A peculiar pale light played and flashed from the surface of the black
water which was being churned up by the desperate struggles of the
drowning pair. It was as if myriads of tiny stars started into being
where all was dark before, and went hurrying here and there, some to the
surface, others deep down into the transparent purity of the sea.
A minute before Jem Wimble had kept command of himself, and swam as a
carefully tutored man keeps himself afloat; that minute passed, all
teaching was forgotten in a weak, frantic struggle with the strangling
water which closed over their heads.
A few moments, during which the phosphorescent tiny creatures played
here and there, and then once more the two helpless and nearly exhausted
fugitives were beating the surface, which flashed and sent forth lambent
rays of light.
But it was not there alone that the phosphorescence of the sea was
visible.
About a hundred yards away there was what seemed to be a double line of
pale gold liquid fire changing into bluish green, and between the lines
of light something whose blackness was greater than the darkness of the
sea or night. There was a dull low splashing, and at every splash the
liquid fire seemed to fly.
The double line of fire lengthened and sparkled, till it was as so much
greenish golden foam reaching more and more toward where the drowning
pair were struggling.
Then came a low, growling, grinding sound, as if the long lines of light
were made by the beating fins of the dark object, which was some
habitant of the deep roused from slumbers by the light of the golden
foam formed by those who drowned.
And it rushed on and on to seize its prey, invisible before, but now
plainly seen by the struggles and the resulting phosphorescent light.
Long, low, and with its head raised high out of the water, horrent,
grotesque and strange, the great sea monster glided along over the
smooth sea. Full five-and-twenty fins aside made the water flash as it
came on, and there was, as it were, a thin new-moon-like curve of light
at its breast, while from its tail the sparkling phosphorescence spread
widely as it was left behind.
The low grumbling sound came again, but it was not heard by those
drowning, nor was the light seen as it glided on nearer and nearer, till
it reached the spot.
One dart from the long raised neck, one snap of the fierce jaws--another
dart and another snap, and the sea monster had its prey, and glided
rapidly on, probably in search of more in its nightly hunt.
Nothing of the kind! The long creature endued with life darted on, but
the long neck and horned head were not darted down, but guided past
those who where drowning. Everything was stiff and rigid but the
playing fins. But there was another dull, low grunt, the fins seemed to
cease by magic; and, instead of being snapped up by the monster's mouth,
the two sufferers were drawn in over its side.
Then the water flashed golden again, the monster made a curve and rushed
through the water, and sped away for miles till, in obedience to another
grunting sound, it turned and dashed straight for a sandy beach,
resolving itself into a long New Zealand war canoe, into which Don and
Jem had been drawn, to lie half insensible till the beach was neared
when Jem slowly and wonderingly sat up.
"Where's Mas' Don?" he said in a sharp ill-used tone.
"Here he is," said a gruff voice, and Jem looked wonderingly in a
savage's indistinctly seen face, and then down in the bottom of the long
canoe, into which they had been dragged.
"Mas' Don--don't say you're drowned, Mas' Don," he said pitifully, with
a Somersetshire man's bold attempt at the making of an Irish bull.
"My pakeha! My pakeha!" said a deep voice; and Jem became aware of the
fact that the big chief he had so often seen on board the ship, and who
had come to them with the present of fruit when they were guarding the
boat, was kneeling down and gently rubbing Don.
"Is he dead?" said Jem in a whisper.
"No, not this time," said the gruff voice out of the darkness. "Pretty
nigh touch, though, for both of you. Why didn't you hail sooner?"
"Hail sooner?" said Jem.
"Yes. We came in the canoe to fetch you, but you didn't hail, and it
was too dark to see."
"We couldn't hail," said Jem, sulkily. "It would have brought the boats
down upon us."
"Ah, so it would," said the owner of the gruff voice. "There's three
boats out after you."
"And shall you give us up?"
"Give you up? Not I. I've nothing to do with it; you must talk to
him."
"My pakeha!" cried the big chief excitedly.
"That isn't his name, is it?" said Jem.
"No. Nonsense! Pakeha means white man. I was a pakeha once."
"Let me help him up," said Jem eagerly.
"My pakeha! My pakeha!" said the chief, as if putting in a personal
claim, and ready to resist Jem's interference.
The difficulty was ended by Don giving himself a shake, and slowly
rising.
"Jem! Where's Jem?"
"Here! All right, Mas' Don. We're in the canoe."
"Hah!" ejaculated Don; and he shuddered as if chilled. "Where are the
boats?"
"Miles away," said the tattooed Englishman. "But look here, I'm only on
board. This is Ngati's doing. I know nothing about you two."
"My pakeha! My pakeha!" cried the chief.
"Lookye here," cried Jem, speaking in the irritable fashion of those
just rescued from drowning; "if that there chief keeps on saying, `_My
pakeha_' at me in that there aggravating way, I shall hit him in the
mouth."
"Ah! You're rusty," said the tattooed Englishman. "Man always is when
he's been under water."
"I dunno what you mean by being rusty," said Jem snappishly. "What I
say is, leave a man alone."
"All right!" said the Englishman. "I'll let you alone. How's your
young mate?"
"My head aches dreadfully," said Don; "and there's a horrible pain at
the back of my neck."
"Oh, that'll soon go off, my lad. And now what are you going to do?"
"Do?" interrupted Jem. "Why, you don't mean to give us up, do you?"
"I don't mean to do anything or know anything," said the man. "Your
skipper'll come to me to-morrow if he don't think you're drowned, or--I
say, did you feel anything of 'em?"
"Feel anything--of what?" said Don.
"Sharks, my lad. The shallow waters here swarm with them."
"Sharks!" cried Don and Jem in a breath.
"Yes. Didn't you know?"
"I'd forgotten all about the sharks, Jem," said Don.
"So had I, my lad, or I dursen't have swum for it as we did. Of course
I thought about 'em at first starting, but I forgot all about 'em
afterwards."
"Jem," said Don, shuddering; "what an escape!"
"Well, don't get making a fuss about it now it's all over, Mas' Don.
Here we are safe, but I must say you're the wussest swimmer I ever
met.--Here, what are they going to do?"
"Run ashore," said the Englishman, as there was a buzz of excitement
among the New Zealanders, many of whom stepped over into the shallow
water, and seized the sides of the boat, which was rapidly run up the
dark shore, where, amidst a low gobbling noise, the two wet passengers
were landed to stand shivering with cold.
"There you are," said the Englishman, "safe and sound."
"Well, who said we weren't?" grumbled Jem.
"Not you, squire," continued the Englishman. "There; I don't know
anything about you, and you'd better lie close till the ship's gone, for
they may come after you."
"Where shall we hide?" said Don eagerly.
"Oh, you leave it to Ngati; he'll find you a place where you can lie
snug."
"Ngati," said the owner of the name quickly, for he had been listening
intently, and trying to grasp what was said. "Ngati! My pakeha."
"Oh, I say: do leave off," cried Jem testily. "Pakeha again. Say, Mas'
Don, him and I's going to have a row before we've done."
The chief said something quickly to the Englishman, who nodded and then
turned to the fugitives.
"Ngati says he will take you where you can dry yourselves, and put on
warm things."
"He won't be up to any games, will he?" said Jem.
"No, no; you may trust him. You can't do better than go with him till
the search is over."
The Englishman turned to a tall young savage, and said some words to
him, with the result that the young man placed himself behind Don, and
began to carefully obliterate the footprints left by the fugitives upon
the sand.
Don noticed this and wondered, for in the darkness the footprints were
hardly perceptible; but he appreciated the act, though he felt no one
but a native would distinguish between the footprints of the two people.
"My pakeha," said Ngati just then, making Jem wince and utter an angry
gesticulation. "Gunpowder, gun, pow-gun, gun-pow."
"Eh?" said Jem harshly.
"My pakeha, powder-gun. Pow-gun, gun-pow. No?"
"He says his pakeha was to have brought plenty of guns and powder, and
he has not brought any."
"No," said Don, shivering as he spoke. "The guns are the king's. I
could not bring any."
The New Zealand chief seemed to comprehend a good deal of his meaning,
and nodded his head several times. Then making a sign to a couple of
followers, each took one of Don's arms, and they hurried him off at a
sharp run, Jem being seized in the same way and borne forward, followed
by the rest of the men who were in the boat.
"Here, I say. Look here," Jem kept protesting, "I arn't a cask o' sugar
or a bar'l o' 'bacco. Let a man walk, can't yer? Hi! Mas' Don,
they're carrying on strange games here. How are you getting on?"
Don heard the question, but he was too breathless to speak, and had hard
work to keep his feet, leaving everything to the guidance of his
companions, who kept on for above a quarter of a mile before stopping in
a shadowy gully, where the spreading ferns made the place seem black as
night, and a peculiar steaming sulphurous odour arose.
But a short time before Don's teeth were chattering with the cold, but
the exercise circulated his blood; and now, as his eyes grew more used
to the obscurity, he managed to see that they were in a rough hut-like
place open at the front. The sulphurous odour was quite strong, the
steam felt hot and oppressive, and yet pleasant after the long chilling
effect of the water, and he listened to a peculiar gurgling, bubbling
noise, which was accompanied now and then by a faint pop.
He had hardly realised this when he felt that his clothes were being
stripped from him, and for a moment he felt disposed to resist; but he
was breathless and wearied out, and rough as was the attention, it
struck him that it was only preparatory to giving him a dry blanket to
wear till his drenched garments were dry, and hence he suffered
patiently.
But that was not all, for, as the last garment was stripped off, Ngati
said some words to his people, and before he could realise what was
going to be done, Don felt himself seized by four men, each taking a
wrist or ankle, and holding him suspended before Ngati, who went behind
him and supported his head.
"Hah!" ejaculated Ngati, with a peculiar grunt. His men all acted with
military precision, and, to Don's astonishment, he found himself plunged
into a rocky basin of hot water.
His first idea was to struggle, but there was no need. He had been
lowered in rapidly but gently, and he felt Ngati place the back of his
head softly against a smooth pleasantly-warm hollowed-out stone, while
the sensation, after all he had gone through, was so delicious that he
uttered a sigh of satisfaction.
For now he realised the hospitality of the people who had brought him
there, and the fact that to recover him from the chill of being half
drowned, they had brought him to one of their hot springs, used by them
as baths.
Don uttered another sigh of satisfaction, and as he lay back covered to
his chin in the hot volcanic water, he began to laugh so heartily that
the tears came into his eyes.
For the same process was going on in the darkness with Jem, who was a
less tractable patient, especially as he had taken it into his thick
head that it was not for his benefit that he was to be plunged into a
hot water pool, but to make soup for the New Zealanders around.
"Mas' Don!" he cried out of the darkness, "where are you? I want to get
out of this. Here, be quiet, will yer? What yer doing of? I say.
Don't. Here, what are you going to do?"
Don wanted to say a word to calm Jem's alarms, but after the agony he
had gone through, it seemed to him as if his nerves were relaxed beyond
control, and his companion's perplexity presented itself to him in so
comical a light, that he could do nothing but lie back there in his
delicious bath, and laugh hysterically; and all the while he could hear
the New Zealanders gobbling angrily in reply to Jem's objections, as a
fierce struggle went on.
"That's your game, is it? I wouldn't ha' thought it of a set who calls
theirselves men. Shove me into that hot pot, and boil me, would you?
Not if I knows it, you don't. Hi! Mas' Don! Look out! Run, my lad.
They're trying to cook me alive, the brutes. Oh, if I only had a
cutlash, or an iron bar."
Don tried to speak again, but the words were suffocated by the gurgle of
laughter.
"Poor old Jem!" he thought.
"I tell you, you sha'n't. Six to one, eh? Leave off. Mas' Don,
they're going to scald me like a pig in a tub. Hi! Help!"
There was the sound of a struggle, a loud splash, and then silence,
followed by Jem's voice.
"Oh!" he ejaculated. "Then why didn't you say so? How was I to know
you meant a hot bath? Well, it arn't bad.--Mas' Don!"
"Yes."
"What! Ha' you been there all the time?"
"Yes."
"What yer been doing of?"
"Laughing."
"Larfin'? Are they giving you a hot bath?"
"Yes."
"Arn't it good?"
"Glorious!"
"I thought they was going to scald me like a pig, so as to eat me
afterwards. Did you hear me holler?"
"Hear you? Yes.--How delicious and restful it feels."
"Ah, it do, my lad; but don't you let any on it get into your mouth. I
did, and arn't good. But I say; what's it mean? Seems so rum to me
coming to meet us in a canoe and bringing us ashore, and giving us hot
baths. I don't seem to understand it. Nobody does such things over at
home."
As they lay in the roughly-made stone slab baths, into which the
volcanic water effervesced and gurgled, the followers of Ngati came and
went busily, and a curious transformation came over the scene--the
darkness seemed to undergo a change and become grey. Then as Don
watched, he saw that above his head quite a cloud of steam was floating,
through which a pale, sad light began to penetrate; and as he watched
this, so pleasant and restful was the sensation that he felt as if he
could sleep, till he took into consideration the fact that if he did,
his body would become relaxed, and he would slip down with his head
beneath the surface.
As it grew lighter rapidly now, he could make out that the roughly
thatched roof was merely stretched over a rough rocky nook in which the
hot spring bubbled out of the mountain slope, and here a few rough slabs
had been laid together, box-fashion, to retain the water and form the
bath.
Before he had more than realised the fact that Jem was in a shelter very
similar to his own, the huge New Zealander was back with about a dozen
of his men, and himself bearing a great native flax cloth marked with a
broad pattern.
Just as the sun had transformed everything without, and Don was gazing
on a glorious prospect of lace-like tree-fern rising out of the steaming
gully in which he stood, Jem Wimble came stalking out of the shelter
where he had been dressing--a very simple operation, for it had
consisted in draping himself in a great unbleached cloth--and looking
squat and comical as a man in his circumstances could look.
Ngati was close at hand with his men all standing in a group, and at
first sight it seemed as if they were laughing at the little,
stoutly-built, pink-faced man, but, on the contrary, they were smiles of
admiration.
"I couldn't ha' believed it, Mas' Don," said Jem; "I feel as fresh as a
daisy, and--well, I never did! Mas' Don, what a guy you do look!"
Don, after a momentary thought that he looked something like one of the
old Romans in a toga, just as he had seen them in an engraving, had been
so taken up with the beauty of the ferny gully, with the sun gilding
here and there the steamy vapour which rose from the hot springs, that
he had thought no more of his personal appearance till Jem spoke.
"Guy?" he said, laughing, as he ran his eye over Jem. "I say, did you
ever hear the story of the pot and the kettle?"
"Yes, of course; but I say, my lad, I don't look so rum as you, do I?"
"I suppose you look just about the same, Jem."
"Then the sooner they gets our clothes dry and we're into 'em again, the
sooner we shall look like human beings. Say, Mas' Don, it's werry
awkward; you can't say anything to that big savage without him shouting
`pakeha.' How shall we ask for our clothes?"
"Wait," said Don. "We've got to think about getting further away."
"Think they'll send to look for us, Mas' Don?"
"I should say they would."
"Well, somehow," said Jem, "I seem to fancy they'll think we're drowned,
and never send at all. But, look here; what's all this yaller stuff?"
"Sulphur."
"What, brimstone? Why, so it is. Think o' their buying brimstone to
lay down about their hot baths. I know!" cried Jem, slapping his thigh,
"they uses it instead of coal, Mas' Don; burns it to make the water
hot."
"No, no, Jem; that's natural sulphur."
"So's all sulphur nat'ral."
"But I mean this is where it is found, or comes."
"G'long with you."
"It is, Jem; and that water is naturally hot."
"What, like it is at Bath?"
"To be sure."
"Well, that caps all. Some one said so the other day aboard ship, but I
didn't believe it. Fancy a set o' savages having hot water all ready
for them. I say, though, Mas' Don, it's very nice."
Just then Ngati came up smiling, but as Jem afterwards said, looking
like a figure-head that was going to bite, and they were led off to a
_whare_ and furnished with a good substantial meal.