Mr.
Hirpington's messenger was a native, you should never have gone with
him, Edwin," Mr. Lee began, in a very decided tone. "However," he
added, "I'll buy this horse, I don't mind doing that; but as to taking
presents from the natives, it is out of the question. I will not begin
it."
"But, father," put in Edwin, "there is nobody here to buy the horse of;
there is nobody to take the money."
"I'll take the money for Nga-Hepe," said the coachman. "I will make
that all right. You saw how it was as we came along. The farmers and
the natives are on the watch for my coming, and they load me with all
sorts of commissions. You would laugh at the things these Maoris get me
to bring them from the towns I pass through. I don't mind the bother of
it, because they will take no end of trouble in return, and help me at
every pinch. I ought to carry Nga-Hepe ten pounds."
Mr. Lee thought that cheap for so good a horse, and turned to the half
light at the open door to count out the money.
"But I shall not take him away with me to-night. I will not be seen
riding a Maori's horse if Hirpington can lend me another," persisted Mr.
Lee.
Then Mr. Bowen limped up to the stable-door, and Edwin slipped out,
looking for Whero behind the farm buildings and round by the back of the
house. But the Maori boy was nowhere to be seen. The coachman was
right after all. Mr. Hirpington went indoors and called to Edwin to
join him. He had the satisfaction of making the boy go over the ground
again. But there was nothing more to tell, and Edwin was dismissed to
his supper with an exhortation to be careful, like a good brother, not
to frighten his sisters.
He crossed over and leaned against the back of Audrey's chair, simply
observing, "Father is going on to-night."
"Well?" she returned eagerly.
"It won't be either well or fountain here," he retorted, "but a boiling
geyser. I've seen one in the distance already."
"Isn't he doing it nicely?" whispered Effie, nodding. "They told him to
turn a dark lantern on us. We heard--Audrey and I."
"Oh yes," smiled her sister; "every word can be heard in these New
Zealand houses, and no one ever seems to remember that. I give you fair
warning."
"It is a rare field for the little long-eared pitchers people are so
fond of talking about--present representatives, self and Cuthbert. We
of course must expect to fill our curiosity a drop at a time; but you
must have been snapped up in a crab-shell if you mean to keep Audrey in
the dark," retorted Effie.
"Cuthbert! Cuthbert!" called Edwin, "here is a buzzing bee about to
sting me. Come and catch it, if you can."
Cuthbert ran round and began to tickle his sister in spite of Audrey's
horrified "My dear!"
The other men came in, and a look from Mr. Lee recalled the young ones
to order. But the grave faces, the low words so briefly interchanged
among them, the business-like air with which the supper was got through,
in the shortest possible time, kept Audrey in a flutter of alarm, which
she did her best to conceal. But Mr. Bowen detected the nervous tremor
in her hand as she passed his cup of coffee, and tried to reassure her
with the welcome intelligence that he had just discovered they were
going to be neighbours. What were five-and-twenty miles in the
colonies?
"A very long way off," thought the despondent Audrey.
At a sign from Mr. Lee, Mrs. Hirpington conducted the girls to one of
the tiny bedrooms which ran along the back of the house, where the
"coach habitually slept." As the door closed behind her motherly
good-night, Effie seized upon her sister, exclaiming,--
"What are we in for now?"
"Sleep and silence," returned Audrey; "for we might as well disclose our
secret feelings in the market-place as within these iron walls."
"I always thought you were cousin-german to the discreet princess; but
if you reduce us to dummies, you will make us into eaves-droppers as
well, and we used to think that was something baddish," retorted Effie.
"You need not let it trouble your conscience to-night, for we cannot
help hearing as long as we are awake; therefore I vote for sleep,"
replied her sister.
But sleep was effectually banished, for every sound on the other side of
the thin sheet of corrugated iron which divided them from their
neighbours seemed increased by its resonance.
They knew when Mr. Lee drove off. They knew that a party of men were
keeping watch all night by the kitchen fire. But when the wind rose,
and a cold, pelting rain swept across the river, and thundered on the
metal roof with a noise which could only be out-rivalled by the iron
hail of a bombardment, every other sound was drowned, and they did not
hear what the coachman was saying to Edwin as they parted for the night.
So it was possible even in that house of corrugated iron not always to
let the left hand know what the right was doing. Only a few words
passed between them.
"You are a kind-hearted lad. Will you come across to the stables and
help me in the morning? I must be up before the dawn."
There was an earnestness in the coachman's request which Edwin could not
refuse.
With the first faint peep of gray, before the morning stars had faded,
the coachman was at Edwin's door. The boy answered the low-breathed
summons without waking his little brother, and the two were soon
standing on the terraced path outside the house in the fresh, clear,
bracing air of a New Zealand morning, to which a touch of frost had been
superadded. They saw it sparkling on the leaves of the stately
heliotropes, which shaded the path and waved their clustering flowers
above the coachman's head as they swayed in the rising breeze. He
opened the gate in the hedge of scarlet geraniums, which divided the
garden from the stable-yard, and went out with Edwin, carrying the sweet
perfume of the heliotropes with them. Even the horses were all asleep.
"Yes, it is early," remarked Edwin's companion. "The coach does not
start until six. I have got old time by the forelock, and I've a mind
to go over to the Rota Pah, if you can show me the way."
"I think I can find it," returned Edwin, with a confidence that was yet
on the lee side of certainty.
"Ay, then we'll take the black horse. If we give him the rein, he will
lead us to his old master's door. It is easy work getting lost in the
bush, but I never yet turned my back on a chum in trouble. Once a chum
always a chum with us. Many's the time Nga-Hepe's stood my friend among
these wild hills, and I want to see him after last night's rough
handling. That is levelling down with a vengeance."
The coachman paused, well aware his companions would blame him for
interfering in such a business, and very probably his employers also, if
it ever reached their ears. So he led the horse out quietly, and
saddled him on the road. The ground was white with frost. The moon and
stars were gradually paling and fading slowly out of sight. The forest
was still enwrapped in stately gloom, but the distant hills were already
catching the first faint tinge of rosy light.
Edwin got up behind the coachman, as he had behind Nga-Hepe. They gave
the horse its head, and rode briskly on, trusting to its sagacity to
guide them safely across the bush with all its dangers--dangers such as
Edwin never even imagined. But the coachman knew that one unwary step
might mean death to all three. For the great white leaves of the deadly
puka-puka shone here and there, conspicuous in the general blue-green
hue of the varying foliage; a poison quickly fatal to the horse, but a
poison which he loves. The difficulty of getting out of the thicket,
where it was growing so freely, without suffering the horse to crop a
single leaf kept them from talking.
"If I had known that beastly white-leaved thing was growing here, I
would not have dared to have brought him, unless I had tied up his head
in a net," grumbled the coachman, making another desperate effort to
leave the puka-puka behind by changing his course. They struggled out
of the thicket, only to get themselves tied up in a detestable
supple-jack--a creeper possessing the power to cling which we faintly
perceive in scratch-grass, but in the supple-jack this power is
intensified and multiplied until it ties together everything which comes
within its reach, making it the traveller's plague and another terrible
foe to a horse, a riderless horse especially, who soon gets so tied up
and fettered that he cannot extricate himself, and dies. By mutual help
they broke away from the supple-jack, and stumbled upon a mud-hole. But
here the good horse started back of his own accord, and saved them all
from a morning header in its awful depths. For the mud was seething,
hissing, boiling like some witch's caldron--a horrid, bluish mud,
leaving a yellow crust round the edge of the hole, and sending up a
sulphurous smell, which set Edwin coughing. The coachman alighted, and
led the horse cautiously away. Then he turned back to break off a piece
of the yellow crust and examine it.
Edwin remembered his last night's ride with the Maori, how he shot
fearlessly forward, avoiding all these insidious dangers as if by
instinct, "So that I did not even know they existed," exclaimed the boy,
with renewed admiration for the fallen chief.
"'The rank puts on the guinea stamp,
But the man's the gold for a' that,'"
he cried, with growing enthusiasm.
"Gold or stamp," retorted the coachman; "well, I can't lay claim to
either. I'm a blockhead, and yet not altogether one of nature's making,
for I could have done better. When I was your age, lad, who would have
thought of seeing me, Dilworth Ottley, driving a four-in-hand over such
a breakneck path as we crossed yesterday? Yet I've done it, until I
thought all sense of danger was deadened and gone. But that horrid hole
brings back the shudder."
"What is it?" asked Edwin.
"One of the many vents through which the volcanic matter escapes. In my
Cantab days--you stare; but I was a Cantab, and got ploughed, and
rusticated--I was crack whip among the freshmen. The horses lost me the
'exam;' and I went on losing, until it seemed that all was gone. Then I
picked up my whip once more; and here you find me driving the
cross-country mail for so much a week. But it makes a fellow feel when
he sees another down in his luck like this Maori, so that one cannot
turn away with an easy conscience when it is in one's power to help him,
or I'd go back this very moment."
"No, don't," said Edwin earnestly; "we are almost there."
The exceeding stillness of the dawn was broken by the wailing cry of the
women. The horse pricked up his ears, and cantered forward through the
basket willows and acacias which bordered the sleeping lake. Along its
margin in every little creek and curve canoes were moored, but from the
tiny bay-like indentation by the lonely whare the canoe had vanished.
The sudden jets of steam uprising in the very midst of the Maori pah
looked weird and ghostlike in the gray of the dawn. Only one wild-cat
crept stealthily across their path. Far in the background rose the dim
outline of the sacred hills where the Maori chiefs lie buried.
Edwin looked upward to their cloud-capped summits awestruck, as the wild
traditionary tales he had heard from Hepe's lips only last night rushed
back upon his recollection.
There before him was the place of graves; but where was the still more
sacred Te Tara, the mysterious lake of beauty, with its terraced banks,
where fairy-like arcades of exquisite tracery rise tier above tier,
shading baths fed by a stream of liquid sun in which it is happiness to
bathe?
Edwin had listened to the Maori's description as if it had been a page
from some fairy tale; but Ottley, in his matter-of-fact way, confirmed
it all.
"This Maori's paradise," he said, "may well be called the
last-discovered wonder of the world. I bring a lot of fellows up here
to see it every year; that is what old Bowen is after now. 'A thing of
beauty is a joy for ever.' This magic geyser has built a bathing-house
of fair white coral and enamel lace, with basins of shell and fringes of
pearl. What is it like? there is nothing it is like but a Staffa, with
its stalactites in the daylight and the sunshine. If Nature forms the
baths, she fills them, too, with boiling water, which she cools to suit
every fancy as she pours it in pearly cascades from terrace to terrace,
except in a north-east wind, which dries them up. All these Maoris care
for is to spend their days like the ducks, swimming in these pools of
delight. It is a jealously-guarded treasure. But they are wide awake.
The pay of the sightseer fills their pockets without working, and they
all disdain work."
They were talking so earnestly they did not perceive a patch of hot,
crumbling ground until the horse's fore feet went down to the fetlocks
as if it were a quicksand, shooting Ottley and Edwin over his head among
the reeds by the lake. Ottley picked himself up in no time, and flew to
extricate the horse, warning Edwin off.
"Whatever you may say of the lake, there are a lot of ugly places
outside it," grumbled Edwin, provoked at being told to keep his distance
when he really felt alight with curiosity and wonder as to what strange
thing would happen next. Having got eyes, as he said, he was not
content to gape and stare; he wanted to investigate a bit.
Once more the wail of the women was borne across the lake, rising to a
fearsome howl, and then it suddenly ceased. The two pressed forward,
and tying the horse to a tree, hastened to intercept the agonized wife
venturing homewards with the peep of light, only to discover how
thoroughly the tana had done its work.
But the poor women fled shrieking into the bush once more when they
perceived the figure of a man advancing toward them.
"A friend! a friend!" shouted Ottley, hoping that the sound of an
Englishman's voice would reassure them.
There was a crashing in the bushes, and something leaped out of the wild
tangle.
"It is Whero!" exclaimed Edwin, running to meet him. They grasped hands
in a very hearty fashion, as Edwin whispered almost breathlessly, "How
have they left your father?"
"You have come to tangi with us!" cried Whero, in gratified surprise;
and to show his warm appreciation of the unexpected sympathy, he gravely
rubbed his nose against Edwin's.
"Oh, don't," interposed the English boy, feeling strangely foolish.
Ottley laughed, as he saw him wipe his face with considerable energy to
recover from his embarrassment.
"Oh, bother!" he exclaimed. "I shall be up to it soon, but I did not
know what you meant by it. Never mind."
"Let us have a look round," said the coachman, turning to Whero, "before
your mother gets here."
"I have been watching in the long grass all night," sobbed the boy; "and
when the tramp of the last footsteps died away, I crept out and groped
my way in the darkness. I got to the door, and called to my father, but
there was no answer. Then I turned again to the bush to find my mother,
until I heard our own horse neigh, and I thought he had followed me."
Ottley soothed the poor boy as best he could as they surveyed the scene
of desolation. The fences were all pulled up and flung into the lake,
and the gates thrown down. The garden had been thoroughly ploughed, and
every shrub and tree uprooted. The patch of cultivated ground at the
back of the whare had shared the same fate.
It was so late in the autumn Ottley hoped the harvest had been gathered
in. It mattered little. The empty storehouse echoed to their
footsteps. All, all was gone. They could not tell whether the great
drove of pigs had been scared away into the bush or driven off to the
pah. Whero was leading the way to the door of the principal whare,
where he had last seen his father. In the path lay a huge, flat stone
smashed to pieces. The hard, cold, sullen manner which Whero had
assumed gave way at the sight, and he sobbed aloud.
Edwin was close behind them; he took up a splinter from the stone and
threw it into the circle of bubbling mud from which it had been hurled.
Down it went with a splash--down, down; but he never heard it reach the
bottom.
"Did that make anything rise?" asked Ottley anxiously, as he looked into
the awful hole with a shudder.
"They could not fill this up," retorted Whero exultantly. "Throw in
what you will, it swallows it all."
To him the hot stone made by covering the dangerous jet was the
embodiment of all home comfort. It was sacred in his eyes--a fire which
had been lighted for the race of Hepe by the powers of heaven and earth;
a fire which nothing could extinguish. He pitied the Ingarangi boy by
his side, who had never known so priceless a possession.
"Watch it," said Ottley earnestly. "If anything has been thrown in, it
will rise to the surface after a while incrusted with sulphur; but
now--" He pushed before the boys and entered the whare.
There lay Nga-Hepe, a senseless heap, covered with blood and bruises. A
stream of light from the open door fell full on the prostrate warrior.
The rest of the whare was in shadow.
Whero sprang forward, and kneeling down beside his father, patted him
fondly on his cheek and arm, as he renewed his sobbing.
After the tana had feasted to their heart's content. after they had
carried off everything movable, Nga-Hepe had been called upon to defend
himself against their clubs. Careful to regulate their ruthless
proceedings by ancient custom, his assailants came upon him one at a
time, until his powerful arm had measured its strength with more than
half the invading band. At last he fell, exhausted and bereft of
everything but the greenstone club his unconscious hand was grasping
still.
"He is not dead," said Ottley, leaning over him; "his chest is heaving."
An exclamation of thankfulness burst from Edwin's lips.
Ottley was looking about in vain for something to hold a little water,
for he knew that the day was breaking, and his time was nearly gone.
All that he could do must be done quickly. He was leaving the whare to
pursue his quest without, when he perceived the unfortunate women
stealing through the shadows. He beckoned the gray-haired Maori, who had
waited on Marileha from her birth, to join him. A few brief words and
many significant gestures were exchanged before old Ronga comprehended
that the life yet lingered in the fallen chief. She caught her mistress
by the arm and whispered in her native tongue.
The death-wail died away. Marileha gazed into the much-loved face in
breathless silence. A murmur of joy broke from her quivering lips, and
she looked to Whero.
He went out noiselessly, and Edwin followed. A hissing column of steam
was still rising unchecked from a rough cleft in the ground, rendered
bare and barren by the scalding spray with which it was continually
watered. Old Ronga was already at work, making a little gutter in the
soft mud with her hands, to carry the refreshing stream to the bed of a
dried-up pond. Edwin watched it slowly filling as she dug on in
silence.
"The bath is ready," she exclaimed at last. The word was passed on to
her companions, who had laid down the sleepy children they had just
brought home in a corner of the great whare, still huddled together in
Mrs. Hirpington's blanket. With Ottley's assistance they carried out
the all but lifeless body of Nga-Hepe, and laid him gently in the
refreshing pool, with all a Maori's faith in its restorative powers.
Marileha knelt upon the brink, and washed the blood-stains from his
face. The large dark eyes opened, and gazed dreamily into her own. Her
heart revived. What to her were loss and danger if her warrior's life
was spared? She glanced at Ottley and said, "Whilst the healing spring
still flows by his father's door there is no despair for me. Here he
will bathe for hours, and strength and manhood will come back. Whilst
he lies here helpless he is safe. Could he rise up it would only be to
fight again. Go, good friend, and leave me. It would set the jealous
fury of his tribe on fire if they found you here. Take away my Whero.
My loneliness will be my defence. What Maori would hurt a weeping woman
with her hungry babes? There are kind hearts in the pah; they will not
leave me to starve."
She held out her wet hand as she spoke. Ottley saw she was afraid to
receive the help he was so anxious to give. Whilst they were speaking,
Edwin went to find Whero.
He had heard the black horse neigh, and was looking round for his
favourite. "They will seize him!" he muttered between his set teeth.
"Why will you bring him here?"
"Come along with us," answered Edwin quickly, "and we will go back as
fast as we can."
But the friendly ruse did not succeed.
"I'll guide you to the road, but not a step beyond it. Shall men say I
fled in terror from the sound of clubs--a son of Hepe?" exclaimed Whero.
"Should I listen to the women's fears?"
"All very fine," retorted Edwin. "If I had a mother, Whero, I'd listen
to what she said, and I'd do as she asked me, if all the world laughed.
They might call me a coward and a jackass as often as they liked, what
would I care? Shouldn't I know in my heart I had done right?"
"Have not you a mother?" said Whero.
Edwin's "No" was scarcely audible, but it touched the Maori boy. He
buried his face on the horse's shoulder, then suddenly lifting it up
with a defiant toss, he asked, "Would you be faithless and desert her if
she prayed you to do it?"
This was a home-thrust; but Edwin was not to be driven from his
position.
"Well," he retorted, "even then I should say to myself, 'Perhaps she
knows best.'"
He had made an impression, and he had the good sense not to prolong the
argument.
*CHAPTER IV.*
*THE NEW HOME.*
The sun had risen when Edwin and the coach man started on their way to
the ford. With Whero running by the horse's head for a guide, the
dangers of the bush were avoided, and they rode back faster than they
came. The gloom had vanished from the forest. The distant hills were
painted with violet, pink, and gold. Sunbeams danced on scarlet
creepers and bright-hued berries, and sparkled in a thousand frosted
spiders' webs nestling in the forks of the trees. Whero led them to the
road, and there they parted. "If food runs low," he said, "I shall go
to school. With all our winter stores carried away it must; I know it."
"Don't try starving before schooling," said Ottley, cheerily. "Watch
for me as I come back with the coach, and I'll take you down to
Cambridge and on to the nearest government school.--Not the Cambridge
you and I were talking of, Edwin, but a little township in the bush
which borrows the grand old name.--You will love it for a while, Whero;
you tried it once."
"And I'll try it again," he answered, with a smile. "There is a lot more
that I want to know about--why the water boils through the earth here
and not everywhere. We love our mud-hole and our boiling spring, and
you are afraid of them."
"They are such awful places," said Edwin, as Whero turned back among the
trees and left them, not altogether envious of a Maori's patrimony. "It
is such a step from fairy-land to Sodom and Gomorrah," persisted Edwin,
reverting to Nga-Hepe's legends.
"Don't talk," interrupted Ottley. "There is an awful place among these
hills which goes by that name, filled with sulphurous smoke and hissing
mud. The men who made that greenstone club would have finished last
night's work by hurling Nga-Hepe into its chasms. Thank God, that day
is done. We have overcome the cannibal among them; and as we draw their
young lads down to our schools, it will never revive." They rode on,
talking, to the gate of the ford-house.
"I shall be late getting off," exclaimed Ottley, as he saw the household
was astir. He gave the bridle to Edwin and leaped down. The boy was in
no hurry to follow. He lingered outside, just to try if he could sit
his powerful steed and manage him single-handed. When he rode through
the gate at last, Ottley was coming out of the stable as intent upon his
own affairs as if nothing had occurred.
Breakfast was half-way through. The passengers were growing impatient.
One or two strangers had been added to their number. The starting of
the coach was the grand event of the day. Mrs. Hirpington was
engrossed, and Edwin's entrance passed unquestioned. His appetite was
sharpened by his morning ride across the bush, and he was working away
with knife and fork when the coach began to fill.
"If ever you find your way to Bowen's Run, you will not be forgotten,"
said the genial colonist, as he shook hands with the young Lees and
wished them all success in their new home.
The boys ran out to help him to his seat, and see the old ford-horse
pilot the coach across the river.
Ottley laid his hand on Edwin's shoulder for a parting word.
"Tell your father poor Marileha--I mean Whero's mother--dare not keep
the money for the horse; but I shall leave all sorts of things for her
at the roadman's hut, which she can fetch away unnoticed at her own
time. When you are settled in your new home, you must not forget I'm
general letter-box."
"We are safe to use you," laughed Edwin; and so they parted.
The boys climbed up on the garden-gate to watch the crossing. The
clever old pilot-horse, which Mr. Hirpington was bound by his lease to
keep, was yoked in front of the team. Good roadsters as the
coach-horses were, they could not manage the river without him. Their
feet were sure to slip, and one and all might be thrown down by the
force of the current. But this steady old fellow, who spent his life
crossing and recrossing the river, loved his work. It was a sight no
admirer of horses could ever forget to see him stepping down into the
river, taking such care of his load, cautiously advancing a few paces,
and stopping to throw himself back on his haunches and try the bottom of
the river with one of his fore feet. If he found a boulder had been
washed down in the night too big for him to step over, he swept the
coach round it as easily and readily as if it were a matter of course,
instead of a most unexpected obstruction. The boys were in ecstasies.
Then the sudden energy he put forth to drag the coach up the steep bank
on the opposite side was truly marvellous. When he considered his work
was done, he stood stock-still, and no power on earth could make him
stir another step. As soon as he was released, splash he went back into
the water, and trotted through it as merrily as a four-year-old.
"Cuthbert," said Edwin, in a confidential whisper, "we've got just such
another of our own. Come along and have a look at him."
Away went the boys to the stable, where Mr. Hirpington found them two
hours after making friends with "Beauty," as they told him.
At that hour in the morning every one at the ford was hard at work, and
they were glad to leave the boys to their own devices. Audrey and Effie
occupied themselves in assisting Mrs. Hirpington. When they all met
together at the one-o'clock dinner, Edwin was quite ready to indemnify
his sisters for his last night's silence, and launched into glowing
descriptions of his peep into wonderland.
"Shut up," said Mr. Hirpington, who saw the terror gathering in Effie's
eyes. "You'll be persuading these young ladies we are next-door
neighbours to another Vesuvius.--Don't believe him, my dears. These
mud-jets and geysers that he is talking about are nature's
safety-valves. I do not deny we are living in a volcanic region. We
feel the earth tremble every now and then, setting all the dishes
rattling, and tumbling down our books; but it is nothing more than the
tempests in other places."
"I'm thinking more of the Maoris than of their mud," put in Effie,
shyly; while Audrey quietly observed, everything was strange at present,
but they should get used to it by-and-by.
"The Maoris have been living among nature's water-works for hundreds of
years, and they would not change homes with anybody in the world;
neither would we. Mr. Bowen almost thinks New Zealand beats old England
hollow," laughed Mr. Hirpington. "If that is going a little too far, she
is the gem of the Southern Ocean. But seriously now," he added,
"although the pumice-stone we can pick up any day tells us how this
island was made, there has been no volcanic disturbance worth the name
of an eruption since we English set foot on the island. The Maoris were
here some hundreds of years before us, and their traditions have been
handed down from father to son, but they never heard of anything of the
kind."
Mr. Hirpington spoke confidently, and all New Zealand would have agreed
with him.
Edwin thought of Whero. "There are a great many things I want to
understand," he said, thoughtfully.
"Wife," laughed Mr. Hirpington, "is not there a book of Paulett
Scroope's somewhere about? He is our big gun on these matters."
As Mrs. Hirpington rose to find the book, she tried to divert Effie's
attention by admitting her numerous family of cats: seven energetic
mousers, with a goodly following of impudent kittens--tabby,
tortoise-shell, and black. When Effie understood she was to choose a
pet from among them, mud and Maoris seemed banished by their round green
eyes and whisking tails. The very title of Edwin's book proved
consolatory to Audrey--"Geology and Extinct Volcanoes in Central
France." A book in the bush is a book indeed, and Edwin held his
treasure with a loving clasp. He knew it was a parting gift; and
looking through the river-window, he saw Dunter and his companion
returning in a big lumbering cart. They drew up on the opposite bank of
the river and waved their hats.
"They have come to fetch us," cried Audrey. Mrs. Hirpington would hardly
believe it. "I meant to have kept you with me for some days at least,"
she said; but the very real regret was set aside to speed the parting of
her juvenile guests.
According to New Zealand custom, Mr. Lee had been obliged to buy the
horse and cart which brought his luggage up country, so he had sent it
with Dunter to fetch his children.
The men had half filled it with freshly-gathered fern; and Edwin was
delighted to see how easily his Beauty could swim the stream, to take
the place of Mr. Hirpington's horse.
"He would make a good pilot," exclaimed the man who was riding him.
Mrs. Hirpington was almost affectionate in her leave-taking, lamenting
as she fastened Effie's cloak that she could not keep one of them with
her. But not one of the four would have been willing to be left behind.
The boat was at the stairs; rugs and portmanteaus were already thrown
in.
Mr. Hirpington had seized the oar. "I take you myself," he said; "that
was the bargain with your father."
In a few minutes they had crossed the river, and were safely seated in
the midst of a heap of fern, and found it as pleasant as a ride in a
hay-cart. Mr. Hirpington sat on the side of the cart teaching Cuthbert
how to hold the reins.