SPLENDIDE MENDAX
George, as has been said, had never thought of the simple explanation
of the amazing incident just related; but he readily accepted it when
suggested by Terence, for his healthy mind revolted from the constant
association with the apparently supernatural which circumstances
forced upon him. It was better and wiser, he felt, to esteem these
mysterious happenings capable of eventual solution, than to drift
into the habit of regarding them as inexplicable by natural means.
'If it ever comes to a fight, you will have it all your own way,'
laughed Terence, 'for none of them will have the nerve to tackle you.'
'When I left home, I had no idea that I should become a person of
such importance,' George said, smiling. 'Come; let us get back to
the chief.'
As they appeared at the edge of the clearing, Te Karearea came up all
smiles and explanations; but the Hau-haus looked askance at them,
those nearest to them hastening to increase their distance.
'I have postponed the march for two hours,' the chief informed them.
'I had no wish to disturb your devotions, Hortoni, and also, I did
not wish to enter the _pah_ without you. Meantime, Kawainga makes
ready your meal.'
George acknowledged the courtesy, and, inquiring what had become of
Pokeke, was informed that he had been sent ahead to the _pah_ with
Paeroa for his guard.
'Has anything been heard of the Arawa spies?' asked George.
'No,' replied the chief, with twinkling eyes. 'It was Paeroa who
judged them to be Arawas; but we know better.'
'We!' echoed George. 'What can I know about them?' He spoke
haughtily, while Terence, to whom he rapidly interpreted, assumed
what he honestly believed to be an expression of most virtuous
indignation.
'You can answer that best, Hortoni,' the chief said quickly; 'but,
even for one so beloved of the gods as yourself, it is unwise to run
too many risks.'
'You speak in riddles,' George began still more distantly, when he
was interrupted by an outrageous noise at the outskirts of the camp,
where two men were cutting chips from an immense log. In the
twinkling of an eye this innocent occupation changed to a furious
conflict; for six strange Maoris sprang from the fern behind the
giant trunk and savagely attacked the hewers, whose roars for aid set
the Hau-haus rushing towards them from all sides.
Realising that they could not fight a host, the six spies--for such
they were--took to their heels; but one remained behind, cloven from
shoulder to midriff by a mighty stroke from a hewer's axe. The
others got clear away, for Te Karearea sternly checked pursuit, and,
running up to the big log, hastily scrutinised the corpse.
'Arawa!' he shouted excitedly. 'Dogs of Arawa! They it was who
spied upon us last night.'
He spurned the body with his foot, and the Hau-haus instantly flung
themselves upon it, and with revolting accompaniments hacked it to
pieces.
'Then that story was true after all,' George said in a low voice.
'We are safe; for I am sure the chief has no suspicion of our
presence in the underground world.'
'No; and in my opinion----'
What Terence's opinion was, George was not to learn, for just then a
spattering volley rattled in the bush, several bullets hummed past
them, and they bolted for cover. In a moment the clearing was empty,
and the Hau-haus, sheltered behind the great trunks, answered the
challenge with a random fire.
Te Karearea had thrown aside his mats, and now, naked like his
warriors, save for his waist-cloth and huia plumes, was dodging
actively from tree to tree, firing with great coolness whenever he
saw a chance. But, owing to the thick bush, little harm was done on
either side, and to the interested onlookers the affair seemed very
like a stale mate.
But Te Karearea had always to be reckoned with. No sooner had the
spies fled, than he dispatched Winata Pakaro with fifty men to make a
rapid flanking march and ascertain whether they had to do with a
large force or a _mere_ screen of scouts. In either case Winata had
his orders, which he carried out to the letter, and in a few moments
from the firing of the first shot, the clearing was filled with a mob
of yelling combatants, and a hand-to-hand fight in the good old style
began. The muskets, useless now, were flung away, or swung by the
barrel, while tomahawk and club clashed and jarred and rattled in the
shock of their meeting.
Presently the watchers heard Te Karearea's voice raised in a shout of
savage triumph. '_Mataika! Mataika!_' he yelled, and, grasping a
young Arawa chief by the hair with his left hand, dashed out the
man's brains with a single blow of the heavy club in his right.
'_Mataika!_' he yelled again. '_Ki au te Mataika!_' and, brandishing
the blood-stained _mere_, dashed into the midst of the foe.
'Is that his battle-cry?' called Terence from behind his tree.
'No. The first to be killed in a fight is called the _Mataika_,'
explained George. '"I have the _Mataika_" is the cry of the
successful slayer, and duels often arise after a battle, owing to
disputes among the claimants to the honour.'
The Arawas, taken thus in the rear, and hopelessly outnumbered, had
no chance, and the end of the skirmish came when some twenty of the
brave, rash fellows--all that were left of fifty--broke through the
packed masses of their enemies and fled, unpursued, through the bush.
'The Hawk has all the luck,' grumbled George. 'What a piece of folly
for so small a force to attack five hundred!'
'Never mind,' Terence said cheerfully. 'It shows, at all events,
that some one is on our trail, and that our sweet chief is not to be
allowed to have everything his own way. Here he comes. Lo, what a
swelling port!'
Te Karearea stalked up to them, his chest heaving, his eyes still
aflame with the fierce light of battle. His scarred visage looked
grimmer than ever as he grinned balefully at his 'guests.'
'Ha! Even without the _mere_ of TUMATAUENGA, it seems that we can
still win a fight,' he said truculently.
'You outnumbered the Arawas by ten to one,' began George, but added
hastily, as the chief's brows knit in a frown: 'That flanking
movement to take a probable foe in the rear was fine generalship.'
Te Karearea was never above nicely judged flattery. 'Praise from a
soldier's son! That is good,' he said, nodding his plumed head.
'Had you been fighting by my side, Hortoni, not one of the dogs had
escaped. Why not become my Pakeha?'
'One might really do worse,' returned George lightly. 'You have all
the luck.' Whereat the chief looked mightily pleased.
'We will talk of this again, Hortoni,' he said. 'I remember that
your parole expires to-night. Will you renew your promise?'
'Yes,' George answered at once.
A gleam of suspicion came into the chief's eyes at this ready
concession. 'For how long, Hortoni? A week? A moon? What?'
'I promise; that is enough,' returned George carelessly. 'When I am
tired of liberty I will tell you.'
Te Karearea's eyes burned into his own, but he met their stare
unflinchingly, and presently the chief said: 'And you, O Mura--whom I
had not forgotten--do you also give your word?'
'Oh yes,' replied Terence, when George had interpreted.
Once again Te Karearea stared at them as if he would read their
inmost thoughts. Then with a curt 'It is good!' he stalked away, and
they heard his voice ringing out as he issued orders with regard to
the twice-interrupted march.
They stood on one side, watching the eager Maoris, fine men for the
most part, and handsome too, despite the intricate patterns which
scored their faces--records, each of them, of some deed of
derring-do. For the Maori, not content with simple tattooing, cut
and carved his history upon brow and breast and cheek and chin, the
absence of such scars indicating either extreme youth, or a lack of
courage very rare among the men of their race.
'He is beckoning to us. Come along,' said Terence. 'You first,
please, by reason of your exalted position.'
Te Karearea, who had resumed his mat and kilt, cordially greeted them
as they fell in on either side of him, and amid inexpressible uproar
the march to the _pah_ began.
But presently the men settled down, and, as they took the road across
the island to the hill, broke into a roaring chorus of the days when
all the land was their birthright, and again, of the time to come
when the Pakeha should be swept into the sea, and _Ao-Tea-Roa_,[1]
the Land of the Long-lingering Day, return to the Children of Maui
once more.
[1] New Zealand was thus poetically named by the early Maori settlers
there because of the twilight, to which they had been unaccustomed in
'Hawaiki.'
George, toiling up the steep and difficult ascent, and wondering how,
when their parole was withdrawn, they should ever escape from such a
stronghold as that upon the hill-top, was startled out of his reverie
by the sound of a harsh, dry sob. He glanced round, to find Te
Karearea, with bowed head and anguished face, stumbling almost
blindly along the rough track.
'_Aue! Aue!_' wailed the chief, his low, tense tones scarcely
reaching beyond the ear of him for whom they were intended. '_Aue!_
Oh, that the _mere_ of TUMATAUENGA might be mine but for one short
hour, that the god might see it in the hand of the last of the House
of Te Turi! Oh, that I might bear it into the _pah_, and hold it
while I pray to the gods and to my ancestors. Only for one little
hour. _Aue! Aue!_'
He made no direct appeal, but his restless brown eyes dwelt wistfully
on George, who felt distinctly uncomfortable.
They had reached a point some three hundred feet below the outer
palisades of the _pah_, and now George saw for the first time, what
had been invisible from the plain, that some convulsion of Nature had
cloven the hill into two unequal parts. The gash ran clear across
the face of the hill, forming a deep gulch with precipitous sides of
jagged rock. The chasm, like the river, was bridged, but more
securely, and provided with hand-rails of twisted flax which also
served as draw-ropes.
Believing, as he did most firmly, that his own fate and the fate of
his House depended upon his possession of the greenstone club, Te
Karearea's emotion was not altogether feigned, and George, despite
the knowledge that his own life would not be worth a day's purchase
if he surrendered the _mere_, felt again that throb of sympathy for
this man who pleaded for what meant to him his very existence.
Nevertheless, and though he grew more uncomfortable than ever, his
resolution hardened not to yield the club while he had strength to
retain it; so, to avoid the sight of Te Karearea's woebegone face, he
moved a pace or two ahead of the chief.
They had come almost to the centre of the great tree which spanned
the chasm, and the main body had halted at the bridge-head in order
not to incommode the chief and his 'guests' during the crossing,
which, if not actually dangerous, was a matter requiring caution.
For, though wide enough to allow the three to walk abreast, the
bridge was yet so narrow, that the right arm of George and the left
arm of Terence brushed the ropes.
But Te Karearea was desperate. Ignoring the warning that guile, not
force, must be employed to recover the _mere_, or that only by
voluntary surrender or carelessness on the part of Hortoni could it
become his own, he made a sudden snatch at the club, which hung
rather in front of George's right hip. The natural consequence
followed. George moved on with long, swinging stride just as Te
Karearea stooped with eagerly extended hand, the chief missed the
club, lost his balance, and, in full view of the horrified
spectators, rolled over the bridge.
A howl of dismay went up from the Maoris, and George, turning
sharply, saw with amazed eyes the unfortunate chief sliding
head-downwards into the profound abyss.
Without a thought of his own danger, George flung himself down upon
his face with hands outstretched, and succeeded, only just in time,
in seizing the chief's left ankle, to which he clung with the
tenacity of desperation.
For the position was now awful in the extreme. Head downwards over
that frightful abyss the chief hung, held back from instant and
dreadful death only by the strong clutch of his intrepid captive,
who, with his own arms and face over the edge of the trunk, looked
down into the horrid rift into which he was slowly being dragged.
But Terence was to the fore as well, and down he went on his knees
and hung on to his friend's legs with all the strength of his mighty
muscles. Then he shouted to Winata Pakaro, who ran lightly across
the bridge, stooped over the edge, and caught Te Karearea's right
ankle, thus allowing George to take a fresh grip of the left.
And so, in a somewhat undignified manner, the great chief was hauled
slowly back from what a moment earlier had seemed, and a moment later
would have been, certain death.
No loud expressions of delight greeted Te Karearea as he resumed the
perpendicular; for every Maori there had seen his attempt to possess
himself of the greenstone club, and noted, too, the swift and
terrible retribution which, by the magic of the Pakeha, had overtaken
him. Truly, the magician had chosen to arrest the fall of the
victim, but not until he had given striking evidence of his power.
While the Maoris murmured together, Te Karearea addressed George in a
voice a little less firm than usual: 'I thank you, Hortoni. There is
a bond between us; for I owe you my life.'
'Not so, O Chief,' answered George coldly. 'You saved my life aboard
the brig; so now we are quits.'
Te Karearea merely nodded his head and echoed George's remark: 'Very
well, Hortoni; we are quits.'
'I wish you had let the rascal slip through your hands,' remarked
Terence, as they ascended the slope. 'It would have been a good
riddance of a particularly bad form of rubbish. No, no,' he went on,
reddening as George looked at him; 'I don't mean that. You couldn't
have done it. Original instincts too strong and all that. I--oh,
you know.'
'You need not apologise.' George smiled. 'The thought actually
crossed my mind as I held him up.'
'He is brave, George. He bore that ordeal as few could or would have
done. Perhaps it is a pity that he is not on our side.'
'No, no,' said George, with a passionate gesture. 'If there be any
excuse for his slyness, his lies, his murders, it is in the fact that
he acts as he does in the sacred name of patriotism. Were he in arms
against his own race, and still displayed his present
characteristics, he would be intolerable.'
'Here he comes back,' exclaimed Terence; 'and beaming, by Jove! What
a man!'
The wily Te Karearea had been quick to perceive the effect of his
accident upon the emotional minds of his countrymen, and with
characteristic effrontery set himself to efface the unfavourable
impression. Standing between the friends, he began a stirring
address to the warriors, who had now crossed the bridge and were
waiting to enter the _pah_, by the outer gate of which were grouped
the tohunga and his small garrison, ready to welcome the conquering
chief.
With every trick of gesture and impassioned tone of the born orator,
he spoke to them until their fierce eyes were fastened upon his own,
and the sullen apathy dropped from their stern faces. Then, pausing,
he stepped back a pace, and, pointing to George and Terence, cried:
'But here, my friends, are two Pakehas whose hearts are even as those
of the Maori. You have seen for yourselves. For if Hortoni and Mura
had not been my friends, they would have left me to perish. Here
they stand, and'--his voice swelled to a triumphant shout--'friends,
they are ours!'
George had listened with growing impatience to this splendid liar's
talk, and at the final cunning assertion he took an angry step
forward. But Te Karearea had anticipated this, and ere he could
protest, turned about with a magnificent sweep of his arm and pointed
to the open gate of the _pah_.
Not another word was needed. He had won. Six buglers blew
prolonged, discordant blasts upon as many great _teteres_,[2] the
garrison yelled shrilly, and with a thunderous roar of triumph the
impatient Maoris surged forward, breasting the slope, and charged
furiously into the courtyard of the _pah_.
[2] A huge wooden trumpet, about six feet long.