THE GIANTS CLOSE THEIR TEMPLE.
Ngaraki passed down through a side tunnel, and I returned to the
place where Kahikatea still sat with his dead. After gazing at the
scene awhile I withdrew again, mindful of my friend’s unexpressed
desire to be left alone. Then Grey and Miriam floated into my mind;
since I could do nothing else I could at least see that they were
safe. Acting on this thought, I made my way down through the main
tunnel, and at length reached the vantage ground high up in the wall
above the lake. The cascade was silent again. Ngaraki had gone down by
‘the way of the winged fish’ beneath the water. Presently there was a
flickering light below, and soon afterwards the chief, bearing a
torch, passed round the lake and paused upon the ledge above the
abyss. As mechanically and wearily as I had found my way down to this
point, I now stood and watched him.
Pacing to and fro upon the rocky ledge, he chanted his last karakia--a
lament in which the poetry of his despair struggled through all his
fierceness.
“_Ihungarupaea! Hine-nui-o-te-po! Thou art hurled down, a sunken
rock._
“_Thou canst not rise. Shattered into fragments; never will your dust
be gathered from its everlasting grave._
“_Hinauri, Rival of the Dawn! thou too art gone for ever._
“_Alas! what melting sorrow fills my breast to overflowing._
“_Hinauri, Daughter of the Light! for whom I cursed and toiled--for
whom I waited all my life--for whom my bosom yearned with love, alas!
thou too art gone._
“_The gentle brooks of Marahau poured laughter down the sunlit
slopes--ran glad with songs to Tinirau--with love songs to the Ocean
Lord._
“_But now their waters flow like tears--while on Kaiteriteri’s shore
the penguin wails with sobbing cry--_
“_Tears of Rangi and of Papa flowing to the lake of tear-drops where
the waves of woman’s weeping rise against the sky._
“_Hush! those billows roll for ever, swollen with our lifelong
tears--_
“_On and on into the distance till they break in lamentations on the
far off Sacred Isle--_
“_Break with many mourning voices at the feet of Tinirau--_
“_Kiss those feet with sobbing tidings: Hinauri is no more._
“_She will never come again. No distant dawn will bear her feet, no
sun ray bring her back to life._
“_Alas! Alas! the wild white crane against the cloud a moment shows
her shining wing, then all is dark and all is lost._”
He paused for a moment on the brink of the abyss--a torchlight picture
framed in the gloom of his ancient temple. For a moment his eyes were
raised as if his glance could pierce through the darkness and beyond
the cavern’s roof; then his voice rang out again in fiercer tones:
“_She stays not! neither will I stay! I’ll fling me to the dark!
Ngha!_
“_Down, down into the black abyss, that I may gain the sparkling stars
and look into her eyes once more._”
As a soul plunges down into the world of spirits from the heights of
gloomy Reinga, so he hurled himself headlong into the abyss, lighting
the way to death with his blazing torch. The sight of it wrung a cry
from me. I slid down the rope and made my way to the brink of the
abyss, where I leaned forward, gazing into the darkness. Far down a
light burns still and clear--a night-lamp by a hero’s bedside. For a
moment I think I see its ray light up the image of Zun the Terrible,
for ever gazing upwards through the night. The love that does not die
is stamped upon the granite face. “I will return,” is graved indelibly
upon his breast, and the hands that graved it are clasped above his
heart. The leaping flame springs up, and all is dark again. _Kia
kotahi ki te Ao: kia kotahi ki te Po_: Ngaraki is dead, but clings to
Life in the darkness.
While I remained standing on the brink of the abyss, full of a savage
pathos for the noble Maori chief, as well as with sorrow for his
goddess, my ear caught something unusual. A dull roar came up from the
depths, faint and far away; could it be that the overflow from the
lake had found a bottom at last? I listened intently, and even as I
did so the sound seemed to deepen. Was this the work of the rolling
stone which Ngaraki had launched from the mysterious lever in the
Place-of-Many-Chambers, or had the great round rock which he had
rolled down after the Vile Tohunga’s head blocked the channel and
dammed the water back?
Whatever was the cause, I soon came to the conclusion that the water
was rising rapidly in the abyss below the abyss. It would fill the
gulf, and then would flow out through the giants’ window into the
fissure beyond. But while concluding the matter thus there came back
into my mind the words of Te Makawawa in reference to the ancient
tradition of the mysterious lever: “When it is raised all the ways of
the temple will be closed.”
I was about to follow this matter up and see for myself, when there
was a sound like a great gush of water in the lake as if another
sluice gate had been unbarred in its depths. Then I heard the increase
of the flood as it hissed and tore through the aperture in the
partition and fell into the darkness of the abyss. Presently the
change was marked again by a louder thunder from the depths. In the
midst of this I heard a shout from the direction of the gulf. I
hastened towards it, and, midway on the path that led to the giants’
window, encountered Grey and his wife. Grey, the man who had
forgotten, looked into my eyes without the slightest sign of
recognition and said:
“Look there! What is to be done? That is the way out--I travelled it
quite lately--and it’s closing up--my wife tells me there are two more
here besides yourself. Where are they?”
I followed the direction of his finger, and saw what startled me. The
moon was just showing above the sill of the giants’ window, and its
light glinted on the under surface of a tremendous hewn stone that had
already descended half way down over the upright bars like a colossal
shutter.
“I know what has happened,” Miriam Grey was saying hurriedly; “the
lever in the heart of the mountain has been raised, and all the
apertures will be closed. Where is Crystal--Hinauri--where is she?”
“High up in the mountain,” I said slowly, for I had not the heart to
tell them that she was infinitely higher than the highest mountain on
earth. “Kahikatea will take her up through the roof by the way he came
down. There is yet time for you to escape by the giants’ window.”
Turning to Grey I added, “You say there is a way?”
“Yes,” he replied; “I remember the way perfectly, but it requires a
rope.”
I glanced at the opening which still remained as the great shutter
seemed to be descending slowly, and guessed there was time.
“Wait here,” I said to Miriam, “and, for the present, good-bye. If we
meet again it will be at Wakatu.”
There was much more to say, but no time to say it. I grasped her hand,
and with “Follow me, Grey, I will find you a rope,” I turned away.
She was a brave woman. “Good-bye, and God bless you; I trust you with
my child.” This was all she said as she stood there against the rock
to wait for her husband’s return.
With all haste I hurried along the level path, followed by Grey. Round
the buttress on to the margin of the lake we went, and there we came
to a halt, for the water flung back from the fountain, which now rose
several yards high in the centre of the lake, was washing over our
feet. But the halt was only for a moment. Knee deep in the wash and
ripple that swamped the margin, I led the way round until we reached
the place where the rope was hanging. There I handed the torch to Grey
and said: “Wait here; I will cut the rope above and throw it down.”
With feverish haste I climbed up, and, when I had gained the upper
landing, drew my sheath knife and severed the rope.
“Hold your end and stand away round the wall,” I shouted down to Grey.
“Stand away, and I will drop it.”
I heard his answer from below, signifying that I might heave it down.
I did so, and then heard him call up: “But what about you?”
“Make haste,” I yelled down; “damn it all, make haste. Save your wife,
never mind about me.” Well I knew that my life was worth very little
either to myself or anybody else.
He made some reply which I could not catch, then shouted “Good-bye!
good-bye!” and something else which was lost in the tumult of the lake
below. I watched his torch disappear round the buttress, and then fell
to gazing at the small stream of moonlight that now pierced through
the darkness above the abyss. Would Grey and his wife get through the
giants’ window before that ray was darkened altogether? I prayed that
it might be so.
In less than three minutes I was sure of it, for something obstructed
the ray for a moment, and then it shone on clear as before, though
perceptibly less. They had passed through, and now in a few minutes
the giants would close their window for ever.
But before the ray died out it fell above the outer lip of the huge
basin, and revealed the form of the wizard negro still standing there
spellbound.
What would be his end? I knew the abyss was filling; by the roar of
the falling water I judged it was filling rapidly. The picture of that
figure in the moonray standing, as soon he must, with nothing but his
head above water, unable to stir hand or foot to save himself, moved
me strangely. I would release him from his bondage and let him have at
least a rat’s chance of drowning on his own responsibility. But I
feared it was too late. Would he hear my voice against the roar of the
waters? At least I could try. Standing up, I shouted to him across the
intervening space:
“Servant of the Brotherhood of Huo! My voice is the only thing--you
are free to save yourself if you can.”
He heard me. I saw him crouching down on the rock. Then, as the
moonray dwindled away to nothing, there came from the darkness the
same wild, unearthly laugh I had heard so often before. It echoed from
a thousand crags in the walls and roof of the vast cavern, and was
finally bandied about in the central vault like the voice of a fiend
chuckling to himself. But he could do no harm now; sooner or later he
must drown like any rat.