THE TALISMAN.
Miriam Grey moved out of the shadows into the daylight that flooded
in through the opening of the cave and paused by Grey’s side, while
they both gazed and marvelled at the wondrous thing that was now made
clear.
“It is Crystal herself,” said Grey, when he had partly recovered from
his astonishment.
“Crystal!” cried his wife quickly; “that was our daughter’s name, but
I tell you, dear, she died; she was drowned, and Te Makawawa himself
buried her. I will call him and he will tell you the same.”
She went to the top of the marble steps and called, but there was no
answer. The aged chief who would face warriors, even if they covered
the whole earth, had now clearly fled to avoid either facing the woman
with the stars in her eyes, or confronting a matter through which he
did not see his way clear.
As he had obviously left me to tell the tale of his deception,
perchance of his sin against the Bright One, I gathered my thoughts
together and went forward.
“Miriam Grey,” I said, “when first I undertook the search for you, Te
Makawawa told me the story of the child, which, of course, you know up
to the point where he took the little body away to bury it beneath the
_rimu_. The part of the story he kept from you is this. Your child
Crystal revived in his arms; he did not bury her but sent her away
with a band of Maoris, whose instructions were to leave her with the
first pakeha they met. The first white man they found was your
husband, who, nevertheless, up to a month ago did not know she was his
own daughter.”
“Not until Warnock here----” began Grey, but he stopped as he turned
towards his wife, for, as was natural, my words had moved her greatly.
She now stood looking at Crystal with a tender light of motherhood on
her gentle face.
“My darling child!” she said slowly and hesitatingly, as if still
unable to comprehend it.
“My own mother!” cried Crystal quickly--she had no hesitation in the
matter--and, like a bird, she flew to, and nestled in, her mother’s
arms. And they stood for a moment in a close embrace.
Crystal held back her head, and, smoothing her mother’s glossy locks
away from her brow, looked at her lovingly, saying with a sweet
repetition:
“Mother! Mother! Mother! My own mother!”
As Miriam Grey looked again on the lovely face so near to hers, and
saw the dark eyes gazing into her own, there came once more the
expression of bewilderment and awe which I had seen at their first
meeting in the Place-of-Many-Chambers. Could she not account for this
perfect likeness to the stone, as I had done? Surely she did not think
that Hinauri’s ancient spirit had come back in the flesh?
No sooner were these questions asked in my mind than they were
answered in a way that mystified me. As the look of awe deepened on
the mother’s face she spoke in hushed tones:
“I saw your image in the stone before I was a mother. ‘Out of the
distant past I will come to you,’ you said, as you held out your arms
to me from the stone. Is it possible that the ancient prophecy is
fulfilled in this way?--that you are Hinauri, the Daughter of the
Dawn, who has returned according to her promise, out of the distant
past? O dear and lovely one, your eyes gaze down on me from the
beginning of the world.”
Crystal seemed to be attaching her mother’s words to the feelings of
which she had once spoken to me--the feelings of a “long, long ago,”
hidden in some inmost tomb of memory. She was silent; but I, not
willing to admit this thing by my silence, and moreover, having
another explanation, spoke my thoughts.
I said: “That Crystal is your daughter is beyond doubt; but it seems
to me that in the matter of the perfect likeness there is an
explanation other than the one of which you speak. Of two marvels we
must choose the less. My explanation is this: you yourself created an
image which, in moments of deep concentration, you saw as if within
the stone. Then, as day by day you visualised it more clearly,
striving to give it visible shape in the marble, your desire was
realised not only on the lifeless stone, but also on the face and form
of your unborn child. Your idea was made stone, why not flesh?”
“Warnock is right, my dear,” said Grey, “no one believes in previous
existences nowadays.”
Miriam Grey turned to me, leaving Crystal listening to her father, as
he attempted to uphold and justify his view.
“Mr. Warnock!” she said gently, touching my arm; “what you say
explains only the means employed. I recognise the law that we become,
more especially in our offspring, what we contemplate; yet would I say
that this was merely the means by which Hinauri’s spirit clothed
itself in flesh.” She had lowered her voice almost to a whisper, and
now she drew me further aside. A breath of the rising wind wailed
about the ancient crags as it swept the side of the mountain without.
It awoke strange feelings in me, as I stood in that high cave where
Hinauri had waited through the ages. “There are strange things in this
ancient temple,” she resumed, “things which point to the possibility
of beings, who lived when the temple was founded, returning to earth
again.”
I remembered the Vile Tohungas and replied: “Yes, I have seen a
granite image and its living replica--do you mean that?”
“The one who stands apart I mean,” she said. “His face is that of
Ngaraki, and what is more, the meaning of that granite statue that
gazes ever upwards through the dark is the meaning of Ngaraki’s life.”
I was silent, wondering if this could be. I recalled the other thing
in favour of her belief--the resemblance that Cazotl had borne to the
chief of the Vile Tohungas, not only in face, but in purpose. I did
not speak of it, but I began to detect a deep underlying connection
between things that seemed formerly to be isolated. The ancient
traditions, the happenings of the past month, the more immediate
revelations of that very day--all seemed to be woven together in a
definite pattern, real and visible to my inner eyes. I realised that,
given this belief of Miriam Grey’s, the whole matter was a unity such
as is made by independent witnesses who speak the truth. I could now
understand, too, Te Makawawa’s bewilderment and hopeless confusion in
finding what he regarded as a discrepancy in this unity, viz.: that
Hinauri seemed to have moved to life, while yet the image remained
immovable. These thoughts, which take so long to write, passed through
my mind while the woman before me was dwelling on her last words.
“Come here!” she said again, leading me into the darkness round a
buttress which divided the cave into two apartments; “you have
matches. I will show you one of the strange things this place
contains--a thing which will prove, if anything can, whether my child
is that ancient one reclothed in flesh.”
I struck a match, and she lighted a torch that stood upright in a
crevice in a ledge of rock. By the glow of the clear-burning pineheart
I glanced quickly round the place. The jagged stone walls were not of
marble, but of fine granite, and the furthest ray of the torch
revealed no closing in of the rocks overhead. Dim reaches and shadows
I could see, but no roof--indeed, by the freshness and purity of the
air alone it was evident that there was an outlet above. That was
surely the way by which Kahikatea had first entered the cave. As I
swept my eyes round the lower walls and floor of this inner apartment
I saw that in former times it must have been the abode of some of the
savage priesthood who had in turn guarded the sacred stone. Thick
Maori mats were laid about the level floor. Maori spears occupied the
recesses of the rocks, and _merés_ of jade rested on the ledges. Rich
garments of dog’s-hair or woven flax hung from points upon the walls,
and ranged around the place were the grotesquely carved wooden gods of
the Maori, lolling their tongues and caressing their bodies with
three-fingered hands, while their eyes of _paua_ shell glistened in
the torchlight.
While I had been engaged in looking at these things Miriam Grey had
withdrawn a little stone box from a part of the wall. With this in
both hands she approached, and, saying it was heavy, bade me place it
on the ledge where the torch blazed. I did so, and the light of the
pineheart revealed the frosty glitter of gold dust. She plunged her
hands into this and withdrew a curiously wrought circlet of gold, set
with a large diamond at one part and with a brilliant sapphire at
another.
“This,” she said in a whisper, “so legend tells, is Hinauri’s crown.
The very ancient giant priests took it from the city which stood on
the plain below, and, when they brought the queen to this cave, it was
placed in this receptacle, where it has remained until now.”
I took it in my hands. This actual tangible relic of a bygone
civilisation helped me to understand those emotions of “long, long
ago,” about which Crystal had spoken. I looked at the circlet and then
at the walls of granite, and a feeling of extreme age possessed me.
Had I, too, perchance lived in that far time when Hinauri, the Bright
One, had attempted to rule a violent people by the law of love? Had I
been among her counsellors in that long ago--a man of humble aspect,
nursing an unrequited love for his dark-eyed queen?
I cast out the thought, for my unrequited love for Crystal was a thing
of which I could not yet think calmly,
“This,” I said, “conveys to my mind no proof except that it once had a
wearer.”
“Wait,” she replied. “Tradition says it is a talisman whose virtue is
restricted to the one for whom it was made. See! there are some
characters engraven inside which are supposed to relate to this
tradition. In times long since it pressed the brows of the ancient
queen, and the legend runs that, on her return, it will not be until
it is placed upon her head that she will recall the memory of her
ancient life.”
“Let us place it on Crystal’s head now,” I said quickly, making a
movement towards the outer cave.
“No,” she returned, detaining me by the arm; “not now. At sunset
to-night Ngaraki returns to sing his karakias before the statue. It is
the time of the year when for a few days the sun-ray strikes in
through a rift in the outstanding crags. We will remove and conceal
the statue, and when he comes he will find Crystal posed in its place;
then, while I place this circlet upon her head, he and the event shall
decide if she be Hinauri or only my child.”
“If the talisman should have lost its power!” I objected.
“Then the tradition will not be of a piece with the general body of
tradition which has been handed down within the ancient walls of this
temple,” she said. “I have learned step by step, by proofs which I
cannot show you now, that there is truth in these priestly traditions.
I will tell you one thing briefly: in a circular recess in the side of
the wall of the great abyss are the preserved heads of men who at
various times have found their way into this mountain to destroy the
sacred stone which was supposed to contain the form of the Pure One.
The faces of these I have recognised by their resemblances to the
faces of the Vile Tohungas of the Pit--the Destroyers of Women--and I
believe firmly that the ancient brotherhood of sorcerers exists to
this day, their initiates returning again and again in the flesh to
work out their destiny. Even quite lately one found his way into the
lower part of the mountain, but he escaped after nearly killing
Ngaraki, whom I nursed for many days, thinking he would die.”
“If they had caught him what would they have done with him?” I asked.
“His head would now be hanging among the others, where it ought to
be.”
I felt very thankful that I had not killed Ngaraki with that last
bullet of mine, and still more thankful that my head was still on my
shoulders. But I did not waste time in correcting her mistake. She
concluded:
“That chamber of preserved heads, with many other things over which I
have had ample time to think, has led me to believe in the traditions
of this place, strange as they may appear to you of the outer world.”
I was silent, but in my silence I wished that I had kept the head of
Cazotl to place among that gruesome collection.
At that moment Crystal, followed by Grey, came round the buttress.
“I want to kiss you again,” said she; “I have lived nearly sixteen
years without a mother, and now I have found you I am so happy that I
think I must cry.” She placed her arms round her mother’s neck, and
drawing her down to a low ledge of rock near by, seated herself at her
feet and buried her head on her lap and sobbed for very joy. Her
mother placed one hand on Crystal’s hair, while Grey, seating himself
beside her, took the other between both of his, and, leaving them
thus, I walked back into the marble cave.
Again I stood before the statue of Hinauri and lingered over Crystal’s
loveliness in stone. I felt a wild desire to kiss the beautiful cold
lips, but I remembered that look of hers when she realised that
Kahikatea loved her, and I held back. If ever a woman was pledged to a
man Crystal was pledged to my friend. It was different now. I
withdrew, and turned towards the opening.
This mouth of the marble cave was a little more than two yards in
width, and nearly ten feet high. It admitted the lights of heaven on
to the face of Hinauri. The outer surfaces of granite were worn by the
age-long action of air and water, but the inner edges, of pure white
marble, were accurately hewn with two parallel grooves, one on each
side, similar to those down which a window might slide. Calling up the
picture of the huge stone grating in the lower part of the temple, I
remembered that the same grooves on a gigantic scale were there also.
For a moment I wondered if these apertures were really so constructed
in the first place that they could be barred with massive granite
shutters. But it was useless to wonder, and I turned my attention to
what was passing on the plain below, which was clearly visible to me
as I advanced and stood in the opening.
On the left some outstanding crags shut out the view, but towards the
right I could see, far below, the secluded valley, hemmed in against
the mountain wall by the spur and the Lion Rock. On the further flank
of the Lion was a small plateau of some forty yards square. On the one
side of this was a precipice overlooking the plain, and, on the other,
the open space was separated by a deep fissure from the thick bush
that clothed the bases of the less precipitous mountains sloping off
round the Table Land on the right. To this small plateau there led up
a narrow path--a path which, as it ascended, became at one point so
constricted by the steep precipice on its right and the yawning
fissure on its left, that there was scarcely room for three men to
stand abreast. The natural advantages of this position had been seen
by the Maoris at a glance, and they had already set a high palisading
round it, thus marking it for a stronghold. Scattered about on the
yellow plain were small collections of rough dwellings--as many as
might account for the presence of several hundred natives. And they
seemed to be still flocking in, for, coming down off the spur of one
of the rolling hills on the other side of the plain I saw a line of
warriors.
In the _marae_[25] of the fortified _pa_ on the Lion’s flank was a
chief striding up and down haranguing a crowd of savages. By his wild
gesticulations and the fury of his words, whose connected meaning I
could not catch, he was evidently a violent savage with a violent
idea. As I asked myself what that idea could be my eyes fell on
another figure in the open space near him. I sprang up and ran to the
part of the cave where I had seen Grey set down his field glasses.
Returning with these I looked long and steadily at the other figure.
Yes, it was the wizard negro. Another of his infernal reed tubes was
in his hand, and it at once occurred to me that he had this turbulent
Maori under his influence, hoping, through him, to use the whole
savage force for his own purposes.
While this was going on a tall chief, white-headed, and clothed in a
dog’s-hair war-cloak, strode out of the _pa_ and across the plain to
meet the warriors, who were now banding themselves together on the
level. He stopped them and then led them past the _pa_ to the strip of
bush that skirted the mountains to the right. As far as I could judge,
the chief was Te Makawawa and the warriors were of his own tribe. I
watched the scene on the plain for more than an hour, and the
conclusion I came to was that the Maoris were gradually dividing
themselves into two camps--the one under Te Makawawa and the other
under the turbulent chief, who was evidently ruled by the negro
wizard. From a few words that I had caught of the chief’s harangue in
the _pa_ I guessed that the wizard had depicted Ngaraki’s goddess as a
pakeha, and had urged that the Maoris should rise in arms against such
an imposture. In addition to this I saw clearly how the subtle wizard
would erect another and a dark-skinned goddess on the pedestal and
enlist their sympathies with her. Very gravely I noted how my fears
had been only too well founded.
At length I rose and sought out Miriam Grey in the inner cave. The
three were still sitting talking together in low tones, and I
hesitated before disturbing them. But I felt that the matter was
urgent.
“I’m afraid there will be a battle among the Maoris before long,” I
said, standing before them. “They have arranged themselves into two
hostile camps, and look as if they mean fighting.”
Miriam Grey rose to her feet.
“I knew it,” she said; “I knew there would be trouble, but Ngaraki
would bring the tribes together. He has told them too much, and now
they have the idea that they are to win their land back and drive the
English into the sea. But Te Makawawa knows better. Is he there?”
“Yes,” I said. “He controls one camp, and another warlike chief who
occupies the stronghold commands the other.”
“There may still be time when Ngaraki returns at sunset,” she said.
“He will know nothing of it, for he will come by the secret entrance
at the back of the mountain--the ‘way of the lizard’; but he will
quiet them if Te Makawawa cannot. When he comes and sees what he shall
see he will be like a thousand men, and at ordinary times he is
terrible enough, for I have watched his face while he has chanted his
karakias in this cave.”
Under Miriam’s direction Grey and I removed the statue from its place
and concealed it among the wooden gods in the darkness of the inner
cave. It appeared that this removal was only rendered possible by the
fact that, some years before, Ngaraki, impatient at Hinauri’s delay,
had, with great toil and by means of an old sword--apparently the gift
of an early explorer to some ancestor of the Rangitane--found among
the weapons in the inner cave, achieved the difficult task of sawing
through the base of the statue, where it was in one piece with the
marble floor. This was to loosen one more of the fetters of Hinauri,
for, as he said, “How could she move to life when her feet were fast
bound to the rock?” Thus the place where Hinauri had stood through the
ages was now left vacant, so that her living image might stand there
with her arms outstretched to the western sky, with the same
loveliness of old upon her face, and the same age-long prayer upon her
parted lips. This, Miriam maintained, was not a trick, but a test, for
none knew as well as Ngaraki the form and features of his ancient
goddess! None could say with him, “This is she for whom I waited, for
whom I prayed and toiled my whole life long.”