THE CHIEF OF THE VILE TOHUNGAS.
Having made up his mind to accompany me with his daughter on our
search expedition, Dreamer Grey began setting his sheep-run and his
household matters in order, in view of an absence which might prove
prolonged. It was necessary to engage a competent manager to look
after things, and this meant a delay of at least a week, which,
however, would afford ample time to prepare for the journey. During
the first two or three days of this week I saw much of Grey, helping
him with his sheep and various other things that had to be seen to. As
a consequence we got to know and trust each other well.
Tiki, who worshipped ‘the little maiden’ as if she were a divine
being, and, when she spoke to him in his own tongue, replied
invariably with a mixture of acquired politeness and native poetry,
half comical, half grand to listen to, had made himself and me
thoroughly uneasy about that _taepo_ he had seen in Cazotl’s boat.
With the wisdom of a savage, who, long accustomed to intertribal wars,
knows almost intuitively _when_ he is being tracked, if not _why_,
Tiki had it firmly fastened in his mind that the people on the yacht
ought to be watched. As I had not informed Tiki of my suspicion that
we had been tracked along the whole course of our journey, I regarded
his independent view more seriously than if he had known and
exaggerated my own weird feeling in regard to that wizened negro.
“Very well, Tiki,” I said, the day after our arrival, when he spoke
about it, “if you think ‘the little maiden’ is in danger from those
people you might keep your eye on them.”
He needed no second permission. From that time I saw very little of
him for several days, but I knew he was keeping a strict eye on the
movements of Cazotl and his crew. It was not until the evening of the
fourth day after our arrival that my suspicions received verification,
and his watchfulness nearly cost him his life.
In the evening of that day, when Grey was busy with some
correspondence in his library, I strolled down into the garden, where
I knew I should find Crystal, for I had seen her go out some time
before with her sketching book. I had dreams of a heaven on
earth--indeed, I should have been less than human if more than three
days had passed over my heart without bringing my ‘love at first
sight’ to a stage in which I felt that the garden where Crystal moved
and had her being was a sacred place. Sweetness lingered in the air.
The dreamy trees, as they rolled in the summer zephyrs, made music
which could not be written down; the rustic retreat beneath the hazels
was full of an influence which I can only describe as the presence of
angels lingering in an atmosphere which has been purified for them.
Sitting here alone late at night, I had been able to cast aside the
littleness of my life and feel that by right of an ennobling love I
might remain there awhile on sufferance. I was aware that a great
change had taken place in me. A new world had sprung into being, and
the splendour of its sun, moon, and stars was centred in Crystal.
It was with a feeling that all this must soon come to an avowal of
love, as surely as water boils at a given temperature, that I sought
her that evening in the garden; and, I reflected, it would in all
probability reach a sudden end just as surely as the same water under
different conditions freezes at a given degree, for in all sober
reason, who or what was I to deserve the love of such a girl? But I
went to find her all the same, and making my way to the retreat
beneath the nut-trees, held aside the leaves about the entrance and
looked in.
Crystal was sitting in the wicker chair with an open book on her
knees. Her hat was laid aside, and a wisp of her raven hair, fanned
loose from the good-natured mass, half screened her cheek.
“May I come in?” I asked.
“Yes, of course you may,” she laughed, looking up and brushing the
wayward wisp back into its place again. “Come and read me some of
Kawana Kerei’s legends in the original Maori.” She held up the book as
she spoke.
“In the original Maori?” I said, seating myself on the rough bench
against the hazel stems. “That reminds me. I saw a picture in an
out-of-the-way corner of the drawing-room to-day with something in
Maori written beneath it: ‘Degrade the pure one! Whose is the task?
Mine! Mine!’ Did you paint that picture?”
“Yes,” she replied simply; “I painted it quite lately.”
Seeing by her manner that she was a little confused, I asked: “Is it
founded on some Maori legend?”
“No; it is--it is----” She hesitated, with her eyes cast down; then,
after a pause, looked up with a shy smile and asked: “Have you ever
had a very vivid dream, of which you can remember every detail so
accurately that it seems like a real experience?”
“No,” I said; “my imagination is not strong enough for that; but if
you are going to say that picture was painted from a dream of your own
I shall believe you.”
She leaned forward in her chair and half whispered: “Yes, it was; I
saw it as plainly as I see you now, Wanaki,”--she had caught my Maori
name from Tiki--“even more distinctly, if that is possible.”
“Tell me your dream,” I said. “I could not see the faces of the men in
the picture, as the light was not good, but I judge from the legend
that they were evil. It is strange that you should see unlovely things
in your dreams. Will you tell it me?”
“It is rather a terrible subject,” she said, “and I don’t think I
quite understood it even when I had painted the picture. Perhaps you
will tell me what it means. I dreamed that I went away over the sea
for thousands of miles. The silver-tipped waves shone beneath in the
bright moonlight, and the little islands, fringed with palms and
belted with coral, were studded everywhere on the ocean. At last I
came to a vast country, where, in the interior, there were great hills
and mountain lakes, impassable swamps and deep wildernesses. I saw
ancient ruins and long lines of what looked like giant cactus----”
“Mexico,” I said, thinking aloud.
“It may have been; it was vast and it was tropical. In my dream I
found myself standing among the ruined pillars of what must once have
been a colossal temple. Now, it usually happens in a dream that one
sees things vaguely, but in my dream it was different. I saw every
detail. The scale-like feathers on the huge stone snakes that were
coiled up the pillars, the glittering eyes of the vampire bats that
clung about them, the huge green lizard that basked in a patch of
moonlight on the stone floor--all these were clear and distinct, and
on the heavy, broken stonework overhead, supported by the pillars,
were shadowy masses of creeping plants, with here and there a
glistening aloe or clump of white flowers catching the moonlight
through the crevices.
“As I was looking at these things in my dream a murmur of voices came
from within. I advanced between the treble row of pillars and saw a
large inner space where there were a number of figures moving about a
tall column. They were men of different nationalities, and they
chanted a strange song while they looked up at the full moon which
poured its rays down into the open space. These men had strong, evil
faces, with eyes that flashed red in the moonlight; I can remember
each one perfectly, and have drawn them as I saw them.”
She paused as if she were recalling the vivid scene, and, in the few
moments’ silence, my mind flew back to the Vile Tohungas of the Pit
gazing up at the full moon, nursing their stomachs and curling their
granite lips disdainfully as they worshipped. Ngaraki, no doubt, would
have read in this dream a word from his Great Tohungas of the Earth to
the effect that the Vile Brotherhood of Huo still existed, striving to
work out the age-long degradation of Woman, and, above all, to destroy
his ancient goddess, when, as the Daughter of the Dawn, she should
return. Just as the sacred fire of Hinauri had been nursed in the
breasts of her guardians through pre-Maori races up to the present, so
the baleful red fire of the Vile Tohungas, taken into the north by
their servant fleeing from the wrath of Zun, may have been kept
burning through pre-Toltec civilisations even unto this day. In spite
of myself, this idea was growing upon my mind, when Crystal continued.
“While I watched, their chant to the moon ended; and, as the last
notes fell, I fancied I could hear them rolling back into the distance
like the close of a song sung by a great multitude in the open air.
Then a large black mirror was brought out of the darkness and fixed in
position so that the moonray was reflected high up on to a dark part
of the smooth stone wall of the ruin. They began a wild orgy round the
pillar. It came to a sudden silence, and all stood still, gazing at
the moonlight on the wall. I looked also and saw, not on the rock, but
in the distance through the rock, what looked like the central
thoroughfare of some great city. By the glare of many lamps, high and
low, I saw carriages crossing and re-crossing, while omnibuses for
ever stopped and moved on again. I saw people moving to and fro upon
the broad pavements; all about were women--many of them proud-looking
and beautiful--who appeared to be waiting for someone. I did not
understand what they were doing there, but when the men in the open
space of the temple cried ‘It is well! It is well!’ I knew that the
vision had shown them the working out of some great wrong.
“The picture vanished, and they returned to their orgy, which grew
more terrible and furious, then stopped suddenly as before, while they
remained gazing fixedly at the moonlight on the wall. A second time
there came a scene--not the same place, though the people acted in
just the same way--and this also was greeted with the cry, ‘It is
well! It is well!’
“It vanished, and a third time the wild orgy was carried on. It
reached a pitch of fury which horrified me, and, when it stopped
suddenly, and they stood gazing at the wall, the vision came again.
But this time it was the white figure of a woman standing among the
trees of a garden far away. The place was bathed in peaceful sunlight.
It was a sun-picture reflected by the moon from a distant spot. I
could not see the features of the woman, but her arms were raised to
the sky, and she seemed to be praying. Then, as if in answer to her
prayer, there came, out of the blue, beings that seemed more like gods
and goddesses than men and women. They came thronging down towards the
world--men with noble looks and perfect forms, and women with serene,
heavenly faces full of all the tender goodness that should belong to a
woman. They appeared to separate to the four quarters of space, and I
thought that here was a race of more perfect beings coming to people
this earth in answer to the cry of the woman.
“At a sound of murmuring and confusion, I turned to the other watchers
in the open space, and, as I did so, one among them, who seemed to be
chief, stood out from the rest and held up a threatening hand towards
the far-off vision. He laughed, and his voice was more animal than
human. Then he roared out the words you saw beneath my picture:
‘Degrade the pure one! Whose is the task? Mine! Mine!’ and with these
words ringing in my ears I woke. That was the dream; was it not
strange?”
“Very strange,” I said; “but your father called me as I was glancing
at the picture, and I had not time to examine it very clearly. I
should like to have a good look at it if I may.”
“Yes, I’ll run and get it now.”
“Let me go,” I volunteered. But she was before me, and ran up to the
house. While she was gone I cast my memory over the extraordinary
dream she had related. Matter of fact as I was, I could not but see
that if ever there was a meaning in a dream there was a meaning in
this. The Destroyers of Woman exulting at the slow undermining of
mankind in the mass, their threat hurled at Woman as the Mother of a
nobler and more godlike race, their resolve to degrade her as such, so
that this world should be peopled with dull, coarse forms, informed by
vile minds, such as their own evil faces portrayed--all this, I
reflected with astonishment, was indeed the tale of Ngaraki the
savage, retold from the heart of an innocent girl.
My reflections were cut short by the reappearance of Crystal with the
picture.
“See!” she said, holding it up to the full light; “that is the man who
roared out the words. Why--what is--oh! Mr. Warnock, what is the
matter?”
I had turned from the picture with a gasp, and had sat down on the
wooden bench with my face buried in my hands. I looked up as she
repeated her words and saw mingled bewilderment and concern on her
lovely face.
“It is the face of a fiend,” I said, “not of a man.”
“But why are you so strange? And why do you clench your teeth like
that? You’re as pale as death--surely, Wanaki, the face of a fiend on
canvas cannot be so terrible to look at!”
“It is the face of a fiend,” I repeated fiercely, half beside myself
with maddening fears, “not of a man.”
_It was the face of Cazotl._ And, in those evil features, I traced a
resemblance which had eluded me on my first sight of the Mexican in
the flesh--a resemblance to the bold granite features of the chief of
the Vile Tohungas of the Pit, so fiercely cursed by Ngaraki.
Very weird to me was this strange, circumstantial suggestion that the
legendary chief of the Vile Tohungas had returned to be the actual
head of a brotherhood whose aims and objects were identical with those
of ancient time. Yet forcible and valid seemed the conception that as
the guardians of Hinauri had brought their protecting curses down from
the remotest past, so her enemies, who, although driven far into the
north as the aged chief had said, had preserved their continuity as a
Vile Brotherhood through the ages, had handed on even into the present
their hatred of the Pure One, always with the aim of destroying her or
causing her to forget her Sign of Power. For awhile my shrewd,
practical scepticism struggled against a strong unity of evidence
derived independently from different sources. The aged chief’s belief
that the Vile Ones would return, Crystal’s dream picture of the
Destroyers of Women, the undeniable resemblance of their chief to
Cazotl and to the granite image in the abyss--these things pointed my
mind to strange conclusions; but when I reviewed the conflicting
purposes of the Good and the Vile of ancient time and identified them
with the conflicting purposes of Ngaraki and Cazotl, I was for a
moment almost tempted to throw my common-sense to the winds and say
that the ancient giants of the two priesthoods had returned again and
again to the earth to continue the fierce struggle begun at the very
foundations of the world. But if Cazotl were the arch enemy of Ngaraki
and the would-be destroyer of Hinauri, why should he have appeared to
Crystal Grey in a dream? And why, again, should he seem to be in
pursuit of her? A vague apprehensive shuddering within me was the only
answer to these questions.