[Illustration: Cover art]
[Frontispiece: There lay Winata Pakaro, famous fighting Chief, lips
set in a grin of hate. (page 93).]
IN THE GRIP OF
THE HAWK
A Story of the Maori Wars
BY REGINALD HORSLEY
AUTHOR OF
'STONEWALL'S SCOUT,' 'THE YELLOW GOD,' 'THE BLUE
BALLOON,' 'HUNTED THROUGH FIJI,' ETC.
LONDON: T. C. & E. C. JACK, LTD.
35 & 36 PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C.
AND EDINBURGH
TO
SIR JAMES BALFOUR PAUL, F.S.A. (SCOT.)
Lyon King of Arms
I DEDICATE THIS BOOK
IN MEMORY OF MANY YEARS
OF FRIENDSHIP
PREFATORY NOTE
As the long struggle between Maori and Pakeha dragged to a close, a
new interest was given to it by the perversion of numbers of Maoris
of various tribes to a singular religion, styled by its founders _Pai
Marire_--that is, 'good and peaceful.'
There was nothing good or peaceful about the new religion, which was
a fantastic blend of very elementary Christianity, Judaism and
Paganism. Deadly hostility to the Pakeha, or white man, was an
all-important item in this curious creed, whose votaries were known
as Hau-haus, and prominent amongst its prophets was the rebel chief,
Te Kooti, one of the best generals and one of the worst men of his
day.
Brave, ferocious and animated by an almost oriental fatalism, the
Hau-haus were formidable antagonists and, moreover, shocked even
their compatriots by their ruthless savagery. At the very outset
they defeated a mixed contingent of the 57th Regiment and Colonials
at Taranaki, and cut off the head of Captain Lloyd, who had been
killed in action. Lloyd's head, preserved after the Maori fashion,
was then carried round from tribe to tribe by two Hau-hau
missionaries, who strove to make converts to the new faith. When
they succeeded, the head was spiked upon the summit of the _niu_, or
sacred pole, round which the fanatics leaped and danced until they
grew frenzied, uttering at frequent intervals their characteristic
barking howl, 'Hau-hau! Hau-hau!' which has been described as the
most frightful of noises, and a trial to the nerves of the bravest.
While in no sense a history of a particular period of the war, the
story is built upon a historical basis. Thus, the imprisonment of Te
Kooti on Chatham Island--according to some upon a fabricated
charge--his escape thence in a brig, the sacrifice of his aged uncle
in order to propitiate the wind-god, his landing near Poverty Bay,
the massacre there, the fight at Paparatu and the final storming of a
strong _pah_ in which he had taken refuge, are all matters of
history. Te Kooti, however, did not massacre the crew of the brig,
nor was he slain in battle. Like the yet more infamous Nana Sahib,
he escaped to be no more heard of. It is interesting to note that a
nephew of Te Kooti appeared a few months ago in New Zealand,
threatening to preach a new religion and to bring about the downfall
of the Pakeha.
The _mere_[1] (pronounced almost as 'merry') or war-club of the
Maoris was in shape something like an old-fashioned soda-water
bottle, flattened, and was made of wood, bone, a very hard gray
stone, whalebone, jade, or of the valuable mineral, nephrite, more
commonly known as 'greenstone,' which is found in the Middle Island.
The Maoris regarded the greenstone with superstitious veneration, and
in times of danger would sacrifice their ornaments fashioned from it
to the particular god whose aid it was desired to invoke. Greenstone
clubs were the peculiar possessions of chiefs or very important
tribesmen, inferior mortals contenting themselves with those of less
costly materials.
[1] In Maori every letter is pronounced. Thus: _whare_, a house =
'wharry,' not 'whar.'
Regarding the particular greenstone club which figures so prominently
in the story, it is, perhaps, only fair to admit that it will be
useless for readers with archæological tastes to endeavour to verify
the tradition of its origin or the sinister prophecy attached to it.
While I took no part in the struggle, I well remember, when a very
little boy, adding my small voice to the enthusiastic cheers of the
people as first one regiment and, later on, another, marched through
the streets of Sydney on their way to embark for New Zealand. When
several sizes larger, it was my fortune to see much of the native
races of the southern seas--in Maori-land, Fiji, the Loyalty Islands,
and elsewhere. Now if I can succeed in interesting my readers by
picturing for them some of the scenes which filled my childhood with
so much colour and interest and delight, I shall be satisfied.
REGINALD HORSLEY.
CONTENTS
CHAP.
I. FAMILY JARS
II. THE QUEEN'S SHILLING SUNDERS FRIENDS
III. THE PRICE OF SUCCESS
IV. TE KAREAREA
V. THE GRATITUDE OF TE KAIHUIA
VI. THE STORY OF THE GREENSTONE MERE
VII. STORM SIGNALS
VIII. THE STORM BURSTS
IX. JUST IN TIME
X. TOGETHER AGAIN
XI. ONE MYSTERY THE LESS
XII. VANISHED
XIII. DOWN AMONG THE DEAD MEN
XIV. MAGIC, BLACK AND WHITE
XV. POKEKE, THE SULLEN ONE
XVI. SPLENDIDE MENDAX
XVII. SAFE BIND, SAFE FIND
XVIII. PAEROA AT LAST
XIX. PAEROA'S VENGEANCE
XX. A BID FOR LIBERTY
XXI. IN THE FLAX SWAMP
XXII. THE DOOM OF THE HOUSE OF TE TURI
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
There lay Winata Pakaro, famous fighting chief, his lips set in a
grin of hate . . . _Frontispiece_
Captain Varsall was seen to flee at top speed towards the beach
George turned from the mate to find Te Karearea at his elbow
In another moment Terence's wrists were free and the rifle in his
grasp
The tunnel took a turn, widening into a cave
Map of the _Pah_ of Death and its surroundings
IN THE GRIP OF THE HAWK
CHAPTER I
FAMILY JARS
The long-drawn, melancholy wail of the curlew rose and fell thrice in
the garden, and Terence Moore went to the window and looked out into
the clear moonlight.
'Is that you, George?' he hailed.
'Yes. Come out quietly; I want to talk to you.'
Terence hung by his hands from the sill and dropped to the ground
beside his visitor. 'What is the matter, George?' he inquired
anxiously. 'Why won't you come in?'
'Because I wish to see you alone, and I don't want any one to know
that I am here. You may as well hear it first as last, old fellow--I
have left home.'
'I am not surprised. My only wonder is that you have stayed there so
long,' Terence commented, lifting his tip-tilted nose still higher.
'Things have come to a head, you see,' explained George Haughton.
'The colonel struck me this evening, and though, of course, I don't
mind that, yet I can't stand any longer the sort of life I have been
forced to lead for the past year or two.'
'I am not surprised,' repeated Terence. 'Few fellows would have been
as patient, I think. Wait a moment and I'll get my hat.'
He was back again almost immediately, and, linking arms with George,
drew him round the house to the front gate.
These two had been friends from earliest childhood, though both in
appearance and disposition they differed remarkably from one another.
George Haughton, tall and commanding, finely made, with well-knit,
muscular frame, fair, curling hair, and Saxon-blue eyes, was the very
type of a healthy young Englishman. The other, Terence Moore, was
blue-eyed also; but his shock of red hair, his densely freckled skin,
the tilt of his nose, and his wide smiling mouth as plainly betrayed
his Irish origin as did his name. He was much shorter than George,
but his broad shoulders and extraordinary length of arm amply atoned
for any deficiency in the matter of inches.
Terence was a bushman to his finger-tips, and once had been heir to a
fine estate, but on the death of his father, two years before the
opening of this story, he had been left penniless. Mrs. Moore had
died when her boy was but an infant, and so it happened that the lad
lost parent, money and home at one stroke, for the creditors seized
his father's station, along with everything upon it which could be
turned into cash.
Young Moore, then only eighteen, had not money enough to take up land
and develop a new station, and though his dear friends, the
Haughtons, would have helped him to any extent, he was too proud to
become dependent, even upon them. So he started driving fat cattle
from one part of the country to another, an occupation at once
profitable and healthy. In the intervals of work he stayed in Sydney
with his mother's sister; and thus securing the companionship of
George Haughton, proceeded to make the latter still more discontented
with his lot, by pouring into his ear all the moving incidents by
flood and field which fall to the share of the gentleman-drover.
To this sympathetic friend did George now confide the tale of the
crisis of his long dispute with his father, to which Terence, anxious
to secure a congenial companion during his long rides through the
bush, replied by an earnest appeal to George to throw in his lot with
his own.
As a matter of fact, there had been a terrible scene at 'Sobraon.'
For two years Colonel Haughton had fumed and fretted at his son's
evident disinclination to follow the path marked out for him, and
to-day a climax had been reached. The colonel, enraged at George's
invincible opposition, had lost command of himself and struck his
son; and the way in which it all came about was this:
After the famous battle of Sobraon, in which he was severely wounded,
Colonel Haughton had retired from the army and bought a beautiful
property on the wooded heights of one of the tiny bays which break
the noble outline of Sydney Harbour. Here he had settled with his
wife and his son, George, then a burly little fellow of three, whose
obvious destiny was the army, in which his father had served with
such distinction. But after the lad's tenth birthday the colonel's
views underwent a change, and it was decided to send the youngster
into the bush, so that he might grow familiar with station life, and
in due course become capable of managing the fine run which his
father intended to purchase for him.
This was much more to George's taste than school, and six months with
his father's old friend, Major Moore, went far towards making a
thorough little bushman of him. Terence and he were already chums,
and the constant association which continued during their youth
cemented a friendship which endured throughout their lives.
The colonel's 'system,' thus inaugurated, was further developed by a
visit to New Zealand, where George's uncle, Captain Haughton, R.N.,
retired, had settled some years before. Thereafter Colonel Haughton
divided each successive year into four parts, every three months of
study alternating with a like period in the bush, either with Major
Moore in New South Wales, or with Captain Haughton in New Zealand, as
the turn of each came round.
Brain and body developed most satisfactorily under this system, and,
as a natural consequence of so much healthy outdoor life, George at
nineteen was as sturdy and well-developed a youngster as could be
found, while in height he already over-topped his father, who stood
five feet eleven outside his boots. The boy's future seemed
splendidly assured, when a season of drought, common enough in
Australia, frightened the colonel, and, after much deliberation, he
astounded everybody by declaring his intention to launch his son in
business.
But here he reckoned without George, for nothing less suited to the
lad's disposition, tastes or early training could have been hit upon,
and the one thing which kept him from open rebellion was his desire
not to give pain to his mother. But when, quite suddenly, Mrs.
Haughton died, George, who had been devoted to her--though he had a
great admiration and love for his father, too--determined to resist
the proposed change with all his might.
He said little, however, until his twentieth birthday was passed,
though his attitude was always one of firm, respectful opposition;
and then at last the crisis came, and the blow struck by the
hasty-tempered father in support of his authority broke down the last
lingering scruple on the part of his son. It is difficult, all facts
considered, to blame George too severely, even if his conduct in
taking the law into his own hands cannot be entirely excused.
'You can't do better than come with me, George,' urged the wily
Terence, when George had told him of the tempestuous scene at
'Sobraon,' as Colonel Haughton had named his house. 'You can't do
better,' he repeated; 'that is, if you have made up your mind not to
return home.'
'That is decided,' said George. 'To go back would only mean further
hopeless bickering with my father, and I don't want to run any risks.'
'Then that is settled. You will have to lie low for a week or so
until I am on the move again; but you can write to your father and
let him know that you are safe. I dare say he will come round as
soon as he sees that you are really in earnest. He is a good sort,
is the colonel,' wound up Terence, with a grin at the recollection of
a sound thrashing his old friend had once given him.
'He is, I admit,' granted the colonel's wayward son. 'All the same,
he won't come round easily. He would wear out my will by sheer
persistence and get his own way if I remained in the house. My only
safety lies in flight.'
'I believe you. And you will fly with me to the bush.'
'No, Terence; I have another plan.' And straightway George delivered
himself of a statement which astonished his voluble friend into
something like absolute silence. But this did not last very long.
For a few moments Terence remained pensive, his thoughts evidently
far away; then, as they turned to take the homeward road he
astonished George in his turn by cutting a caper in the middle of the
street.
'Hurroo!' he cried, relapsing into the rich brogue he could assume at
pleasure, and poured out a torrent of strange sounds, which George
declared to be gibberish, but which Terence insisted were 'the rale
Oirish for unbounded deloight.'
'But what is the matter with you?' George asked helplessly at last.
'Why should you behave like a lunatic because I am going away?'
'Because _we_ are going, if you please,' corrected Terence, suddenly
serious.
George stared at him. 'You don't mean that you are coming, too?'
'An' why wouldn't I? Do you think I'll allow a great baby like you
to go off alone among all those murtherin' ruffians? Yes,' he
concluded, with a mock salute, 'with your leave, or without your
leave, I'm going with you.'
'But--but----' began George in stammering protest.
'No buts, old fellow. I am going with you,' declared Terence; 'so
there is no more to be said.'
'But your prospects?' objected George.
'Oh yes, my prospects. Fine, aren't they? I shall have quite as
good a chance of getting on in the world--and a better--by going with
you, as I shall by jogging peacefully behind a lot of fat cattle.
Besides, we are not going away for ever, I hope; and I know plenty of
people who will be only too glad to get me to drive their beasts, no
matter how long I may stay away. So say no more about it; the thing
is settled.'
'You are a good friend, Terence,' said George, with some emotion, and
the two linked arms once more and set off in the direction of
Woolloomooloo, where Terence resided when in town.
* * * * * *
_Midnight!_ The solemn strokes of some big clock in the city boomed
over the quiet waters of the bay, and the two soldierly old men who
were standing on the little jetty at the foot of the garden at
'Sobraon' turned rather helplessly towards one another.
'We may as well go in, Charles,' said the elder, who was Colonel
Haughton's brother-in-law, General Cantor. He will not return
to-night, I feel sure.' To himself he added: 'I don't believe he
means to return at all, poor lad.' For General Cantor had been to a
large extent in his nephew's confidence, and had long ago made up his
mind that George would one day end the constant friction by a sudden
snapping of home ties.
'I dare say you are right, William,' the colonel answered, too
depressed to argue; 'yet he often pulls home across the bay at night.
Well, well; I have been a tyrant and a fool. I see that {missing
words} pray God not too late.' There was a {missing words} voice,
and he turned about to cast one more look over the shimmering sea.
'God bless the boy, wherever he is, whatever he does,' he murmured,
and, leaning heavily upon his upright little brother-in-law, went
back to the house.
There they wished one another good-night rather tremulously; but the
colonel set the French-window of his son's room ajar, and with a
prayer in his sorrowful heart for the absent lad went thoughtfully to
bed.
The first streak of morning found him again in George's room, looking
eagerly for some sign of his presence. George was not there, but the
window had been shut, and a letter lay conspicuously upon a table.
The colonel caught it up and tore it open with trembling fingers. A
glance gave him a grasp of the contents, and with a bitter cry he
flung himself upon his knees by the empty bed and poured out his
heart in prayer that no harm might come to the son whom he loved so
well and had used so hardly.
The letter ran:
'MY DEAR FATHER,--I think that it is wiser for me to leave home for a
time and strike out a line for myself. It grieves me to oppose you,
but, as I feel myself to be utterly unfitted for a commercial life,
there is nothing else to be done. We used to be such {missing words}
and we have neither of us been very happy since mother died. Don't
imagine that I am going away because of our little breeze to-day. I
have not thought of that again. Really, I have not. I shall write
as soon as I have settled to the work I have chosen, and will keep
you posted as to my movements. Good-bye, my dear old dad. My love
to Uncle William; and you may both of you be sure that I shall try
and remember your teaching and his and keep straight. I am afraid
you will say that I am making a crooked beginning; but, father, in
this matter I can't obey you. I can't indeed. Good-bye again. Try
to remember me as your affectionate son,
GEORGE.'
And this was almost the last that Colonel Haughton heard of his son
for many a day.