improved as they came; for they had been obliged to use their hatchets
freely to get the cart along. Many a great branch which they had lopped
off was lying under the tree from which it had fallen, and served as a
way-mark. The trees through which they were driving were tall and dark,
but so overgrown with creepers and parasites it was often difficult to
tell what trees they were. A hundred and fifty feet above their heads
the red blossoms of the rata were streaming like banners, and wreathing
themselves into gigantic nests. Beneath were an infinite variety of
shrubs, with large, glossy leaves, like magnolias or laurels; sweetly
fragrant aromatic bushes, burying the fallen trunk of some old tree,
shrouded in velvet moss and mouse-ear. Little green and yellow birds
were hopping from spray to spray through the rich harvest of berries the
bushes afforded.
The drive was in itself a pleasure. A breath of summer still lingered
in the glinting sunlight, as if it longed to stay the falling leaves.
The trees were parted by a wandering brook overgrown with brilliant
scarlet duckweed. An enormous willow hanging over its pretty bank, with
a peep between its drooping branches of a grassy slope just dotted with
the ever-present ti tree told them they had reached their journey's end.
They saw the rush-thatched roof and somewhat dilapidated veranda of the
disused schoolhouse. Before it stretched a lovely valley, where the
brook became a foaming rivulet. A little group of tents and a long line
of silvery-looking streamers marked the camp of the rabbiters.
But the children's eyes were fastened on the moss-grown thatch. Soon
they could distinguish the broken-down paling and the recently-mended
gate, at which Mr. Lee was hammering. A shout, in which three voices at
least united, made him look round. Down went bill and hammer as he ran
to meet them, answering with his cheeriest "All right!" the welcome cry
of, "Father, father, here we are!"
Mr. Hirpington sprang out and lifted Audrey to the ground. Mr. Lee had
Effie in his arms already. The boys, disdaining assistance, climbed over
the back of the cart, laughing merrily. The garden had long since gone
back to wilderness, but the fruit still hung on the unpruned
trees--apples and peaches dwindling for want of the gardener's care, but
oh, so nice in boyish eyes! Cuthbert had shied a stone amongst the
over-ripe peaches before his father had answered his friend's inquiries.
No, not the shadow of a disturbance had reached his happy valley, so Mr.
Lee asserted, looking round the sweet, secluded nook with unbounded
satisfaction.
"You could not have chosen better for me," he went on, and Edwin's
beaming face echoed his father's content.
Mr. Hirpington was pulling out from beneath the fern-leaves a store of
good things of which his friend knew nothing---wild pig and hare, butter
and eggs, nice new-made bread; just a transfer from the larder at the
ford to please the children.
Age had given to the school-house a touch of the picturesque. Its
log-built walls were embowered in creepers, and the sweet-brier, which
had formerly edged the worn-out path, was now choking the doorway.
Although Mr. Lee's tenancy could be counted by hours, he had not been
idle. A wood fire was blazing in the room once sacred to desk and form.
The windows looking to the garden behind the house had been all forced
open, and the sunny air they admitted so freely was fast dispelling the
damp and mould which attach to shut-up houses in all parts of the world.
One end of the room was piled with heterogeneous bales and packages, but
around the fire-place a sense of comfort began to show itself already.
A camp-table had been unpacked and screwed together, and seats, after a
fashion, were provided for all the party. The colonist's "billy," the
all-useful iron pot for camp fire or farmhouse kitchen, was singing
merrily, and even the family teapot had been brought back to daylight
from its chrysalis of straw and packing-case. There was a home-like
feeling in this quiet taking possession.
"I thought it would be better than having your boys and girls shivering
under canvas until your house was built," remarked Mr. Hirpington,
rubbing his hands with the pleasant assurance of success. "You can rent
the old place as long as you like. It may be a bit shaky at the other
corner, but a good prop will make it all right."
The two friends went out to examine, and the brothers and sisters drew
together. Effie was hugging her kitten; Cuthbert was thinking of the
fruit; but Beauty, who had been left grazing outside, was beforehand
with him. There he stood, with his fore feet on the broken-down paling,
gathering it for himself. It was fun to see him part the peach and throw
away the stone, and Cuthbert shouted with delight to Edwin. They were
not altogether pleased to find Mr. Hirpington regarded it as a very
ordinary accomplishment in a New Zealand horse.
"We are in another hemisphere," exclaimed Edwin, "and everything about
us is so delightfully new."
"Except these decaying beams," returned his father, coming round to
examine the state of the roof above the window at which Edwin and Effie
were standing after their survey of the bedrooms.
Audrey, who had deferred her curiosity to prepare the family meal, was
glad to learn that, besides the room in which Mr. Lee had slept last
night, each end of the veranda had been enclosed, making two more tiny
ones. A bedstead was already put up in one, and such stores as had been
unpacked were shut in the other.
When Audrey's call to tea brought back the explorers, and the little
party gathered around their own fireside, Edwin could but think of the
dismantled hearth by the Rota Pah, and as he heard his father's
energetic conversation with Mr. Hirpington, his indignation against the
merciless tana was ready to effervesce once more.
"Now," Mr. Lee went on, "I cannot bring my mind to clear my land by
burning down the trees. You say it is the easiest way."
"Don't begin to dispute with me over that," laughed his friend. "You
can light a fire, but how will you fell a tree single-handed?"
The boys were listening with eager interest to their father's plans. To
swing the axe and load the faggot-cart would be jolly work indeed in
those lovely woods.
Mr. Hirpington was to ride back on the horse he had lent to Mr. Lee on
the preceding evening. When he started, the brothers ran down the
valley to get a peep at the rabbiter's camp. Three or four men were
lying round their fire eating their supper. The line of silver
streamers fluttering in the wind proved to be an innumerable multitude
of rabbit-skins hanging up to dry. A party of sea-gulls, which had
followed the camp as the rabbiters moved on, were hovering about, crying
like cats, until they awakened the sleeping echoes.
The men told Edwin they had been clearing the great sheep-runs between
his father's land and the sea-shore, and the birds had followed them all
those miles for the sake of the nightly feast they could pick up in
their track.
"You can none of you do without us," they said. "We are always at work,
moving from place to place, or the little brown Bunny would lord it over
you all."
The boys had hardly time to exchange a good-night with the rabbiters,
when the daylight suddenly faded, and night came down upon vale and bush
without the sweet interlude of twilight. They were groping their way
back to the house, when the fire-flies began their nightly dance, and
the flowering shrubs poured forth their perfume. The stars shone out in
all their southern splendour, and the boys became aware of a moving army
in the grass. Poor Bunny was mustering his myriads.
*CHAPTER V.*
*POSTING A LETTER.*
Mr. Lee and his boys found so much to do in their new home, days sped
away like hours. The bright autumn weather which had welcomed them to
Wairoa (to give their habitation its Maori name) had changed suddenly
for rain--a long, deluging rain, lasting more than a week.
The prop which Mr. Hirpington had recommended was necessarily left for
the return of fine weather. But within doors comfort was growing
rapidly. One end of the large room was screened off for a workshop, and
shelves and pegs multiplied in convenient corners. They were yet a good
way off from that happy condition of a place for everything, and
everything in its place. It was still picnic under a roof, as Audrey
said; but they were on the highroad to comfort and better things. When
darkness fell they gathered round the blazing wood-fire. Mr. Lee wrote
the first letters for England, while Edwin studied "Extinct Volcanoes."
Audrey added her quota to the packet preparing for Edwin's old friend,
"the perambulating letter-box," and Effie and Cuthbert played
interminable games of draughts, until Edwin shut up his book and evolved
from his own brains a new and enlarged edition of Maori folk-lore which
sent them "creepy" to bed.
It seemed a contradiction of terms to say May-day was bringing winter;
but winter might come upon them in haste, and the letters must be posted
before the road to the ford was changed to a muddy rivulet.
Mr. Lee, who had everything to do with his own hands, knew not how to
spare a day. He made up his mind at last to trust Edwin to ride over
with them. To be sure of seeing Ottley, Edwin must stay all night at
the ford, for after the coach came in it would be too late for him to
return through the bush alone.
Edwin was overjoyed at the prospect, for Ottley would tell him all he
longed to know. Was Nga-Hepe still alive? Had Whero gone to school?
He might even propose another early morning walk across the bush to the
banks of the lake.
Edwin was to ride the Maori Beauty, which had become the family name for
the chieftain's horse. Remembering his past experiences with the
white-leaved puka-puka, he coaxed Audrey to lend him a curtain she was
netting for the window of her own bedroom. She had not much faith in
Edwin's assurances that it would not hurt it a bit just to use it for
once for a veil or muzzle; but she was horrified into compliance by his
energetic assertion that her refusal might cost his Beauty's life.
Cuthbert, mounted on an upturned pail, so that he could reach the
horse's head, did good service in the difficult task of putting it on.
The veil was not at all to the Beauty's mind, and he did his best to get
rid of it. But the four corners were drawn through his collar at last,
and securely tied.
With Mr. Lee's parting exhortation to mind what he was about and look
well to Beauty's steps, Edwin started.
The road was changed to a black, oozy, slimy track. Here and there the
earth had been completely washed away, and horse and rider were
floundering in a boggy swamp. A little farther on a perfect landslip
from the hills above had obliterated every trace of road, and Edwin was
obliged to wind his way through the trees, trusting to his Beauty's
instinct to find it again.
With the many wanderings from the right path time sped away. The lamp
was swinging in the acacia tree as he trotted up to the friendly gate of
the ford-house.
"Coach in?" he shouted, as he caught sight of Dunter shovelling away the
mud from the entrance.
"Not yet; but she's overdue," returned the man, anxiously. "Even Ottley
will never get his horses through much longer. We may lock our
stable-doors until the May frosts begin. It is a tempting of Providence
to start with wheels through such a swamp, and I told him so last week."
"Then I am just in time," cried Edwin joyfully, walking his horse up to
the great flat stone in the middle of the yard and alighting. He
slipped his hand into his coat to satisfy himself the bulky letters in
his breast-pocket were all right, and then led his Beauty to the
horse-trough. He had half a mind not to go in-doors until he had had
his talk with Ottley.
Dunter, who was looking forward to the brief holiday the stopping of the
coach secured him, leaned on his spade and prepared for a gossip.
"Did Mr. Lee think of building a saw-mill?" Edwin's reply ended with the
counter-inquiry, "Had Mr. Hirpington got home?"
Dunter shook his head. "Not he: we all hold on as long as the light
lasts. He is away with the men, laying down a bit of corduroy road over
an earthslip, just to keep a horse-track through the worst of the
winter."
Whilst Edwin was being initiated into the mysteries of road-making in
the bush, the coach drove up.
Horses and driver were alike covered with mud, and the coach itself
exhibited more than its usual quota of flax-leaf bandages--all
testifying to the roughness of the journey.
"It is the last time you will see me this season," groaned Ottley, as he
got off the box. "I shall get no farther." He caught sight of Edwin,
and recognized his presence with a friendly nod. The passengers,
looking in as dilapidated and battered condition as the coach, were
slowly getting out, thankful to find themselves at a stopping-place.
Among them Edwin noticed a remarkable old man.
His snowy hair spoke of extreme old age, and when he turned a tattooed
cheek towards the boy, Edwin's attention was riveted upon him at once.
Lean, lank, and active still, his every air and gesture was that of a
man accustomed to command.
"Look at him well," whispered Dunter. "He is a true old tribal chief
from the other side of the mountains, if I know anything; one of the
invincibles, the gallant old warrior-chiefs that are dying out fast. You
will never see his like again. If you had heard them, as I have, vow to
stand true for ever and ever and ever, you would never forget it.--Am I
not right, coachee?" he added in a low aside to Ottley, as he took the
fore horse by the head.
The lantern flickered across the wet ground. The weary passengers were
stamping their numbed feet, and shaking the heavy drops of moisture from
hat-brims and overcoats. Edwin pressed resolutely between, that he
might catch the murmur of Ottley's reply.
"He got in at the last stopping-place, but I do not know him."
There was such a look of Whero in the proud flash of the aged Maori's
eye, that Edwin felt a secret conviction, be he who he might, they must
be kith and kin. He held his letter aloft to attract the coachman's
attention, calling out at his loudest, "Here, Mr. Ottley, I have brought
a letter for you to post at last."
"All right," answered the coachman, opening a capacious pocket to
receive it, in which a dozen others were already reposing. "Hand it
over, my boy; there is scarcely a letter reaches the post from this
district which does not go through my hands."
"Did you post this?" asked the aged Maori, taking another from the folds
of his blanket.
"I did more," said Ottley, as he glanced at the crumpled envelope, "for
I wrote it to Kakiki Mahane, the father of Nga-Hepe's wife, at her
request."
"I am that father," returned the old chief.
"And I," added Ottley, "was the eye-witness of her destitution, as that
letter tells you."
They were almost alone now in the great wet yard. The other passengers
were hurrying in-doors, and Dunter was leading away the horses; but
Edwin lingered, regardless of the heavy drops falling from the acacia,
in his anxiety to hear more.
"I have brought no following with me to the mountain-lake, for by your
letter famine is brooding in the whare of my child. Well, I know if the
men of the Kota Pah heard of my coming, they would spread the feast in
my honour. But how should I eat with the enemies of my child? I wait
for the rising of the stars to find her, that none may know I am near."
"I'll go with you," offered Ottley.
"You need not wait for the stars," interposed Edwin; "I'll carry the big
coach-lantern before you with pleasure. Do let me go with you," he
urged, appealing to Ottley.
"How is this?" asked Kakiki. "Does the pakeha pity when the Maori
frowns? What has my son-in-law been about, to bring down upon himself
the vengeance of his tribe?"
"Let your daughter answer that question," remarked Ottley discreetly.
But Edwin put in warmly: "Nga-Hepe was too rich and too powerful, and
the chief grew jealous. It was a big shame; and if I had been Whero, I
should have been worse than he was."
Whero's grandfather deigned no reply. He stalked up the well-worn steps
into Mrs. Hirpington's kitchen, and seating himself at the long table
called out for supper. Edwin just peeped in at the door, avoiding Mrs.
Hirpington's eye, for fear she should interfere to prevent him going
with the old Maori.
"I shall see her when I come back," he thought, as he strolled on
towards the stable, keeping an anxious watch over the gate, afraid lest
the fordmaster should himself appear at the last moment and detain him.
"You have brought Nga-Hepe's horse," said Ottley. as he entered the
nearest stall. "We must have him, for he knows the way. We have only
to give him his head, and he is safe to take the road to his master's
door."
"If you have him you must have me," persisted Edwin, and the thing was
settled. He nestled down in the clean straw under Beauty's manger, and
waited, elate with the prospect of a night of adventure, and stoutly
resisted all Dunter's persuasions to go in to supper.
Wondering at the shy fit which had seized the boy, Dunter brought him a
hunch of bread and cheese, and left the lantern swinging in the stable
from the hook in the ceiling, ere he went in with Ottley to share the
good feed always to be found in Mrs. Hirpington's kitchen, leaving Edwin
alone with the horses. He latched the stable-door, as the nights were
growing cold. The gates were not yet barred, for Mr. Hirpington and his
men were now expected every minute.
Edwin's thoughts had gone back to the corduroy road, which Dunter had
told him was made of the trunks of trees laid close together, with a
layer of saplings on the top to fill up the interstices. He was making
it in miniature with some bits of rush and reed scattered about the
stables, when the latch was softly lifted, and Whero stood before him.
Not the Whero he had parted from by the white pines, but the lean
skeleton of a boy with big, staring eyes, and bony arms coming out from
the loose folds of the blanket he was wearing, like the arms of a
harlequin. Edwin sprang up to meet him, exclaiming, "Your grandfather is
here." But instead of replying, Whero was vigorously rubbing faces with
his good old Beauty.
"Have you come to meet your grandfather?" asked Edwin.
"No," answered the boy abruptly. "I've come to ask Ottley to take me to
school." His voice was hollow, and his teeth seemed to snap together at
the sight of the bread in Edwin's hand.
"Whero, you are starving!" exclaimed Edwin, putting the remainder of his
supper into the dusky, skinny fingers smoothing Beauty's mane.
"A man must learn to starve," retorted Whero. "The mother here will give
me food when I come of nights and talk to Ottley."
"But your own mother, Whero, and Ronga, and the children, how do they
live?" Edwin held back from asking after Nga-Hepe, "for," he said, as he
looked at Whero, "he must be dead."
"How do they live?" repeated Whero, with a laugh. "Is the door of the
whare ever shut against the hungry? They go to the pah daily, but I
will not go. I will not eat with the men who struck down my father in
his pride. I wander through the bush. Let him eat the food they bring
him--he knows not yet how it comes; but his eyes are opening to the
world again. When he sees me hunger-bitten, and my sister Rewi fat as
ever, he will want the reason why. I will not give it. His strength is
gone if he starves as I starve. How can it return? No; I will go to
school to-morrow before he asks me."
Edwin's hand grasped Whero's with a warmth of sympathy that was only
held in check by the dread of another nasal caress, and he exclaimed,
"Come along, old fellow, and have a look at your grandfather too."
There was something about the grand old Maori's face which made Edwin
feel that he both could and would extricate his unfortunate daughter
from her painful position.
"It is a fix," Edwin went on; "but he has come to pull you through, I
feel sure."
Still Whero held back. He did not believe it was his grandfather. _He_
would not come without a following; and more than that, the proud boy
could not stoop to show himself to a stranger of his own race in such a
miserable guise. He coiled himself round in the straw and refused to
stir.
"Now, Whero," Edwin remonstrated, "I call this really foolish; and if I
were you I would not, I could not do it, speak of my own mother as one
of the women. I like your mother. It rubs me up to hear you--" The
boy stopped short; the measured breathing of his companion struck on his
ear. Whero had already fallen fast asleep by Beauty's side.
"Oh, bother!" thought Edwin. "Yet, poor fellow, I won't wake you up,
but I'll go and tell your grandfather you are here."
He went out, shutting the door after him, and encountered Mr. Hirpington
coming in with his men.
"Hollo, Edwin, my boy, what brings you here?" he exclaimed.
"Please, sir, I came over with a packet of letters for Mr. Ottley to
post," was the quick answer, as Edwin walked on by his side, intent upon
delivering his father's messages.
"All right," was the hearty response. "We'll see. Come, now I think of
it, we can send your father some excellent hams and bacon we bought of
the Maoris. Some of poor Hepe's stores, I expect."
"That was a big shame," muttered Edwin, hotly, afraid to hurt poor
Whero's pride by explaining his forlorn state to any one but his
grandfather.
He entered the well-remembered room with the fordmaster, looking eagerly
from side to side, as Mr. Hirpington pushed him into the first vacant
seat at the long table, where supper for the "coach" was going forward.
Edwin was watching for the old chief, who sat by Ottley, gravely
devouring heap after heap of whitebait, potatoes, and pumpkins with
which the "coach" took care to supply him. Mrs. Hirpington cast anxious
glances round the table, fearing that the other passengers would run
short, as the old Maori still asked for "more," repeating in a loud
voice, "More, more kai!" which Ottley interpreted "food." Dunter was
bringing forth the reserves from the larder--another cheese, the remains
of the mid-day pudding, and a huge dish of brawn, not yet cold enough to
be turned out of the mould, and therefore in a quaky state. The old
chief saw it tremble, and thinking it must be alive, watched it
curiously.
"What strange animals you pakehas bring over the sea!" he exclaimed at
last, adding, as he sprang to his feet and drew the knife in his belt
with a savage gesture, "I'll kill it."
The laughter every one was trying to suppress choked the explanation
that would have been given on all sides. With arm upraised, and a
contorted face that alone was enough to frighten Mrs. Hirpington out of
her wits, he plunged the knife into the unresisting brawn to its very
hilt, utterly amazed to find neither blood nor bones to resist it.
"Bah!" he exclaimed, in evident disgust.
"Here, Edwin," gasped the shaking fordmaster, "give the old fellow a
spoon."
Edwin snatched up one from the corner of the table, and careful not to
wound the aged Maori's pride, which might be as sensitive as his
grandson's, he explained to him as well as he could that brawn was
brawn, and very jolly stuff for a supper.
"Example is better than precept at all times," laughed Mr. Hirpington.
"Show him what to do with the spoon."
Edwin obeyed literally, putting it to his own lips and then offering it
to Kakiki. The whole room was convulsed with merriment. Ottley and Mr.
Hirpington knew this would not do, and exerted themselves to recover
self-control sufficiently to persuade the old man to taste and try the
Ingarangi kai.
He drew the dish towards him with the utmost gravity, and having
pronounced the first mouthful "Good, good," he worked away at it until
the whole of its contents had disappeared. And all the while Whero was
starving in the stable.
"I can't stand this any longer," thought Edwin. "I must get him
something to eat, I must;" and following Dunter into the larder, he
explained the state of the case.
"Wants to go by the coach and cannot pay for supper and bed. I see,"
returned Dunter.
Edwin thought of the treasure by the white pines as he answered, "I am
afraid so."
"That's hard," pursued the man good-naturedly; "but the missis never
grudges a mouthful of food to anybody. I'll see after him."
"Let me take it to him," urged Edwin, receiving the unsatisfactory
reply, "Just wait a bit; I'll see," as Dunter was called off in another
direction; and with this he was obliged to be content.
Ottley was so taken up with the aged chief--who was considerably annoyed
to find himself the laughing-stock of the other passengers--that Edwin
could not get a word with him. He tried Mr. Hirpington, who was now
talking politics with a Wellingtonian fresh from the capital. Edwin, in
his fever of impatience, thought the supper would never end. After a
while some of the passengers went off to bed, and others drew round the
fire and lit their pipes.
Mrs. Hirpington, Kakiki, and the coachman alone remained at the table.
At last the dish of brawn was cleared, and the old Maori drew himself up
with a truly royal air. Taking out a well-filled purse, in which some
hundreds of English sovereigns were glittering, he began counting on his
fingers, "One ten, two ten--how muts?" (much).
Ottley, who understood a Maori's simple mode of reckoning better than
any one present, was assisting Mrs. Hirpington to make her bill, and
began to speak to Kakiki about their departure.
The fordmaster could see how tired the chief was becoming, and suddenly
remembered a Maori's contempt and dislike for the wretched institution
of chairs. He was determined to make the old man comfortable, and
fetching a bear-skin from the inner room, he spread it on the floor by
the fire, and invited Kakiki to take possession. Edwin ran to his help,
and secured the few minutes for talk he so much desired. Mr. Hirpington
listened and nodded.
"You will have to stay here until the morning," he added, "every one of
you. Go off with Dunter and make the boy outside as comfortable as you
can. I should be out of my duty to let that old man cross the bush at
night, with so much money about him. Better fetch his grandson in here."
Mrs. Hirpington laid her hand on Edwin's shoulder as he passed, and told
him, with her pleasant smile, his bed was always ready at the ford.
Dunter pointed to a well-filled plate and a mug of tea, placed ready to
his hand on the larder shelf; and stretching over Edwin's head, he
unbolted the door to let him out.
The Southern Cross shone brightly above the iron roof as Edwin stepped
into the yard to summon Whero. The murmur of the water as it lapped on
the boating-stairs broke the stillness without, and helped to guide him
to the stable-door. The lantern had burnt out. He groped his way in,
and giving Whero a hearty shake, charged him to come along.
But the hand he grasped was withdrawn.
"I can't," persisted Whero; "I'm too ashamed." He meant too shy to face
the "coach," and tell all he had endured in their presence. The idea
was hateful to him.
Edwin placed the supper on the ground and ran back for Ottley. He found
the coachman explaining to Kakiki why Marileha had refused to accept the
money for the horse, and how he had kept it for her use.
"Then take this," cried Kakiki, flinging the purse of gold towards him,
"and do the like."
But Ottley's "No!" was dogged in its decision.
"What for no?" asked Kakiki, angrily.
"Who is his daughter?" whispered Mr. Hirpington to his wife.
"You know her: she wears the shark's teeth, tied in her ears with a
black ribbon," Mrs. Hirpington answered, sleepily.
Then he went to the rescue, and tried to persuade Kakiki to place his
money in the Auckland Bank for his daughter's benefit, pointing out as
clearly as he could the object of a bank, and how to use it. As the
intelligent old man began to comprehend him, he reiterated, "Good, good;
the pitfall is only dangerous when it is covered. My following are
marching after me up the hills. If I enter the Rota Pah with the state
of a chief, there will be fighting. Send back my men to their canoes.
Hide the wealth that remains to my child as you say, but let that
wahini" (meaning Mrs. Hirpington) "take what she will, and bid her send
kai by night to my daughter's whare, that there may be no starving.
This bank shall be visited by me, and then I go a poor old man to sleep
by my daughter's fire until her warrior's foot is firm upon the earth
once more. I'll wrap me in that thin sheet," he went on, seizing the
corner of the table-cloth, which was not yet removed.
Mr. Hirpington let him have it without a word, and Ottley rejoiced to
find them so capable and so determined to extricate Marileha from her
peril.
"Before this moon shall pass," said Kakiki, "I will take her away, with
her family, to her own people. Let your canoe be ready to answer my
signal."
"Agreed," replied Mr. Hirpington; "I'll send my boat whenever you want
it."
"For all that," thought Edwin, "will Nga-Hepe go away?" He longed to
fetch in Whero, that he might enter into his grandfather's plans; and
as, one after another, the passengers went off to bed, he made his way
to Mrs. Hirpington. Surely he could coax her to unbar the door once
more and let him out to the stables.
"What, another Maori asleep in the straw!" she exclaimed. "They do take
liberties. Pray, my dear, don't bring him in here, or we shall be up
all night."
Edwin turned away again in despair.
Having possessed himself of the table-cloth, the old chief lay down on
the bear-skin and puffed away at the pipe Mr. Hirpington had offered
him, in silence revolving his schemes.
He was most anxious to ascertain how his son-in-law had brought down
upon himself the vengeance of the tribe amongst which he lived. "I will
not break the peace of the hills," he said at length, "for he may have
erred. Row me up stream while the darkness lasts, that I may have
speech of my child."
"Too late," said Mr. Hirpington; "wait for the daylight."
"Are there not stars in heaven?" retorted Kakiki, rising to try the
door.
"Am I a prisoner?" he demanded angrily, when he found it fastened.
Mr. Hirpington felt he had been reckoning without his host when he
declared no one should leave his roof that night. But he was not the
man to persist in a mistake, so he threw it open.
"I'll row him," said Dunter.
Edwin ran out with them. Here was the chance he had been seeking. He
flew to the stable and roused up Whero. Grandfather and grandson met
and deliberately rubbed noses by the great flat stone which Edwin had
used as a horse-block. Whilst Dunter and Mr. Hirpington were getting
out the boat, they talked to each other in their native tongue.
"It will be all right now, won't it?" asked Edwin, in a low aside to
Ottley, who stood in the doorway yawning. But Kakiki beckoned them to
the conference.
"The sky is black with clouds above my daughter's head; her people have
deserted her--all but Ronga. Would they cut off the race of Hepe? Some
miscreant met the young lord in the bush, and tried to push him down a
mud-hole; but he sprang up a tree, and so escaped. Take him to school
as he wills. When I go down to the bank I shall see him there. It is
good that he should learn. The letter has saved my child."
*CHAPTER VI.*
*MIDNIGHT ALARMS.*
After his return home, Edwin felt as if mud and rain had taken
possession of the outside world. The rivulet in the valley had become a
raging torrent. All the glamour of the woods was gone. The fern-covered
hills looked gaunt and brown. The clumps of flax and rush bent their
flattened heads low in the muddy swamp before the piercing night winds.
The old trees in the orchard were shattered, and their broken branches,
still cumbering the ground, looked drear and desolate. The overgrowth
of leaf and stalk presented a mass of decaying vegetation, dank and
sodden.
One chill May morning brought a heavy snow, veiling the calm crests of
the majestic hills with dazzling whiteness, becoming more intense and
vivid as their drapery of mist and storm-cloud blackened. All movement
seemed absorbed by the foaming cascades, tearing down the rifts and
gullies in the valley slope. Every sign of life was restricted to a
ghostly-looking gull, sated with dead rabbit, winging its heavy flight
to the blue-black background of dripping rock.
But in this England of the Southern Seas the winter changes as it
changes in the British Isles. Sharp, frosty nights succeeded. The
ground grew crisp to the tread. The joyous work in the woods began.
Mr. Lee went daily to his allotment with axe on shoulder and his boys by
his side. His skill in woodcraft was telling. Many of the smaller
trees had already fallen beneath his vigorous stroke, when the
rabbiters--who glean their richest harvest in the winter
nights--reappeared. They were so used to the reckless ways of the
ordinary colonist--who cuts and slashes and burns right hand and left
until the coast is clear--that Mr. Lee's methodical proceedings began to
interest them. His first step was to clear away the useless undergrowth
and half-grown trees, gaining room for charcoal fires, and for stacks of
bark which his boys were stripping from the fallen trunks. His roving
neighbours promised to leave their traps and snares, and help him to
bring down the forest giants which he was marking for destruction.
One June evening, as the Lees were returning from a hard day's work,
they passed the rabbiters going out as usual to begin their own. A
slight tremor in the ground attracted the attention of both parties. As
they exchanged their customary good-night, one of the rabbiters observed
there was an ugly look about the sky.
The boys grumbled to each other that there was an ugly look about the
ground. Although thousands of little brown heads and flopping ears were
bobbing about among the withered thistle-stalks, thousands more were
lying dead behind every loose stone or weedy tuft.
The ghoul-like gulls were hovering in increasing numbers, some already
pouncing on their prey and crying to their fellows wheeling inland from
the distant shore. No other sound disturbed the silence of the bush.
The sense of profound repose deepened as they reached their home. To
Mr. Lee it seemed an ominous stillness, like the lull before the storm;
but in the cheerful light of his blazing fire he shook off the feeling.
The weary boys soon went to bed. For the present they were sleeping in
the same room as their father, who slowly followed their example.
It was nearly midnight, when Edwin was awakened with a dim feeling of
something the matter. Cuthbert was pulling him. "Edwin! Edwin!"
"What is it?" he cried. Edwin's hurried exclamation was lost in the
bang and rattle all around. Were the windows coming in? He sprang
upright as the bed was violently shaken, and the brothers were tossed
upon each other.
"What now?" called out Mr. Lee, as the floor swayed and creaked, and he
felt himself rolling over in the very moment of waking. The walls were
beginning a general waltz, when the noise of falling crockery in the
outer room and the howling of the rabbiters' dogs drowned every other
sound.
A sickly, helpless sensation stole over them all, Mr. Lee too, as
everything around them became as suddenly still--an eerie feeling which
could not be shaken off. The boys lay hushed in a state of nervous
tension, not exactly fear, but as if their senses were dumfoundered and
all their being centred in a focus of expectation.
Effie gave a suppressed scream. Mr. Lee was speaking to her through the
wall. "It is over, my dear--it is over; don't be frightened," he was
saying.
"It--what it?" asked Cuthbert, drawing his head under the bed-clothes.
"Our first taste of earthquake," returned his father; "and a pretty
sharp one, I fancy."
At this announcement Cuthbert made a speedy remove to his father's bed,
and cuddled down in the blankets. Mr. Lee walked round the room and
looked out of the window. It was intensely dark; he could see nothing.
"Oh my head!" they heard Audrey saying; "it aches so strangely."
Mr. Lee repeated his consolatory assurance that it was over, and
returned to bed, giving way to the natural impulse to lie still which
the earthquake seemed to produce. The violence of the headache every
one was experiencing made them thankful to lie down once more; but rest
was out of the question. In a little while all began again; not a
violent shock, as at the first, but a continual quaking.
Mr. Lee got up and dressed. He was afraid to light a lamp, for fear it
should be upset; so he persuaded his children to keep in bed, thinking
they would be rolled down in the darkness by the heaving of the floor.
He groped his way into the outer room, treading upon broken earthenware
at every step. This was making bad worse. He went back and lit a match.
It was just two o'clock.
Audrey, who heard him moving about, got up also, and began to dress,
being troubled at the destruction of the plates and dishes. In ten
minutes they were startled by a fearful subterranean roar. Edwin could
lie still no longer. He sprang up, and was hurrying on his clothes,
when the house shook with redoubled violence. Down came shelves, up
danced chairs. The bang and crash, followed by a heavy thud just
overhead, made Edwin and his father start back to opposite sides of the
room as the roof gave way, and a ton weight of thatch descended on the
bed Edwin had just vacated.
"The chimney!" exclaimed Mr. Lee. "The chimney is down!"
The dancing walls seemed ready to follow. Cuthbert was grabbing at his
shoes. Mr. Lee ran to the door, thinking of his girls in the other
room.
"Audrey! Effie!" he shouted, "are you hurt?"
But the weight of the falling thatch kept the door from opening. He saw
the window was bulging outwards. He seized a stick standing in the
corner, and tried to wrench away the partition boarding between him and
his daughters. But the slight shake this gave to the building brought
down another fall of thatch, filling the room with dust. Edwin just
escaped a blow from a beam; but the darkness was terrific, and the
intense feeling of oppression increased the frantic desire to get out.
"In another moment the whole place will be about our ears!" exclaimed
Mr. Lee, forcing the window outwards, and pushing the boys before him
into the open. He saw--no, he could not see, but rather felt the whole
building was tottering to its fall. "Let the horses loose!" he shouted
to Edwin, as he ran round to the front of the house to extricate the
girls.
The boom as of distant cannon seemed to fill the air.
"O Lord above, what is it?" ejaculated one of the rabbiters, who had
heard the chimney go down, and was hurrying to Mr. Lee's assistance.
Again the heavy roll as of cannon seemed to reverberate along the
distant shore.
"It is a man-of-war in distress off Manakau Head," cried a comrade.
"That! man, that is but the echo; the noise is from the hills. There is
hot work among the Maoris, maybe. They are game enough for anything.
The cannon is there," averred old Hal, the leader of the gang.
"Then it is that Nga-Hepe blowing up the Rota Pah by way of revenge,"
exclaimed the first speaker.
Edwin had opened the stable-door, and was running after his father. He
caught the name Nga-Hepe, and heard old Hal's reply,--
"He buy cannon indeed, when the muru took away his all not three months
since!"
Edwin passed the speaker, and overtaking his father in the darkness, he
whispered, "The man may be right. Nga-Hepe's wife buried his money by
the roadside, by the twin pines, father. I saw her do it."
"Ah!" answered Mr. Lee, as he sprang up the veranda steps and rapped on
Audrey's window. As she threw it open a gruff voice spoke to Edwin out
of the darkness.
"So it was money Marileha buried?"
But Edwin gave no reply. Mr. Lee was holding out his arms to Erne, who
had scrambled upon the window-sill, and stood there trembling, afraid to
take the leap he recommended.
"Wrap her in a blanket, Audrey, and slide her down," said their father.
Edwin was on the sill beside her in a moment. The blanket Audrey was
dragging forward was seized and flung around the little trembler,
enveloping head, arms, and feet. Mr. Lee caught the lower end, and
drawing it down, received his "bonnie birdie" in his fatherly arms.
Edwin leaped into the darkness within.
"Quick, Audrey, quick, or the house will fall upon us," he urged.
She was snatching at this and that, and tying up a bundle in haste.
Edwin pulled out another blanket from the tumbled bed-clothes, and flung
it on the window-sill.
"No, no," said Audrey; "I'll jump."
She tossed her bundle before her, and setting herself low on her feet,
she gave one hand to her father and the other to the gruff speaker who
had startled Edwin in the darkness. They swung her to the ground
between them just as the log-built walls began to roll. Edwin was
driven back among the ruins, crouching under the bulrush thatch, which
lay in heaps by the debris of beam and chimney, snug like a rabbit in
its burrow, whilst beam and prop were falling around him. He heard
Cuthbert calling desperately, "Look, look! father, father! the world's
on fire!"
Edwin tugged furiously at the mass of dry and dusty rushes in which he
had become enveloped, working with hands and feet, groping his way to
space and air once more. The grand but terrific sight which met his
gaze struck him backwards, and he sank confounded on the heap, from
which he had scarcely extricated himself.
The sacred Maori hills, which at sunset had reared their snowy crests in
majestic calm, were ablaze with fire. The intensity of the glare from
the huge pillar of flame, even at so great a distance, was more than
eyes could bear. With both hands extended before his face to veil the
too terrific light, Edwin lay entranced. That vision of a thousand feet
of ascending flame, losing itself in a dome of cloud blacker and denser
than the blackness of midnight, might well prelude the day of doom.
Unable to bear the sight or yet to shut it out, he watched in dumb
amazement. White meteor globes of star-like brilliancy shot from out the
pall of cloud in every direction, and shed a blue unearthly light on all
around. They came with the roar as of cannon, and the rocks were riven
by their fall. Huge fissures, opening in the mountain sides, emitted
streams of rolling fire.
Edwin forgot his own peril and the peril of all around, lost in the
immensity of the sight. The cries and groans of the rabbiters recalled
him. Some had thrown themselves on their faces in a paroxysm of terror.
Old Hal had fallen on his knees, believing the end of the world had
come.
Edwin heard his father's voice rising calm and clear above the gasping
ejaculations and snatches of half-forgotten prayer.
"Would you court blindness? Shut your eyes to the awful sight. It is
an eruption of Mount Tarawera. Remember, Hal, we are in the hands of
One whom storm and fire obey."
The play of the lightning around the mountain-head became so intense
that the glare from the huge column of volcanic fire could scarcely be
distinguished. The jagged, forked flashes shot downwards to the
shuddering forest, and tree after tree was struck to earth, and fire
sprang up in glade and thicket.
"To the open!" shouted Mr. Lee, blindfolding Cuthbert with his
handkerchief, and shrouding Effie in the blanket, as he carried her
towards the recent clearing.
Cuthbert grasped his father's coat with both hands, and stumbled on by
his side. A dull, red spot in the distance marked the place where the
charcoal fires were smouldering still, just as Mr. Lee had left them.
He laid his burden down in the midst of the circling heaps, which shed a
warmth and offered something of a shelter from the rising blast. It was
the safest spot in which he could leave the two; and charging Cuthbert
to be a man and take care of his sister, he hurried away to look for
Edwin.
With their backs against the sods which covered over the charring wood,
the children sat with their arms round each other's necks, huddled
together in the blanket, all sense of loneliness and fear of being left
by themselves absorbed in the awe of the night.
Inspired by Mr. Lee's example, old Hal had rallied. He had caught
Beauty, and was putting him in the cart. Audrey, with her recovered
bundle on her arm, with the quiet self-possession which never seemed to
desert her, was bringing him the harness from the new-built shed, which
was still standing.
The gruff rabbiter, who had been the first to come to Mr. Lee's
assistance, followed her for a fork to move the heaps of thatch which
hemmed Edwin in. He was crossing to the ruined house with it poised upon
his shoulder as Mr. Lee came up. He saw the lightning flash across the
steel, and dashed the fork from the man's insensate grasp. The fellow
staggered backwards and fell a senseless heap. Star-like rays were
shooting from each pointing tine as the fork touched the ground, and
lines of fire ran from them in every direction. Edwin saw it also, and
seizing a loosened tie-beam, he gave the great heap of thatch before him
a tremendous heave, and sent it over. The sodden mass of rush, heavy
with frozen snow, broke to pieces as it fell, and changed the running
fire to a dense cloud of smoke.
A deep-voiced "Bravo, young un!" broke from the horror-stricken
rabbiters, who had gathered round their comrade. But Mr. Lee was before
them. He had loosened the man's collar and torn open his shirt. In the
play of the cold night air his chest gave a great heave. A sigh of
thankfulness ran round the group. The lightning he had so unthinkingly
drawn down upon himself had not struck a vital part.
Audrey had dropped her bundle, and was filling her lap with the frozen
flags by the edge of the stream.
They dragged him away from the smoke, and Audrey's icy gleanings were
heaped upon his burning head. A twitch of the nostrils was followed by
a deep groan.
"He'll do," said Hal. "He's a coming round, thank God!"
With a low-breathed Amen, Mr. Lee turned away, for the cloud of smoke
his boy had raised completely concealed him. The cheery "All right"
which answered his shout for his son put new life into the whole party.
Audrey and her father ran quickly to the end of the house. The great
beam of the roof was cleared, and Edwin was cautiously making his way
across it on his hands and knees.
"Stand back!" he cried, as he neared the end, and, with a flying leap
and hands outspread he cleared the broken wall, and alighted uninjured
on the ground.
Mr. Lee caught hold of him, and Audrey grasped both hands.
"I'm all right," he retorted; "don't you bother about me."
A terrible convulsion shook the ground; the men flung themselves on
their faces. A splendid kauri tree one hundred and seventy feet high,
which shaded the entrance of the valley, was torn up by the roots, as an
awful blast swept down the forest glades with annihilating force. The
crash, the shock reverberating far and wide, brought with it such a
sense of paralyzing helplessness even Mr. Lee gave up all for lost.
They lifted up their heads, and saw red-hot stones flying into the air
and rolling down the riven slopes.
"O my little lambs!" groaned Mr. Lee, thinking of the two he had left by
the charcoal fires, "what am I doing lying here, and you by yourselves
in the open?"
"Get 'em away," said Hal; "the cart is still there. Put 'em all in, and
gallop off towards the shore; it's our only safety."
There was too much weight in the old man's words to disregard them. Mr.
Lee looked round for his other horse, which had rushed over him at a mad
bound when the last tree fell. He saw it now, its coat staring with the
fright, stealing back to its companion.
*CHAPTER VII.*
*THE RAIN OF MUD.*
It was about four o'clock in the morning. A new thing happened--a
strange new thing, almost unparalleled in the world's history. The
eruption had been hitherto confined to the central peak of Tarawera,
known among the Maori tribes as Ruawahia; but now with a mighty
explosion the south-west peak burst open, and flames came belching
forth, with torrents of liquid fire. The force of the earthquake which
accompanied it cracked the bed of the fairy lake. The water rushed
through the hole upon the subterranean fires, and returned in columns of
steam, forcing upwards the immense accumulation of soft warm mud at the
bottom of the lake. The whole of this was blown into the air, and for
fifteen miles around the mountain fell like rain. The enormous amount
of steam thus generated could not find half vent enough through the
single hole by which the water had poured in, and blew off the crust of
the earth above it.
Showers of rock, cinders, and dust succeeded the mud, lashing the lake
to fury--a fury which baffled all imagination. The roar of the falling
water through unseen depths beneath the lake, the screech of the
escaping steam, the hissing cannonade of stones, created a volley of
sound for which no one could account, whilst the mud fell thick and
fast, as the snow falls in a blizzard.
The geysers, catching the subterranean rage, shot their scalding spray
above the trees. Mud-holes were boiling over and over, and new ones
opening in unexpected places. Every ditch was steaming, every hill was
reeling. For the space of sixty miles the earth quivered and shook, and
a horrid sulphurous smell uprose from the very ground; while around
Tarawera, mountain, lake, and forest were enveloped in one immense cloud
of steam, infolding a throbbing heart of flame, and ascending to the
almost incredible height of twenty-two thousand feet. Beneath its awful
shadow the country lay in darkness--a darkness made still more appalling
when the huge rock masses of fire clove their way upwards, to fall back
into the crater from which they had been hurled.
As Mr. Lee caught his horse by the forelock, the first heavy drops of
mud hissed on the frozen ground. In another moment they came pelting
thick and fast, burning, blinding, burying everything in their path. The
horse broke loose from his master's hand, and tore away to the shelter
of the trees. The heavy cart lumbering at his heels alone kept Beauty
from following his mate. Hal caught his rein, Edwin seized his head, as
the thick cloud of ashes and mud grew denser and blacker, until Edwin
could scarcely see his hand before him.
"Get in! get in!" gasped the old rabbiter.
Edwin swung himself upon the horse's back, and rode postilion, holding
him in with all his might.
"The sick man first," said Mr. Lee, almost choking with the suffocating
smell which rose from the earth. He lifted the poor fellow in his arms,
a comrade took him by the feet, and between them they got him into the
cart. Hal had resigned the reins to Edwin, and taken his place, ready
to pillow the unconscious head upon his knees.
"The Lord have mercy on us!" he groaned.
Mr. Lee groped round for Audrey. Her feet were blistering through her
thin boots, as she sank ankle-deep in the steaming slime, which came
pouring down without intermission. Her father caught her by the waist
and swung her into the back of the cart. Another of the rabbiters got up
on the front and took the reins from Edwin, who did not know the way.
The other two, with Mr. Lee, caught hold of the back of the cart and ran
until they came to their own camp. The tents lay flat; the howling dogs
had fled; but their horse, which they had tethered for the night, had
not yet broken loose.
Here they drew up, sorely against Mr. Lee's desire, for he could no
longer distinguish the glimmer of his charcoal fires, and his heart was
aching for his children--his innocents, his babies, as he fondly called
them--in that moment of dread. As the rabbiters halted, he stooped to
measure the depth of mud on the ground, alarmed lest the children should
be suffocated in their sleep; for they might have fallen asleep, they
had been left so long.
"Not they," persisted Edwin. "They are not such duffers as to lie down
in mud like this; and as for sleep in this unearthly storm--" he stopped
abruptly.
"Hark!" exclaimed his father, bending closer to the ground. "Surely
that was a 'coo,' in the distance."
Every ear was strained. Again it came, that recognized call for help no
colonist who reckons himself a man ever refuses to answer.
Faint as was the echo which reached them, it quivered with a passionate
entreaty.
"They are cooing from the ford," cried one. But another contradicted.
It was only when bending over the upturned roots of a fallen tree that
the feeble sound could be detected, amidst all the fearsome noises
raging in the upper air.
The rabbiters felt about for their spades, and throwing out the mud from
the cavity, knelt low in the loosened earth. They could hear it now
more plainly.
Mr. Lee pressed his ear to the freshly-disturbed mould, and listened
attentively. The cry was a cry of distress, and the voice was the voice
of his friend.
The rabbiters looked at each other, aghast at the thought of returning
to the thick of the storm. It was bad enough to flee before it; but to
face the muddy rain which was beating them to the earth, to breathe in
the burning dust which came whirling through it, could any one do that
and reach the ford alive? Not one dare venture; yet they would not
leave the spot.
At break of day they said, "We will go." They were glad of such shelter
as the upheaved roots afforded. It was a moment's respite from the
blistering, blinding rain. But whilst they argued thus, Mr. Lee was
striding onwards to the seven black heaps, in the midst of which he had
left his children.
The fires had long gone out; the blackness of darkness was around him.
He called their names. He shouted. His voice was thick and hoarse from
the choking atmosphere. He stumbled against a hillock. He sank in the
drift of mud by its side. A faint, low sob seemed near him; something
warm eluded his touch. His arms sought it in the darkness, sweeping
before him into empty space. Two resolute small hands fought back his
own, and Cuthbert growled out fiercely, "Whoever you are, you shan't
touch my Effie. Get along!"
"Not touch your Effie, my game chick!" retorted Mr. Lee, with the ghost
of a smile in spite of his despair.
"Oh, it is father! it is father!" they exclaimed, springing into his
arms. "We thought you would never come back any more."
He thought they would never stop kissing him, but he got them at last,
big children as they were, one under each arm, lifting, dragging,
carrying by turns, till he made his way to the cart. Then he discovered
why poor Effie hung so helplessly upon him. Both hands had tightly
clinched in the shock of the explosion, and her feet dragged uselessly
along the ground.
"She turned as cold as ice," said Cuthbert, "and I've cuddled her ever
since. Then the mud came on us hot; wasn't that a queer thing?"
They snugged poor Effie in the blanket, and Audrey took her on her lap.
"I'm not afraid now," she whispered, "now we are all together. But I've
lost the kitten."
"No," said Audrey; "I saw it after you were gone, scampering up a tree."
Mr. Lee was leaning against the side of the cart, speaking to old Hal.
They did not hear what he was saying, only the rabbiter's reply: "Trust
'em to me. I'll find some place of shelter right away, down by the sea.
Here, take my hand on it, and go. God helping, you may save 'em at the
ford. Maybe they are half buried alive. It is on my mind it will be a
dig-out when you get there. The nearer the mischief the worse it will
be. When our fellows see you have the pluck to venture, there'll be
some of 'em will follow, sure and sartin."
"We are all chums here," said Mr. Lee, turning to the men. "Lend me
that spade and I'm off to the ford. We must answer that coo somehow, my
lads."
"We'll do what we can in the daylight," they answered.
"I am going to do what I can in the darkness," he returned, as he
shouldered the spade and crossed over for a last look at his children.
Audrey laid her hand in his without speaking.
"You are not going alone, father, when I'm here," urged Edwin, springing
off the horse. "Take me with you."
"No, Edwin; your post is here, to guard the others in my
absence.--Remember, my darlings, we are all in God's hands, and there I
leave you," said Mr. Lee.
He seized a broken branch, torn off by the wind, and using it as an
alpenstock, leaped from boulder to boulder across the stream, and was up
the other side of the valley without another word.
Cuthbert was crying; the dogs were whining; Audrey bent over Effie and
rocked her backwards and forwards.
The cart set off. The mud was up to the axle-tree. It was slow work
getting through it.
The rest of the party were busy dragging their tents out of the mire,
and loading their own cart with their traps as fast as they could,
fumbling in the dark, knee-deep in slush and mud.
As Beauty pulled his way through for an hour or more, the muddy rain
diminished, the earth grew hard and dry. The children breathed more
freely as the fresh sea-breeze encountered the clouds of burning dust,
which seemed now to predominate over the mud.
They could hear the second cart rumbling behind them. The poor fellow
who had been struck by the lightning began to speak, entreating his
comrades to lay him somewhere quiet. "My head, my head!" he moaned.
"Stop this shaking."
By-and-by they reached a hut. They were entering one of the great
sheep-runs, where the rabbiters had been recently at work. Here the
carts drew up, and roused its solitary inmate. One of the rabbiters
came round and told Hal they had best part company.
"There are plenty of bold young fellows among Feltham's shepherds. We
are off to the great house to tell him, and we'll give the alarm as we
go. He'll send a party off to the hills as soon as ever he hears of
this awful business. A lot of us may force a way. We'll take this side
of the run: you go the other till you find somewhere safe to leave these
children. Wake up the shepherds in every hut you pass, and send them on
to meet us at Feltham's. If we are back by daylight we shall do," they
argued.
"Agreed," said the old man. "We can't better that. Dilworth and the
traps had best wait here. He will sleep this off," he added, looking
compassionately at his stricken comrade.
Out came the shepherd, a tall, gentlemanly young fellow, who had passed
his "little-go" at Trinity, got himself "ploughed" like Ottley, and so
went in for the southern hemisphere and the shepherd's crook.
Pale and livid with the horror of the lone night-watch in his solitary
hermitage, he caught the full import of the direful tidings at a word.
His bed and his rations were alike at their service. He whistled up his
horse and dog, and rode off at a breakneck gallop, to volunteer for the
relief-party, and send the ill news a little faster to his master's
door, for his fresh horse soon outstripped the rabbiters' cart.
Meanwhile old Hal drove onward towards the sea. A shepherd met him and
joined company, breathless for his explanation of all the terrors which
had driven him from his bed. He blamed Mr. Lee for his foolhardiness in
venturing on alone into such danger.
Freed at last from the clayey slime, Beauty rattled on apace. Cuthbert
was fast asleep, and Edwin was nodding, but Audrey was wide awake. She
gathered from the conversation of the men fresh food for fear. The "run"
they were crossing was a large one. She thought they called it
Feltham's. It extended for some miles along the sea-shore, and Audrey
felt sure they must have journeyed ten or fifteen miles at least since
they entered it. Thirteen thousand sheep on run needed no small company
of shepherds. Many of them lived at the great house with Mr. Feltham;
others were scattered here and there all over the wide domain, each in
his little shanty. Yet most of them were the sons of gentlemen, certain
to respond to the rabbiters' call. Again the cart drew up, and a
glimmer of firelight showed her the low thatched roof of another shanty.
Hal called loudly to a friend inside.
"Up and help us, man! There is an awful eruption. Tarawera is pouring
out fire and smoke. Half the country round will be destroyed before the
morning!"
Down sprang the shepherd. "We are off to Feltham's; but we must have
you with us, Hal, for a guide. We don't know where we are wanted."
Edwin was wide awake in a moment. The men were talking eagerly. Then
they came round, lifted the girls out of the cart, told them all to go
inside the hut and get a sleep, and they would soon send somebody to see
after them.
Hal laid his hand on Edwin's shoulder. "Remember your father's charge,
lad," he said, "and just keep here, so that I know where to find you."
It was still so dark they could scarcely see each other's faces; but as
Edwin gave his promise, Audrey sighed a startled sigh of fear. Were
they going to leave them alone?
"Must," returned all three of the men, with a decision that admitted of
no question.
"Afraid?" asked the shepherd, in a tone which made Edwin retort, "Not a
bit."
But Audrey could not echo her brother's words. She stood beside him the
picture of dismay, thinking of her father. Hal's friend Oscott picked
up a piece of wood and threw it on the dying lire; it blazed up
cheerily.
"My dear," said Hal, in an expostulating tone, "would you have us leave
your father single-handed? We have brought you safe out of the danger.
There are numbers more higher up in the hills; we must go back."
"Yes, yes," she answered, desperately. "Pray don't think about us. Go;
do go!"
Oscott brought out his horse. The shepherd smiled pityingly at the
children. "We'll tell the boundary-rider to look you up. He will bring
the dog his breakfast, and I have no doubt Mrs. Feltham will send him
with yours."
With a cheery good-night, crossed by the shepherd with a cheerier
good-morning, intended to keep their spirits up, the men departed.
Edwin put his arm round Audrey. "Are you really afraid? I would not
show a white feather after all he said. Come inside."
The hut was very similar to the one at the entrance of the gorge, with
the customary bed of fern leaves and thick striped blanket. The men had
laid Effie down upon it, and Cuthbert was kneeling beside her rubbing
her hands.
"I'll tell you a secret," he whispered. "Our Audrey has gone over to
the groaners."
"No, she has not," retorted Edwin. "But once I heard that Cuthbert was
with the criers."
"Where are we?" asked Effie piteously.
"Safe in the house that Jack built," said her brother, wishing to get up
a laugh; but it would not do.
Audrey turned her head away. "Let us try to sleep and forget
ourselves."
Edwin found a horse-rug in the hut, and went out to throw it over
Beauty's back, for the wind was blowing hard. There was plenty of
drift-wood strewing the shore, and he carefully built up the fire.
Having had some recent experience during the charcoal-burning, he built
it up remarkably well, hoping the ruddy blaze would comfort Audrey--at
least it would help them to dry their muddy clothes. The sound of the
trampling surf and the roar of the angry sea seemed as nothing in the
gray-eyed dawn which followed that night of fear.
He found, as he thought, his sisters sleeping; and sinking down in the
nest of leaves which Cuthbert had been building for him, he soon
followed their example. But he was mistaken: Audrey only closed her
eyes to avoid speaking. She dared not tell him of their father's peril
for fear he should rush off with the men, urged on by a desperate desire
to share it. "I know now," she thought, "why father charged him to
remain with us."
Her distress of mind drowned all consciousness of their strange
surroundings. What was the rising of the gale, the trampling of the
surf upon the sand, or the dashing of the tumultuous waves, after the
fire and smoke of Tarawera?
But Cuthbert started in his dreams, and Edwin woke with a cry. Shaking
himself from the clinging leaves, now dry as winter hay, he ran out with
the impression some one had called him. It was but the scream of the
sea-gull and the moan of the storm. It should have been daylight by this
time, but no wintry sun could penetrate the pall-like cloud of blue
volcanic dust which loaded the atmosphere even there.
It seemed to him as if the sea, by some mysterious sympathy, responded
to the wild convulsions of the quaking earth. The billows were rolling
in towards him mountains high. He turned from the angry waves to
rebuild his fire.
Did Oscott keep it as a beacon through the night on the ledge of rock
which sheltered his hut from the ocean breezes? From its position Edwin
was inclined to think he did, although the men in the hurry of their
departure had not exactly said so. By the light of this fire he could
now distinguish the outline of a tiny bay--so frequent on the western
coast of the island--a stretch of sandy shore, and beyond the haven over
which the rock on which he stood seemed sentinel, a sheet of boiling
foam.
And what was that? A coasting steamer, with its screw half out of the
water, tearing round and round, whilst the big seas, leaping after each
other, seemed washing over the little craft from stem to stern.
He flung fresh drift-wood on his beacon-fire until it blazed aloft, a
pyramid of flame. "Audrey dear, Audrey," he ran back shouting, "get up,
get up!"
She appeared at the door, a wan, drooping figure, shrinking from the
teeth of the gale. "Is it father?" she asked.
"Father! impossible, Audrey. We left him miles away. It is a ship--a
ship, Audrey--going down in the storm," he vociferated.
She clasped her hands together in hopeless despair.
Cuthbert pulled her back. "You will be blown into the sea," he cried.
"Let me go. Boys like me, we just love wild weather. I shan't hurt.
What is it brings the downie fit?" he asked. "Tell old Cuth."
"It is father, dear--it is father," she murmured, as his arms went round
her coaxingly.
"I know," he answered. "I cried because I could not help it; but Edwin
says crying is no good."
"Praying is better," she whispered, buttoning up his coat a little
closer. But what was he wearing?
"Oh, I got into somebody's clothes," he said, "and Edwin helped me."
"It is father's short gray coat," she ejaculated, stroking it lovingly
down his chest, as if it were all she ever expected to see of her father
any more.
"So much the better," he answered, undaunted. "I want to be father
to-night."
"Night!" repeated Edwin, catching up the word, "How can you stand there
talking when there is a ship going down before our eyes?"
Cuthbert ran up the rocky headland after his brother, scarcely able to
keep his footing in the increasing gale. There, by the bright stream of
light flung fitfully across the boiling waves, he too could see the
little vessel tossing among the breakers. An Egyptian darkness lay
around them--a darkness that might be felt, a darkness which the
ruddiest glow of their beacon could scarcely penetrate.
"You talk of night," Edwin went on, as the brothers clung together, "but
it is my belief it has long since been morning. I tell you what it is,
Cuth: the sun itself is veiled in sackcloth and ashes; it can't break
through this awful cloud."
Young as they were, they felt the importance of keeping up the fire to
warn the steamer off the rocks, and again they set to work gathering
fuel. The men had said but little about the fire, because they knew it
was close on morning when they departed, and now--yes, the morning had
come, but without the daylight.
Old roots and broken branches drifted in to shore were strewing the
beach. But as the boys were soon obliged to take a wider circle to
collect them, Edwin was so much afraid of losing his little brother he
dare not let go his hand. Then he found a piece of rope in the pocket
of "father's coat," and tied their arms together. So they went about
like dogs in leash, as he told Cuthbert. If dogs did their hunting in
couples, why should not they?
Meanwhile Audrey, whose heart was in the hills, was watching landwards
from the little window at the back of the hut. Edwin's pyramid of fire
shot fitful gleams above the roof and beyond the black shadow of the
shanty wall. Beauty, who had never known the luxury of a stable until
he came into the hands of his new masters, was well used to looking out
for himself. He had made his way round to the back of the hut, and now
stood cowering under the broad eaves, seeking shelter from the raging
blast.
Where the firelight fell Audrey could faintly distinguish a line of
road, probably the one leading to the mansion. To the left, the
wavering shadows cast upon the ground told her of the near neighbourhood
of a grassy embankment, surmounted by a swinging fence of wire, the
favourite defence of the sheep-run, so constructed that if the half-wild
animals rush against it the wire swings in their faces and drives them
back. She heard the mournful howling of a dog at no great distance.
Suddenly it changed to a clamorous bark, and Audrey detected a faint but
far-away echo, like the trampling of approaching horsemen.
She pushed the window to its widest and listened. Her long fair hair,
which had been loosely braided for the night, was soon shaken free by
the raging-winds, and streamed about her shoulders as she leaned out as
far as she could in the fond hope that some one was coming.
The knitted shawl she had snatched up and drawn over her head when she
jumped into her father's arms was now rolled up as a pillow for Effie.
She shivered in the wintry blast, yet courted it, as it blew back from
her the heated clouds of whirling ashes. Faint moving shadows, as of
trees or men, began to fleck the pathway, and then a band of horsemen,
galloping their hardest, dashed across the open.
Audrey's pale face and streaming hair, framed in the blackness of the
shadowing roof, could not fail to be seen by the riders. With one
accord they shook the spades they carried in the air to tell their
errand, and a score of manly voices rang out the old-world ballad,--
"What lads e'er did our lads will do;
Were I a lad I'd follow him too.
He's owre the hills that I lo'e weel."
Audrey waved her "God-speed" in reply. With their heads still turned
towards her, without a moment's pause, they vanished in the darkness.
Only the roll of the chorus thrown back to cheer her, as they tore the
ground beneath their horses' hoofs, rose and fell with the rage of the
storm--
"He's owre the hills we daurna name,
He's owre the hills ayont Dumblane,
Wha soon will get his welcome hame.
My father's gone to fecht for him,
My brithers winna bide at hame,
My mither greets and prays for them,
And 'deed she thinks they're no to blame.
He's owre the hills," etc.
The last faint echo which reached her listening ears renewed the
promise--
"What lads e'er did our lads will do;
Were I a lad I'd follow him too.
He's owre the hills, he's owre the hills."
The voices were lost at last in the howl of the wind and the dash of the
waves on the angry rocks. But the music of their song was ringing still
in Audrey's heart, rousing her to a courage which was not in her nature.
She closed the window, and knelt beside the sleeping Effie with a
question on her lips--that question of questions for each one of us, be
our emergency what it may--"Lord, what wouldest thou have me to do?"
She was not long in finding its answer.
*CHAPTER VIII.*
*A RAGING SEA.*
The boys rushed in exclaiming, "Audrey, Audrey! the ship is foundering!
The men are getting off into the boat, and they can't keep its head to
the sea. She swings round broadside to the waves, and must be filling.
Is there a rope about the hut--anywhere, anywhere; a long, strong rope,
dear Audrey?"
How should she know what was in the hut? But she knew what was put in
the cart: the ropes which tied the load were there. She had pulled them
out of the shed with the harness herself.