A FOREST ADVENTURE
The two eel-fishers--Bivouac in the bush--A murderous attack--The
Waikato's tomahawk--"Ringiringi's" escape.
Far away to the east and north of the great Hauhau council-camp
stretched the forest, clothing hill and valley with one endless wavy
garment of unvarying green. For weeks one might tramp through these
vast, jungly woods and not see or hear sign of man, or of any living
thing but the twittering birds in the tree-tops and a stray wild pig
rooting in the soft, fern-matted earth or scampering away through the
thickets. The free, unspoiled wilderness of Tane-Mahuta.
Climbing to the wooded crest of some of the steep little hills that
rose from the gently undulating plain, one might here and there,
through the gaps between the towering tiers of foliage, catch
narrow glimpses of the surrounding country; and perhaps far away to
the nor'-west see between the branches, set like a picture in its
forest-frame, the pure white snow-cone of tent-shaped Taranaki.
Deep in these bush solitudes one day, when the spring had come,
the voice of man broke upon the silences. The wild boar stopped his
root-foraging to listen, and then turned and crashed off through the
supplejacks. A band of brown men, some clad in nondescript articles
of European clothing, some wearing only a shoulder-cape of flax and a
shawl or blanket-kilt, wound in single file through the bush, striking
due east. There were fourteen or fifteen of them. Most of them carried
weapons--double-barrelled guns and short-handled tomahawks, stuck in
the waist-belt of flax; all had large flax baskets, some containing
gourd-calabashes, strapped across their backs. Some sang little lilts
of Maori song, and some called now and then to the others, or mimicked
the _tui_ and the _kaka_ parrot that cried above them in the trees.
Mid-line in the file was a fairer-skinned young forester, bare-footed
like the rest, clad only in a "home-made" shirt that seemed to have
been cut out of a blanket and a coloured shawl strapped round his
waist. He had a thick beard, and his hair was so long that it would
have fallen down over his shoulders had it not been caught at the back
of his neck and tied with a piece of flax. This was "Ringiringi," the
_pakeha_-Maori, wearing as little clothing as his Hauhau companions,
and to all appearance as seasoned a bushman as they, as he bent along
the jungly way with the easy, noiseless jog of the Maori scout.
This party had been despatched from Taiporohenui by Rupé, to work
inland through the bush to the upper waters of the Patea River, and
scour the country for food supplies for the assembled tribes. They
were ordered to bring home wild pork and wild honey, and to catch as
many eels as they could carry. They travelled far into the heart of
the bush, and then divided into small parties of twos and threes for
eel-catching in the creeks.
The white man's companion on the eel-fishing excursion was an old Maori
from the "King" Country, a Ngati-Maniapoto man, who had joined the
Taranaki Hauhaus; he was a short but strongly built fellow, with a big
head and of dark and sullen visage, made more forbidding still by the
blue-black tattoo with which cheeks and brow and nose were scrolled
and lined. The couple, leaving the others after arranging a general
rendezvous for the following day, selected a small creek, winding in a
slow, brown current beneath the roof of verdure which the outstretching
branches of the _rata_ and the pines nearly everywhere held over it. It
was a tributary of the Upper Patea above Rukumoana. They fished with
short rods and flax lines, with worms for bait, and by the evening had
caught between them about sixty good-sized eels.
The eel-fishers bivouacked where the twilight found them, in a tiny
nook near Orangimura, where there was just room to build their
camp-fire and spread their bush-couches of fresh-pulled tree-fern
fronds, between the buttressed _ratas_ and the creek-side.
"Ringiringi" had a little cold food in his _pikau_ kit, potatoes and
_kopaki_ corn; that is, maize in the sheath. He was about to grill some
of the fat eels on the fire when his Maori companion stopped him.
"_E tama!_" he said. "Don't you know it is unlucky to cook the _tuna_
in the night-time? Do not touch those eels until the morning; should
you disobey, it will surely bring heavy rain."
The superstitious old warrior was so insistent that "Ringiringi," to
please him, agreed to his wishes; he contented himself with the little
he had in his kit, and then, filling his pipe with _torori_ tobacco,
lit it, and smoked as he lay beside the camp-fire. His Maori mate
squatted smoking on the other side.
The warmth of the fire, and the low, murmurous singing of the little
river--the _wawara-wai_, the babble of the waters, in the musical
Maori tongue--pleasantly lulled the tired _pakeha_. He lay there,
with his scanty bush-ranging garments wrapped about him, listening,
half-asleep, to the lazy run of the creek, and to the songs that
his savage old companion recited to himself in a monotonous chant.
War-songs of Waikato, songs that he and his Kingite comrades had
shouted in many an armed camp before the white man drove them out
beyond the _Aukati_ line, the frontier of the Waikato. In one of these
chants the eel-fisher's voice was lifted in a quick burst of passionate
remembrance--a defiant _haka_-song the Hauhaus of Taranaki, too, had
adopted as a composition exactly expressing their opinion of _pakehas_
in general, and of the _pakeha_ Governor in particular. It likened
Governor Grey to a bush-bullock devouring the tender leaves of the
_raurekau_ shrub--a Maori simile for the land-hunger of the whites:
"_A he kau ra.
He kau ra!
U----u!
He kau kawana koe
Kia miti mai
Te raurekau.
A he kau ra,
He kau ra!
A----u----u!_"
("Ha! A beast art thou,
A beast that bellows--
Ooh----ooh!
A beast art thou, O Governor,
That lickest in
The leaves of the _raurekau_.
Ho! A beast, indeed,
A beast art thou!
Oo----oo----ooh!")
The old Hauhau, warming to the _haka_, almost yelled the virulent
words. The chant broke the white man's drowsing, and he sat up and
listened as his companion repeated the vigorous dance-song.
"Well, _pakeha_!" he said; "that is our Waikato _ngeri_, our war-cry.
That is what we think of the Governor--and of all _pakehas_! I hate all
white men! They are thieves and pigs. I could cook and eat them all!
All, every one! I would not leave a white-skin alive in this island!
They are slaves, _taurekarekas_--like you! Now go to sleep, for we must
rise when the _kaka_ cries."
And the old man curled up by the fire, while "Ringiringi" found
uncomfortable reflection in the fact that he was here alone, far in the
heart of the forest, with a murderous old savage who was armed with a
war-tomahawk, while he, the weaker man, though the younger, had nothing
with which to defend himself. But by this time he was familiar with the
face of danger, and worked and slept in the midst of alarms; so simply
remarking to the Maori, "Friend, I am sleepy," and throwing some fresh
fuel on the fire, he lay down again on his ferny _whariki_.
However, he had his suspicions of the old savage, and presently he
glimpsed the Maori eyeing him dangerously through his narrowed lids and
handling his tomahawk restlessly. When he lay down to rest, the white
man had drawn his blanket partly over his face, as if he were asleep,
but he kept one eye lifting. Once the Maori half rose and looked
cunningly over at his companion, with his hand on his war-axe, then he
sank down again.
The little dark brook went singing on beneath the forest; the fire
gradually burned lower and lower as the night wore on; the morepork now
and then cried his sharp complaint of "_Kou-kou!_" from the shadows.
The two fishers lay silent; to all appearance both were asleep. But in
the Maori's heart was black, treacherous murder.
_Utu_--payment, satisfaction, revenge--summed up in a word the darker
side of the Maori character.
The lone _pakeha's_ head would be indeed a trophy to bear back through
the wilderness to his tribe. He would be a hero; he could brag to the
end of his days how he slew a white soldier in single combat, and none
could contradict him. He saw himself already _taki_-ing and prancing up
and down the home _marae_ before his admiring clan, the _pakeha's_ head
in his hand, his tomahawk--the victor's tomahawk!--flashing in air.
Ah! That, indeed, would be _utu_--though long-deferred _utu_--for his
kinsmen who fell to the _pakeha_ bullets at Rangiriri and Orakau!
It must have been nearly midnight, and "Ringiringi" was half-asleep
with fatigue, in spite of his fears, when suddenly all his senses
were awakened. Through his half closed eyelids he saw the Maori rise,
tomahawk in hand; he rose from his blanket noiselessly, then cautiously
stretched one foot across a _tawa_ log that lay on the fire, with its
end projecting. His eyes blazed, his face was frightful, with intent to
murder plain upon it in the firelight.
He was just in the act of stepping over the log, with his little axe
upraised, when the white man suddenly threw off his blanket and leaped
for the savage.
The old fellow flew at him with his upraised tomahawk glittering in the
little light that the bivouac-fire yet threw out.
But "Ringiringi" was too quick for him. He ducked dexterously, and
caught the Maori by the ankle, and, with a lightning twist that he had
learned from his Taranaki people, threw him to the ground.
The murderer-in-intent fell on his back and almost on the fire, and the
tomahawk dropped from his hand.
"Ringiringi" pounced on the furious old savage as he fell, and with a
knee on his bare chest, and one hand on his throat, reached out with
the free hand for the tomahawk, which lay just within his grasp.
The Maori would have continued the struggle, and in the
rough-and-tumble would probably have got the better of the white man,
had not "Ringiringi," now roused to murderous mood himself, threatened
to split his head in two if he moved, and emphasised his words by
bringing the weapon down until the blade was within an inch of the old
fellow's ugly, tattooed nose.
The Maori sulkily promising to lie quietly in his sleeping-place for
the rest of the night, the _pakeha_ relinquished his grip of the old
man and backed to his own side of the bivouac. He fed the fire with
dry branches of pine, and presently the little glade was a blaze of
light again, and the black tree-shadows danced like forest-ghosts to
the rising and falling of the flames.
The old Maori pulled his blanket over his face and pretended to go to
sleep, but "Ringiringi" did not take his eyes off him the rest of that
night. He sat by the fire till daylight, the captured tomahawk between
his knees.
In the morning the two enemies silently packed their takes of eels in
their kits, and slung them on their backs by flax-leaf straps, for the
home-journey.
The little river had to be forded. It was about knee-deep. The Maori
hung back, waiting for Bent to cross first; but the white man knew that
if he did so his enemy would spring upon him or trip him up and try to
drown him in the creek.
"Now, you go first," ordered Bent, when he had settled his _pikau_ on
his shoulders and stood, tomahawk in hand, facing the Maori, "and walk
in front of me all the way home, or I'll kill you!"
So the old fellow sulkily stepped into the stream and waded across,
Bent following him, and in this order they travelled.
So they made their way homewards, striking west through the pathless
forest, wading watercourses and climbing and descending hills, until
they emerged on the fern country. "Ringiringi," immensely relieved,
and weary beyond words, reported himself to his chief.
Rupé was furiously angry when he heard the story of the Waikato's
attack on his _pakeha_.
"The _kohuru_!" he cried, as he leaped to his feet. "The murderer! I
shall slay him this instant, on the _marae_, though all Waikato come
down to avenge him!" And seizing an axe from the wall, he ran out in
chase of "Ringiringi's" night antagonist.
The old fellow, when the chief rushed out at him like a madman, turned
and fled from the village, and ran for his life until he disappeared in
the shelter of the bush. Rupé did not pursue him far; his fit of anger
was soon spent, and he returned to his _wharé_, and made his white man
relate again, with Maori wealth of detail, the story of the eel-fishing
bivouac.
"Ringiringi's" would-be slayer was never heard of again; at any rate,
he did not venture back to the camp of the Hauhaus; and whether he ever
succeeded in taking a _pakeha_ head in settlement of his _utu_ bill no
man knows.