The Daughter of
the Dawn
_A Realistic Story of Maori Magic_
By
William Reginald Hodder
_Illustrated by_ Harold Piffard
_Boston_
L. C. Page & Company
_MDCCCCIII_
[image: images/img094.jpg
caption: “HIS LONG FIGURE WAS SUSPENDED ABOVE THE DARK ABYSS.”]
[COPYRIGHT.]
_Copyright, 1903_
By L. C. Page & Company
(INCORPORATED)
_All rights reserved_
Published July, 1903
[DEDICATION.]
THIS BOOK IS INSCRIBED
TO AN AGED PAIR
WHO DWELL AT TARANAKI’S BASE,
THEIR HAIR AS WHITE
THEIR LIVES AS PURE
AS THE SNOW ON TARANAKI’S SUMMIT.
CONTENTS.
INTRODUCTION
WANAKI’S FOREWORD
I. A SPLENDID MADMAN
II. THE AGED CHIEF
III. A SECRET OF ANCIENT NIGHT
IV. THE HAUNTED REGION
V. ON THE GREAT TAPU
VI. NGARAKI--CHIEF AND TOHUNGA
VII. THE INTERIOR OF THE TEMPLE OF HIA
VIII. THE VILE TOHUNGAS OF THE PIT
IX. NGARAKI THE FIERCE
X. KAHIKATEA AND HIS STRANGE BELIEF
XI. THE SEARCH FOR ‘THE LITTLE MAIDEN’
XII. THE MAN-WHO-HAD-FORGOTTEN
XIII. CRYSTAL GREY
XIV. THE CHIEF OF THE VILE TOHUNGAS
XV. THE DARKNESS PUTS FORTH A TENTACLE
XVI. WHICH REVEALS THE WAY OF THE SORCERER
XVII. LOVE AT SECOND SIGHT
XVIII. TE MAKAWAWA IS STARTLED
XIX. THE DREAD MAKUTU
XX. CRYSTAL LOVES KAHIKATEA, WHO LOVES HINAURI
XXI. CRYSTAL AND HINAURI MEET
XXII. THE TALISMAN
XXIII. THE DAUGHTER OF THE DAWN
XXIV. ZUN THE TERRIBLE
XXV. THE SERVANT OF THE BROTHERHOOD OF HUO
XXVI. NGARAKI’S HOUR OF TRIUMPH
XXVII. THE GIANTS CLOSE THEIR TEMPLE
XXVIII. FAREWELL
CONCLUSION
ENDNOTES
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
His long figure was suspended above the dark abyss (img094.jpg)
“This, O Pakehas, was the legend given me by my father” (img052.jpg)
The light sank lower and showed more. Then to my astonished eyes was
unveiled, inch by inch from the darkness, the massive granite brows of
a gigantic head (img107.jpg)
She seated herself sideways on the hammock, while I resumed my wicker
chair, and told again the story which I had narrated to her father
(img165.jpg)
The flash came, and the sight it revealed I shall never forget. There
stood Crystal in the path before me, draped in her night garments
(img184.jpg)
Another twist and he rolled right across it, his hair and beard
frizzling in the flame (img221.jpg)
At that instant the expected sun ray burst in, and the dazzling beauty
of the Daughter of the Dawn was revealed (img262.jpg)
The second Maori that entered with axe upraised had his head cut clean
off by the first sweeping back stroke (img281.jpg)
I raised the tube, took careful aim, and puffed the dart (img286.jpg)
He rocked it backwards and forwards until at last he raised it on its
side, and there, with a firm hand, he held it poised upon the very
brink (img301.jpg)
Kahikatea stood like a bronze statue, with one arm stretched out. In
the hand of that arm was the throat of the wizard, whose body hung
from it, limp and lifeless (img321.jpg)
With hands crossed upon her bosom, and her shrouding hair drawn over
her like the curtains of the night, Hinauri lay upon the pyre
(img326.jpg)
INTRODUCTION.
The way in which the record of Wanaki, which it has been my
compulsory task to edit, was placed in my hands forms not the least
remarkable episode between these covers. On a certain night two months
ago I was sitting in my library in Harley Street, writing. It was
late, and I could hear the tinkling of many little bells in the street
as the cabs brought home the gay theatre-goers. As I wrote on, the
tinkling of these little bells grew to a merry chorus, yet it did not
disturb me: I was used to it. But the night advanced, and the bells
seemed to grow tired as the cabs rolled by less frequently. Then
gradually I began to feel that a disturbing element was creeping in
between me and my work. Indefinable at first, this feeling grew, until
at last I recognised it as a vague expectancy, and, as each cab
passed, I caught myself listening to hear if it would stop at the
street door. This struck me as being a very absurd state of mind, for
no one was due, and a patient would hardly call at that time of night.
Yet the strange feeling of expecting someone grew upon me at such a
rate that I put down my pen and listened in spite of myself as the
cabs with the tinkling bells went by. At last, after a longer interval
than usual, my ears fastened upon the bells of a vehicle that seemed
to be approaching from beyond the horizon. They drew near rapidly, and
the absurd feeling of expecting someone grew still more intense.
Laughing at the stupidity of it, I rose from my chair and walked to
and fro, wondering what had happened to my nerves, usually so strong.
Suddenly I stood still. The rapid motion of the horse’s hoofs was
slacking down. Would the cab pull up at the street door? Of course
not--it would pass. It had almost done so when there was the sound of
the scraping hoofs of a horse suddenly reined in, a violent agitation
of the little bells, and then the cab drew up at the street door. I
heard a ring at the bell, and then sat down in my chair to wonder what
this late visitor wanted, and, above all, to ask myself again and
again how I could account for my extraordinary feeling of expecting
someone who was unexpected, and yet had arrived. While I was thus
engaged my man Gapper came in with a face that announced the end of
the world, and spoke in a voice which betrayed, in the same trembling
breath, an overwhelming desire to impart news and a suffocating fear
of being heard.
“There’s a strange man in the ’all, sir,” he said, “as wants to see
you. I gave ’im to understand, sir, as you wouldn’t hever see no one
after eleving, but ’e looks at me ’ard and says quiet like, ‘You will
do as I tell you,’ ’e says.”
“What is he like?” I asked.
“Well, ’e looks to me as hif ’e ’ad just come ’ome from a fancy-dress
ball. ’E’s got feathers in ’is ’air and drorin’s on ’is face, and a
sort of long fur cloak and--but there it is, sir, I can’t describe
’im; ’e’s a-standin’ there hin the ’all just as if the ’ole place
belonged to ’im. Shall I ask him to go away?”
Gapper’s knees were knocking together. I saw that he was morally
incapable of asking this strange visitor to go. I myself felt slightly
unstrung, and it may have been my fear of showing this that prompted
me to say abruptly:
“Show him in, Gapper; I expect it’s some friend playing a joke upon
me. At all events I will see him.”
Evidently relieved by these words, my man retired, and presently, with
a humility born of a fresh access of fear, ushered in my visitor. He
then retreated nimbly and closed the door behind him.
As the stranger stood in the centre of the room I rose from my seat in
unfeigned astonishment. Well might Gapper have thought that he had
just returned from a fancy-dress ball, except for the simple, and to
me obvious, fact that he was not an impersonation at all, but the
genuine thing. In fact, my visitor, who had been, so to speak,
heralded by my inexplicable sensations, was a tall and stately Maori
chief, dressed in a long robe or war-cloak of dog’s hair, which fell
almost to his sandalled feet. He had both spear and _meré_, and in
his hair were the white-tipped feathers of the _huia_. He was young,
almost handsome, and his face was tatooed in a way that denoted an
exalted rank, while in his fierce black eyes, in his noble bearing, in
his profound composure as he waited for me to speak, one might have
read his right to lead men, or else to drive them before him. He
seemed to have come right out of the far King Country into my library
at one stride, so uncivilised was his appearance. My surprise was
immediately giving way to a feeling, half of admiration, half of fear,
for, after my unwonted sensations preceding his arrival, I was
assailed with the thought that there was a mysterious power about the
man--a thought materially strengthened by his perfect ease and
conscious dignity.
“May I ask your name?” I said with a brave attempt to appear
complaisant.
“I am Aké Aké,” he replied, speaking in good English; “Aké Aké
Rangitane, the son of Ngaraki, who was the son of Te Makawawa, who was
the son of----, but O man of another race, who is to do my bidding, I
will not relate to you my ancestry. It would take many moons to do
that; many thousand generation boards would not contain it, for lo! it
stretches back to a far-off age of which your wise men know nothing. O
Pakeha, the blood of the Great River of Heaven, which flowed down from
the skies before the darkness of ancient night fell upon the earth,
runs in my veins.”
I looked at him narrowly. There was no denying that his aspect was
that of a man whose blood knew well its own unbroken channel through
the ages. Something in his eyes, something more in his stately aspect,
and a very great deal in the fierce, sudden nature hidden beneath his
utter serenity, constrained me to take him solemnly.
“You come to me in a strange way, Aké Aké,” I said; “like a man from
another world. Tell me why you have come, and what it is you want of
me.”
Instantly he awoke from his apathy, and his eyes quickened with the
fire that had been slumbering.
“Hearken, then, O man of another land, and I will tell you why I have
come. The Great Tohungas of the Earth spoke to me in my sleep and
said, ‘Aké Aké, thou art the last of our ancient blood; the temple
of the ages is closed for ever and needs no longer a guardian priest
to keep its ancient secrets; therefore thou must withdraw into the
sky, leaving no son behind thee. But thy last act is under our
guidance. Seek out the record of one Wanaki, the “Pakeha Maori,” and
take it beyond the great Ocean of Kiwa to the land of the mighty King
who rules the whole world. There give it to the man whose face thou
hast seen in dreams, and to whom we will guide thee. Bid him make a
book of this record, so that, though thy race is fading away, all
knowledge of its secrets may not die with thee.’ I followed the word
of the Great Tohungas, and when I reached this great city I was taught
your name and the name of your abode. Then, to-night I discarded my
pakeha garments, dressed myself as becomes a Maori chief, and came to
find you. Without doubt I have been guided aright, for your face is
the face that I saw in my dreams.”
He paused, scanning my features still more intently. I was amazed
beyond measure at his strange words. The affair was getting more and
more inexplicable.
“But why,” I gasped; “why have I been selected to make a book of
Wanaki’s narrative?”
“Because you have sought to discover traces of some lost secrets in
our lore,” he replied. “I will speak your own words to you--they are
words which you put into a book. ‘We know not the ancient glory of the
Maori nor yet the wisdom which lies hidden behind his karakia.[01]
Some have said that the strange words of his incantations mean
nothing, but there is reason for believing that they are the surviving
fragments of a priestly language which was spoken many thousands of
years ago by a pre-Maori race dwelling on a great southern continent,
of which the present land of the Maori is but a small remaining part.’
Those are your own words, O Pakeha, and it is because you have had
such long thoughts of the Maori and the race that came before the
Maori that I have been bidden to seek you out.”
“Yes,” I said, “those are my words; I remember them. But what do you
know of the race that was before the Maori’s coming from Hawaiki?”
He was silent, seeming unwilling to speak of that race. At length he
said, “Far back in the ages my ancestors were of that race, but when
the Maori came they joined hands with them. Here is the gulf that you
cannot bridge in the history of our land; and, O Pakeha, it is
unbridged save by the platted rope of our priesthood, woven without
break, and stretching across the ages of Day and Night and Day. Here
before you is what seems the end of this rope; hidden in a great light
of long ago is the rock to which the other end is bound. But I have
not come to you to reveal the ancient wisdom which has come down to me
from the beginning of the world.” He laid his spear in the hollow of
his left arm and drew from within his robe a small bundle, wrapped in
a piece of neatly woven flaxcloth.
“This is the record of Wanaki,” he said, placing it upon the table
before me. “Make a book of it, and let not the moon die twice before
you have completed the task. That is my word, and behind it lies the
word of the Great Tohungas of the Earth.”
“But, my dear, good man,” said I, with rising temper, “Great Tohungas
of the Earth or no Great Tohungas of the Earth, I have other things to
do. I have other books to make; look here”--I turned to the piles of
manuscript on my table and placed my hand upon the largest--“this book
must be made before the moon has died _once_.”
“I care not,” he replied imperturbably. Then there was a flash of
quick anger in his eyes as he added: “You will obey my word, for the
cursing power of Ngaraki, my father, dwells in my eyes, and before him
no man could say ‘I will not!’ and live.”
At this barbarous attempt to browbeat a civilised human being with the
mention of a savage hereditary cursing power I was so amused that I
forgot both my anger and my fear and laughed loudly. But even while my
laugh was at its height my glance encountered that of my visitor, and
I became unaccountably silent. There was a fierce power in his eyes
which backed up his words, and my ill-timed amusement gave place to a
cold fear. What was this? His gaze held me as if in a grip of iron,
and though I struggled inwardly to free myself from its strange hold,
I was unable to do so. I tried to rise from my seat, but could not. I
made a frantic effort to cry out, but my voice refused to act. With
those terrible black eyes burning into mine I shivered and fell back
in my chair. Then I saw, or thought I saw, behind the form of Aké
Aké a line of grim and stately chiefs, standing in an unbroken chain,
which, ascending gradually into the far horizon, finally disappeared
in the distant mists of antiquity. As I looked sleep pressed my
eyelids down with a masterful hand, and I sank into oblivion.
When I awoke half an hour later and found myself alone, my first
thought was that I had dreamed fantastically, and I had almost
confirmed myself in this conclusion when my glance fell upon the
package lying upon the table. I snatched it up and got at the
contents. I soon saw that it was indeed what my visitor had said--the
record of one Wanaki. With this record in my hand I could hardly
dismiss the matter as a dream. I rang the bell, and Gapper came in
smiling, just as he is wont to smile when some caller has been
generous. I questioned him as to whether he had let the visitor out.
“O yes, sir,” he replied; “some time ago.”
“Well, Gapper,” I asked carelessly, “what did you think of him, eh?”
Gapper grinned. It was the grin dedicated to gold, not mere silver.
“In the first place ’e was a gentleman, sir,” he said; “and in the
second place ’e kep’ up ’is disguise remarkable well. ’E looked like a
lord, sir. Might I make so bold as to ask who ’e reely was?”
“He is Aké Aké,” I said severely; “Aké Aké Rangitane, a great
Maori chief. And look here, Gapper, if you had as many pounds in the
bank as that chief has eaten men in his time you would be a rich man.”
My man gaped at me in astonishment; then, when he was fully assured
that I was not joking, he went away and double-bolted all the doors
and windows.
But the record of Wanaki’s adventures--what of it? If the reader will
permit me to stand talking a little longer in another man’s doorway,
as an old writer of prefaces puts it, I have yet something to say in
reference to the ‘Pakeha Maori’s’ manuscript. At first I tossed it
aside as worthless, willing to take my chance of the wrath of the
Great Tohungas of the Earth, for it was written in such an
indecipherable hand that I could not bring myself to bear upon it. I
then set to other work that had to be completed by a certain date;
but, though all was plain sailing with this other work, I could make
no headway. My subject was void of difficulties, but I seemed to be
beating against a heavy wind. Several days passed in this fashion, and
it struck me that if the cursing power of Aké Aké and all his
ancestors was not at work upon me, I was afflicted with some obscure
nervous ailment.
At length, late one night, after many days of unrest, I took up the
manuscript again and managed to get through the first page, from which
I gathered that Wanaki’s adventures were of a remarkable character.
Then I felt drawn to follow his narrative, and would certainly have
done so but for the fact that his handwriting was a thing that made me
long for a cursing power of my own; I could not arrive at its hidden
meaning. When almost in despair, however, a bright idea came to me. I
would send the record to a man skilled in the art of deciphering the
indecipherable--I refer to my typist. I sent it to him, and before one
moon had died I received it back with the mortifying assurance that as
my handwriting had proved considerably clearer than usual, he would be
pleased to make a proportionate abatement of the usual terms.
Now the second moon is nearly dead, and I have prepared the work for
the press. I am resolved it shall leave my hands this very night, for,
after a careful study of this remarkable history of Wanaki’s
adventures, I am fain to admit that, even when I smile most
incredulously at his experiences of the ancient magic of the Maori,
and the terrible cursing power of the hereditary priesthood, I shiver
most coldly at the thought that if the third moon sees my task
unfinished, I shall again be listening for a cab to stop at the street
door, for a bell to ring, and then--and then it will come to facing
the inscrutable eyes of Aké Aké. Reader, I will be frank with you.
The set scientific smile of scorn with which I, as a sane and sober
medical man, am wont to ornament my face at the mention of the cursing
formulæ of savage magic, and at other things contained in the record
of Wanaki, is now a matter of long habit, and will continue until
death comes with a powerful screw-wrench to remove it; but behind that
bold front of second nature there lies a disquieting memory of a
moment when, laughing, I encountered the gaze of Aké Aké, and was
bound by some mysterious spell to do his bidding.
The Maori chief has not visited me again, but I have just received a
letter from him with another, from a third person, enclosed. Both of
these I have inserted at the close of Wanaki’s narrative, which I now
lay before the reader in the following pages.
The Editor.
WANAKI’S FOREWORD.
_As I sit down to write this history of strange adventures the words
of my aged friend, the chief and tohunga Te Makawawa, come up in my
mind:_
“_O Son, the word of our ancient law is death to any who reveals the
secrets that are hidden in the Brow of Ruatapu. The secret of Hinauri,
the Daughter of the Dawn; the Mystery of the Vile Tohungas of the Pit,
the traditions of far time preserved in the heart of the Great
Rock--all, everything, is a death-blow returning on the head of him
who reveals it. Yet, O Son of the Great Ocean of Kiwa, I, who was once
the guardian priest of the Temple of Hia and the hereditary curser of
the Vile Ones of the Abyss of Huo, now show these things to you, for I
am weary of climbing the snows of Ruahine and long for rest and Tane’s
Living Waters. The Great Tohungas of the Earth have taught me in my
sleep with words like the voice of the wind in the forest trees: ‘O
Tohunga of the Great Rock, the mystery of Hinauri is not for the Maori
unless thou tell it first to the Sons of the Sea, but know, if thou
tell it, thou must die.’ Therefore, Son, I show it to you, for, what
though I fear the eye of the fierce Ngaraki, I fear not death. Friend!
perchance, when I have descended by the sacred Pohutukawa root, you,
too, will tire of life and tell this thing to your brethren, ‘but
know, if thou tell it, thou must die._’”
_Well may I pause here, for after what I have seen in the Brow of
Ruatapu, in the Temple of Hia, and in the Abyss of Huo, disbelief in
the ancient laws of the priesthood of the Great Rock is not for me.
But for me is the truth of the aged tohunga’s words, and for me also
is the rest that he longed for and the living waters of Tane; for so
clearly do I read the truth of a civilised world in the truth of Maori
lore, that I believe when I am bathed in those Waters of Life and pass
through the darkness into the Light, I shall look into her eyes
again--the dark eyes of Hinauri, the Daughter of the Dawn, the Bright
One who came out of ancient night to give a sign, and withdrew again
into the skies, leaving my world all desolate. The mystery of her
coming was that sign, and I will reveal it, partly because the sorrow
of her going is such that the penalty of death is welcome to me, and
partly because a voice--I know not if it is the voice of the Great
Tohungas of the Earth--teaches me, too, in dreams, that my brethren,
the Sons of the Sea, of whom the dark-skinned children of Ira might
with justice ask much, should hear and consider this Sign of Power.
Not to be buried at last in oblivion has it been nursed and guarded by
an unbroken priesthood of hereditary succession extending back,
through Maori and pre-Maori races, through the dark night of Time,
even to the glorious sunset of a former Day. Not for naught has it
come down from a remote age, whence, O Reader, you have heard only the
voices of seers telling, in whispered tones, of_
“_Mighty pre-Adamites who walked the earth_
_Of which ours is the wreck._”
The Daughter of the Dawn.
CHAPTER I.
A SPLENDID MADMAN.
As this narrative of adventure may possibly fall into the hands of
some who will refuse to accept it as anything but a work of the
imagination, I, Dick Warnock, the narrator (known to the Maoris as
Wanaki), will begin by a slight description of myself, which will
speedily disabuse sceptical minds of any doubts. I am, then, a very
matter-of-fact individual, so ordinary in intellect that my enemies
would without hesitation acquit me of the charge of inventing this
strange history, even if they could prove that I was morally capable
of such deception. So easily will it be guessed that I fall short of
being a creative romancer, that, when the reader looks in vain in
these pages for some exalted eloquence of diction, some graphic
description of scenery, or some rhapsody on a flower, he will hesitate
to cast the blame upon me, the prosaic, especially as here, at the
very beginning, I distinctly state that if there is any kind of
eloquence in my story, it is the eloquence of strange happenings--a
thing which I have endeavoured to keep my pen from spoiling.
It was because I had been born and bred in Maoriland, because I
understood the language and much of the ancient lore of the Maoris,
that I was commissioned by a firm of solicitors in London to search
for one, Miriam Grey. The person in question had sailed from the Old
Country eighteen years before, and had joined her husband, William
Grey, at Wakatu, in the northern part of the South or Middle Island of
New Zealand, known among the Maoris as Te Wai Pounamou, or the Place
of the Greenstone. One letter only had reached her relatives at home,
and that, dated three days after her arrival, told how she and her
husband were about to journey southward, overland, to Hokitika, where
he owned a small farm. But that letter was the last, and all attempts
on the part of her relatives to discover what had become of her and
her husband were fruitless. That they had left Wakatu for Hokitika was
easily proved; that they had never arrived at the latter place was
also duly ascertained; but what had happened to them between these two
points was a matter that had come to be set down among the
inexplicables, where it remained, until it was discovered that Miriam
Grey was the direct heiress to a large estate in Bedfordshire. Then it
became necessary to find, at least, evidence of her death.
For this task I was selected for reasons already stated, and I began
by making inquiries at Wakatu, a quaint little English settlement
nestling in the hollows of the hills by the seashore. There, after
many inquiries, I found a peculiar piece of evidence which excited me
to a belief that Miriam Grey was still living. What that piece of
evidence was I will not say at this moment, for, though it really
constitutes the beginning of my story, its significance was not fully
apparent to me until I chanced upon a certain splendid madman in the
bush, and compared my fact with a far more extraordinary, though
dreamlike, reminiscence of his own. Therefore I will simply state that
in consequence of my discovery I left Wakatu and sailed across the bay
to Riwaka, having as my destination a wild place called Marahau, the
Valley of the Mighty Wind, where, on a high cliff by the seashore, so
I was informed, stood the _pa_[02] of a certain Te Makawawa.
Concerning this aged chief report spoke with awe, for he was more than
a mere tohunga, a priest--he was an _ariki_, an arch-tohunga; and some
said that he was more than _ariki_--he was _matakite_, a seer.
This Valley of the Mighty Wind was some distance round the coast from
Riwaka, and it was possible to reach it by boat, but on the day that I
had planned to set out a gale was rising, and neither Pakeha nor Maori
would put out. Consequently, being both restless and rash, I made the
journey on foot across the hills, following some directions given me
by an old settler, who had once been to Marahau.
Late in the afternoon, after a weary tramp over densely-wooded
mountains, into a region that grew more wild and gloomy as I advanced,
I came to a tremendous flax swamp running up between the hills from
the seashore. As it was impossible to get through this I turned inland
into the virgin bush to avoid it. This detour must have taken me many
miles away from the coast, how far I could not tell, for the sound of
the gale in the great trees overhead altogether drowned the roar of
the sea. As I knew that Te Makawawa’s _pa_ was at the opening of the
lonely valley of Marahau, and that I was already too far inland to
reach it before dark, I determined to push on as far as possible, and
then camp as comfortably as might be under the circumstances.
Towards sunset, after having rounded the great flax swamp, I reached
the summit of a line of high hills where the bush was somewhat sparse
and stunted. Here, to take my bearings, I selected a tall, thin pine,
and climbed to the head of it. By the sight that met my eyes I was a
trifle disconcerted. Many miles away was the sea, white with the gale
that now swayed me violently to and fro in the feathery top of the
pine, while all around, in unending monotony, were the bush-clad
hills, stretching away into the south towards the great snow ranges,
and rolling on for ever into the west, where, beneath the ragged gold
of a stormy sunset, lay the mysterious region of Karamea. But nowhere
in the distance could I see the high palisades of Te Makawawa’s _pa_.
It is strange what a sense of isolation comes to the traveller among
these interminable hills and valleys. I was impressed by the wild
gloom and solitude of the place, and descended the tree to find a
suitable camping-ground by the side of one of the many streams that
made their way down between the ridges. It was not the first time I
had been compelled to spend the night alone in the bush, and I by no
means disliked the solitary feeling of being the only man in a big
wilderness. But it so happened that on this occasion I was not the
only man there, as I was soon to discover.
I descended the range of hills in an oblique line towards the sea,
knowing that among the lower slopes I should easily find a convenient
camping-ground. After nearly half an hour spent in arguing with the
aggravating creeper known as the prickly lawyer, struggling through
interlaced roots up to my chin, and battling with occasional networks
of supplejacks, whose one idea seems to be to string a man up by the
neck until his natural life be extinct, I at last came into a somewhat
broad and open gully, where a stream made its way through groves of
white pines and tree ferns. The character of the bush here was totally
different from that of the surrounding hills. Instead of thick
underscrub I encountered broad spaces here and there, not unlike those
of an English wood. Overhead at intervals towered the giant _rimu_ and
_kahikatea_, the monarchs of the bush, and they roared in the gale as
such trees alone can roar; while under foot the kidney fern decked the
ground and clumped upon the moss-grown tree trunks in profusion. It
was while I was making my way through these ferns that I came,
suddenly and to my great astonishment, upon a well-worn path.
Perhaps this might be the way to some digger’s hut, occupied or
otherwise; perhaps the approach to the abode of some mad “hatter”; at
all events it was more than a wild goat track, and I resolved to
follow it. Before I had gone twenty paces I detected a slightly muddy
patch, and conceived the idea that if these were any recent footprints
they might help me to form some conclusion as to whether this path had
been used by Maoris or Pakehas. Accordingly, I bent down and examined
the ground. There were footprints, not of Maoris’ bare feet, but of
someone with boots--long, well-shaped boots they were, such as would
be found on the feet of a very tall man. One cannot always judge
Hercules by his foot, but when there are two feet, or rather
footprints, situated nearly two yards apart in stride, it is safe to
say that they belong to a man considerably over six feet in height.
As I hurried along, the track became slightly wider, and here and
there a marshy part was strengthened with a corduroy of tree-fern
trunks. Up, on to a slight ridge, through a long grove of white pines
on the top, with the wind shrieking and whistling among their clean
boles, I pursued the path, then down into a valley, and through
another dark grove of tree-ferns, where, losing it altogether on the
soft bed of dry fern dust, I wandered on, thinking to pick it up on
the other side.
I had not gone far in the grove when, between the bare trunks of the
tree ferns, I caught sight of a light twinkling some little distance
beyond. I made towards it, and on coming out into an open space, saw
that it came from a square window in some small abode standing on a
rising ground at the further end of the space. I could just discern
the vague outlines of a log hut with a giant roof-tree towering above
it, while beyond was a wooded hill, whose ridge, fringed with roaring
pines, broke the fury of the gale. This was obviously some digger’s
hut, and here I should certainly get shelter.
Cautiously I made my way over the small clearing towards this secluded
abode in the wilderness, so as to peep in at the window and get a
glimpse of the inmate before asking for a night’s rest. I took this
precaution because solitary “hatters” are often so obviously mad that
the wisest course is to let them alone. But, when I reached the window
and looked in, I got a sudden surprise. By the light of the candle
standing on a rough table near the window, I encountered the face of
one who was surely as much out of place there as a rough digger would
be in the House of Lords. As I looked I saw that the owner of the face
was poring over a large, quaint-looking volume and making notes with
pen and ink in the broad margin. Now, to ponder some point, he leaned
back in his chair and gazed straight before him, so that, by the light
of the candle and the glow of the fire, which touched the edge of his
short, crisp brown beard on the cheek that was turned from me, I saw
his face clearly. It was truly a striking one, with a mouth well
moulded within the shadow of a short, thick moustache, a nose aquiline
and strong, eyes lustrous, half passionate and full of dreams, and a
forehead massive and high, from which the hair rolled back
good-naturedly like a mane. This should be some Waring of Browning’s
portraiture, who had disappeared from his circle to bury himself in
solitude, probably leaving a gap behind him which no other could fill.
If indeed he was mad--and it seemed that he must be to waste his
powers in such a hidden corner of the earth--it was a gentle, poetical
madness, if one might judge by the almost tender expression of his
face, and, withal, of a methodical kind, for, having unravelled his
knotty point, he returned to his broad margin and made certain
emendations.
After my brief glimpse of the remarkable man within, I had no
hesitation in asking him for a night’s shelter. Accordingly I knocked
gently at the door, and a deep voice answered, “Come in!”
I obeyed, and entered the hut.
“Ah!” said my host, rising from his seat and looking down at me--his
dark eyes smiled genially as they met mine--“you’ve lost your way, I
presume.”
“Yes; I started out to find Te Makawawa’s _pa_, but missed it, saw
your light, and ventured to look you up.”
“Quite right. You’re welcome.” He extended his hand and gripped mine
without cracking all the bones as most men who stand six and a half
feet high love to do.
I now had a better view of this recluse, and recognised him again from
his footsteps. He was a man of magnificent build, and his bush shirt,
bush trousers, bush leggings, and, still more, bush boots, hid neither
the fact that he was of good breeding, nor that his limbs were in
perfect proportion, even to the point at which a man might wear a
dress suit successfully. His strong, but sensitive face, with its
deep, passionate eyes, which lighted up when he smiled, appealed to me
as no man’s face has ever done before or since. In the space of time
which it took him to get a chair for me, I had recognised a man who in
every way could carry about three editions of myself under his arm,
and yet in his courteous smile as he addressed me, I saw the gentlest
man alive.
“Come, sit down then, and get out your pipe and tell me how the
outside world’s getting on.” I had refused his offer of supper, as I
had already supped on cold duck and biscuits in the bush.
In a few moments, when he had turned a log on the fire, we sat one on
each side of the hearth as if we had been old friends.
“The outside world,” I said, lighting my pipe with a glowing ember,
“has lost a woman, and I am looking for her.”
“A woman?” he laughed. “Rather a strange place in which to search for
a woman, isn’t it?”
I returned his laugh. “Yes,” I admitted; “but the whole story, or such
of it as I have gleaned, is strange enough for anything.”
“Oh! a romantic story, is it?” His eyes fell from mine to the bowl of
my pipe, from which rings of smoke curled and wreathed irresistibly.
“Wait a minute,” he added after a pause. He rose from his chair and
reached up among the rafters overhead, searching for something. At
last he found it, and, returning to his seat, showed me what had once
been a well-coloured meerschaum which, by the dust and cobwebs on the
case, had evidently lain undisturbed among the rafters for years.
“If you will oblige me with a little tobacco,” he said, “I will keep
you company, though I haven’t smoked for many a long day.”
Presently, when the necessary conditions of storytelling were
established, he turned to me and said: “Now for your romantic story,
if I may be permitted to hear it.”
“The story is a long one,” I replied; “but I am merely in possession
of detached points of it. These I am only too anxious to lay before
anyone I meet, on the chance of their being able to strengthen some
point or add another from their own experience in this neighbourhood.
My own part in the affair is uninteresting. I am merely Dick Warnock,
or, as the Maoris call me, Wanaki, employed by a firm of solicitors at
home to find a more important person named Miriam Grey, or to glean
evidence of her death.”
“Now that you have given me your name,” put in my host, “I must give
you mine. The Maoris, with whom I get on very well, call me
Kahikatea--that is more my real name than any other.”
I saw by his manner that he did not wish to give his English name,
and, realising that it was no business of mine, I forbore from asking
it. Kahikatea was certainly a good name, for, from a life spent mostly
among the Maoris, I was able to see in their quaint way that this man
was as a great “white pine” among the forest trees. Hence his name was
good, and I called him by it.
“Good, O Kahikatea!” I said easily; “I will continue the story, such
as it is. To put things briefly, a large estate in Bedfordshire has
been left to a certain Miriam Grey, who has been missing for many
years. On instituting inquiries, however, it was found that she had
sailed from England and landed at Wakatu, across the bay, some
eighteen years ago, to rejoin her husband, who came up from Hokitika
to meet her. They set off together on the return journey towards
Hokitika, but never arrived at their destination. It is supposed that
they were captured by the Maoris.”
“In which case it is exceedingly unlikely that either of them is alive
at this day,” replied my host.
“Wait a moment,” I replied quickly. “I have an extraordinary piece of
evidence which tends to prove that Miriam Grey was alive and a
prisoner among the Maoris as late as three years ago. When I was
making inquiries in Wakatu I was almost giving it up as hopeless, and
was on the point of starting for Hokitika, when the old curator of the
little museum came up to me one day with the gleam of the clever
discoverer in his eye, and drew me aside.
“‘Did you not say that the woman you were looking for was named
Miriam?’ he asked.
“‘Yes,’ I replied; ‘Miriam Grey.’
“‘Come with me then. I’ve got something which may be a clue.’
“He led me on through the streets until we came to the little museum,
and there in a lumber room of uncatalogued curiosities, he showed me
this bit of carved _akeak_, which he said had been discovered on the
sea beach two years before.”
I drew a small piece of carved wood from my pocket and handed it to
Kahikatea, who took it in his hands and inspected it carefully.
“This is not Maori carving,” he said at once, “it is too delicately
done for that. But it is the work of someone who understands Maori
art--look at this double-spiral work round the border. But what are
the letters? They are almost worn away.”
“Yes; by the scratches on the thing it looks as if it had found its
way down some rocky mountain stream. Ah! you’ve got it upside down, I
think. That way--there now--it’s plain enough. This word is clearly
‘prisoner’; and these are ‘Te Maka,’ which, with the space left after
it, must once have been ‘Te Makawawa.’”
“Yes, and this is ‘mountain,’” he ran on, spelling in advance of me;
“and this is meant for ‘Table Land.’”
“Quite right; and here is the date fairly clear, showing that this was
done three years ago.”
“But by whom?” he asked quickly; “that is the point.”
For answer I pointed to some marks in the corner below the date. “What
do you make of that?” I asked.
He scrutinised them carefully for some minutes, then, turning to me
said: “I can certainly make nothing else than ‘Miriam’ out of it.”
“Nor I,” I replied; “and, if you notice, there is an obliteration
after it which, from the length of it, might once have been ‘Grey.’”
“That is true, but the conclusion that ‘Miriam Grey’ is held a
‘prisoner’ of ‘Te Makawawa’ in a ‘mountain’ near the ‘Table Land’ is
weak in many parts.”
“True, but I can strengthen it,” I hastened to reply. “Do you see
anything in that carving which points to superior talent in the person
who did it?”
“Indeed I do,” he replied with certainty; “this is the work of no
ordinary carver. I should be inclined to say it was the work of a
genius. There are signs of delicate execution about it which no one
could mistake.”
“That is precisely it. Miriam Grey, so said the solicitors, showed
extraordinary signs of genius as a sculptress.”
At the last word my host stared at me with a dreamy look in his eyes.
Had I touched upon the peculiar point of his madness?
“A sculptress!” he said slowly, and gazed for a full half-minute into
the fire, while I watched him. Then, as I did not break the silence,
he resumed: “Yes, there is a Te Makawawa, I know him well; there is a
Table Land not far from here and a mountain near it; and, from what
you have shown me, a woman who is a sculptress is held a prisoner
there.”
He rose from his chair and paced up and down the small hut with his
brows let down in deep and perplexed thought. “Strange--very strange.
But she must be a sculptress of very great genius if----” He paused
abruptly in his pacing the floor.
“Look here!” he said, casting off his abstraction, “if you will accept
my poor hospitality I can put you up for the night, and then, in the
morning, I will go with you to old Te Makawawa’s _pa_.”
I saw from his manner that he knew, or thought he knew, something
about the matter, and asked simply, “Have you an idea?”
He looked down at me, then passed his hand over his brow in
perplexity; finally, smoothing back his wayward mane, he faced the
question and said frankly:
“My idea is a dream that I had a year or more ago--a very absurd
dream, but, nevertheless, one so vivid and clear in all its details
that it had, and still has, a strange effect upon me. That dream
sometimes appeals to me as if it were the _raison d’être_ of my
existence in this solitude. And yet again, sometimes I think that my
dream was an actual experience, but I have no proof that it was.
Wanaki! all men who live alone in the bush as I do are more or less
mad. But that word of yours, ‘sculptress,’ has given me an idea that
after all I may not be as mad as I thought. If, to-morrow, old Te
Makawawa can throw any light upon what has long perplexed me, then I
will discuss my dream with you, as it may possibly have some bearing
on the whereabouts of the woman you seek; to-morrow, not now, for,
uncorroborated, it would appear to you so wild and strange, so
obviously the vagary of an unhinged mind, that you might hesitate to
accept my hospitality.”
As he fixed his fine eyes upon me and smiled, I realised that the fact
of his being puzzled by the strangeness of his dream argued for his
sanity; and if, indeed, his mind was really unhinged, it was upon some
sublime point, some noble idea, having an uncommon object, full of the
deep poetry that burned in those eyes.
As I returned his gaze and his smile I felt drawn towards him with
feelings of a sudden friendship, and it was in accord with these
feelings that in my mind I wrote him down a splendid madman.