Part 11

The emergency was so great, Edwin felt himself beyond all personal fear, which might have daunted him at any other time had he been obliged to ride alone in the night through those desolate wilds. He patted Beauty's neck, and heartened himself up with the thought of the eternal presence of the Unseen, ever ready, ever near to help and guide, giving strength in weakness and light in darkness. When will, desire, and trust meet in one point, that point is faith, the strongest power within the human breast. It upheld Edwin, worn and weary as he was, in that lonely ride. He had cleared the rising ground. The camp-fire glimmered in the distance; but Beauty, who had had neither food nor water since the morning, began to flag. Then Edwin remembered Ottley's charge, and looked about for a dry tree.

He found one smouldering still, in the midst of a scorched circle--the dying remains of a bush fire, kindled by the lightning on the night of the eruption.

He gathered up the charred branches fallen around it, and fanned the glowing embers to a flame. One of the incessant earthquake shocks scattered his fire just as he had got it to burn. He did his work over again. The blaze roared up into the midnight sky. He tied Beauty to a tree at a little distance, and sat down before his fire, thankful for the momentary rest. He could have fallen asleep. He was afraid that he might do so unawares, for he felt he was succumbing to the genial warmth. The change was too great after being exposed for so many hours to the chill of the night, and he fainted.

When Edwin came to himself he was lying under canvas. A cup was held to his lips by some unknown hand, and as he tasted its warm contents, voice came back to him. He asked feebly, "Where am I? I can't remember."

"Never mind then, my boy," said his rough nurse, in kindly tones which were not altogether strange. "You are with those who will take care of you to the last. There, sleep, and forget your troubles."

"Sleep!" repeated Edwin, starting up. "What business have I with sleep when Mr. Ottley sent me with a message?"

"Ottley! who is Ottley?" asked another voice.

"The coachman fellow who helped us at Te Wairoa," answered the first speaker.

Edwin roused himself, saying earnestly,--

"He wants you to go to his help. He wants help badly by the lake amid the hills."

"Where is that?" asked the men of each other.

"I'll guide you," said Edwin. "I'll show you the way."

"Not you," they answered simultaneously. "You just lie here and sleep in safety. Some of the other fellows will know. That will be all right."

As they laid him back on the blanket, Edwin saw in the dim, uncertain light the rough sleeve of a blue jacket.

"What! surprised to meet us here, my boy?" said the voice, which he now knew to be the captain's. "Though our feet were sore with dragging over the oyster-bed, we went back with Feltham's shepherds. When we saw your fire flash up against the night sky, says some of the fellows, 'That is a signal,' and off they went to see, and when they brought you into camp I knew you in a moment."

Edwin grasped the horny hand held out to him with a smile.

"Where is my horse?" he asked.

"Tethered outside; but there is not a bit of food to give him--no, not a single bite. But lie still and sleep and eat yourself, and in a few hours you will be all right."

When Edwin waked again it was daylight. A piece of camping-out bread and a cup of water stood beside him, but every man was gone.

He took the breakfast they had provided, and walked to the door of the tent eating his bread. There was no one in sight but Beauty, looking very wretched for want of food. Edwin broke the crumb from his piece of bread, and carried it to him.

"We will go shares, old fellow," he said, patting him, "and then you will carry me to father.

'What must be, must; But you shall have crumb, If I have crust.'"

He looked about the tent, and found a small pail. The hiss and splash of bubbling water guided him to the geyser. He knew the men would not have put up their tent unless there had been a spring at hand. He filled his pail with the boiling water, and left it to cool for Beauty's benefit. Still he thought they could not be very far off, or they would not have left their tent. But he was afraid to waste time looking about him. Some of the party had no doubt remained behind. He longed to follow the captain, and go back to Ottley and Whero, for when their work was over by the lake he knew they would help him to find his father. Edwin found a charred stick where the men had made their camp fire. He wrote with it on a piece of bark:--

"Good-bye, and thanks to all kind friends. I am going back to Ottley.--EDWIN LEE."

Then he gave poor Beauty his water, and started off for the Rota Pah. He was trusting to the horse's sagacity. "If I give him the rein," he thought, "he is safe to take the road to his old home."

But no brief spell of sleep, with its blessed forgetfulness, had come to Whero. He had kept his lonely vigil on the tumbled thatch, chanting his mournful dirge until the echoes rang. There, with the starshine overhead, and that strange cloud through which the fire still flashed rising like a wall between him and the sacred hills, he felt himself abandoned by earth and heaven. But his despair had reached its climax. The help which Edwin had gone to seek was nearer than he thought. A long, dark shadow was thrown across the star-lit ground, and Ottley hastened towards him, exclaiming,--

"Stop that howling. Be a man, and help me. We'll soon see if there is any one alive beneath that thatch."

He found himself a pole among the broken arms of the trees, and set to work tearing away the thatch until the starlight waned, and the darkest hour of all the night put a stop to his efforts.

But in many places the roof was stripped to its rafters, so that the cold night breeze could enter freely. Whero was gathering the heaps of dusty rush which Ottley had flung off to make a fire. The cheery flames leaped upward, but were far too evanescent to do more than give a glimpse into the interior of the whare. But Ottley saw something in the dark corner of the room like a white dress, fluttering in the admitted gust. Could it be the thin white sheet in which Kakiki had chosen to disguise himself?

Brief as the blaze had been, it had served as a beacon to guide the captain and his mates to the spot with their spades and bill-hooks. To chop away the beam, to build a more substantial fire with the splintered wood, was easy now. Whero leaped through the hole, and reappeared with his mother in his arms. The captain swung himself down after him, directed by Ottley to "that something white in the corner." He dragged it forward--a senseless burden. A spade full of ice from above was dashed into the unconscious face of the aged chieftain resting on his shoulder. As Kakiki Mahane opened his eyes, the first thing he saw was the well-remembered face of Ottley looking down upon him, and the first thing he heard was the heartfelt murmur which ran through the little group above, "In time! thank God, in time!"

*CHAPTER XIII.*

*FEEDING THE HUNGRY.*

As Edwin crossed the desolated bush, the morning sun lit up the marvellous cloud-banks with a flush of pink and gold that held him spell-bound with the strangeness of the sight, until the dust-drift before him began to tremble visibly with an earthquake shock. He was not wrong in his estimate of Beauty's intelligence, but the weary horse poked his head forward and walked languidly. Edwin avoided the hill where he had found the kaka. He shrank from the gruesome spot even by daylight.

He was trying to find a safe pathway to the lake, when he saw Ottley walking rapidly towards him. He waved his arm to the boy to stop. As they drew near to each other, Edwin almost shuddered, expecting to hear nothing but ill news. He was bitterly reproaching himself for not having asked the captain if he had heard anything of his father.

But Ottley shouted out "Well met" in a cheery tone, adding dryly, "I hope you got some breakfast at the camp, for on this side of the bush it is very hard to find. We have been at it all night. Nga-Hepe has not yet come round; but Marileha is saved, and her white-haired father too. We have done what we could, with nothing to help us but the keen frosty air and muddy water. Now we must have food, for most of the villagers from the Rota Pah had taken refuge with them. The mud slipped off the sloping roof of Nga-Hepe's whare when half the huts in the pah lay crushed beneath its weight. I am going to the ford to see if Hirpington has come back to his place. He kept a full store-room at all times."

"O Mr. Ottley," exclaimed Edwin, "let me go too, for father may be with him."

"No, he is not, my boy," returned Ottley, compassionately. "He was the first in the field, and did wonders. He has been hurt by a falling tree, but an old fellow they call Hal is taking care of him in one of the tents. I'll show you where."

"Show me at once," entreated Edwin. "I must go to father first, wherever he is. I have been such a very long while trying to find him. Is it very far from here?"

"No," answered Ottley; "but you must wait until I can take you there. You had better come with me now, and get some food for your father whilst I can give it to you. If Hirpington has not come back, we must dig into the house and help ourselves, and reckon the pay when we meet."

"Please, Mr. Ottley," burst in Edwin, "tell me all about father. Is he much hurt?"

"My boy," exclaimed Ottley, "I know no more than you do; but if he is roughing it, as our fellows do up there alone, better wait and see what I can find."

Edwin felt the force of this reasoning, and said no more. Ottley laid his hand on Beauty's rein, and walked beside him.

Suddenly Edwin looked up, exclaiming, "This is Sunday morning!"

"And a strange Sunday it is," answered Ottley, somewhat dreamily, as his thoughts went back to Sundays long ago, bringing with them an echo of the church-going bells, to which his ear had so long been a stranger. "Sunday up country in New Zealand," he went on, "is little beside a name, except to those who can hear the sermon of the stones and read the books--"

"In the running brooks," added Edwin; "and good in everything. But is it so?"

"Nature's voices have been speaking in tones to which all must listen," continued Ottley. "Yet the Lord was not in the earthquake and the storm, but in the still small voice."

His words were slow and grave, so unlike his usual tones Edwin listened in silence, and in silence they approached the ford. Even Beauty's footsteps were inaudible, for the mud by the river had not dried as fast as elsewhere.

The boy's heart was heavy with apprehension as he looked up, expecting to see the familiar gate; but not one trace of post or gate remained. The acacia tree in which the lamp used to hang was riven asunder. The grassy mound and the gorse hedge were gone. The road had been raised by the mud and dust to the level of the farm-yard wall. Almost without knowing they did so, they went straight over it, and found themselves even with the window of the hay-loft. The roof of the house was crushed in, and its doors and windows banked up with mud. As they looked round at it, Edwin pointed to the hole his father must have made when he extricated his friend's family. A man was getting out of it at the moment. They stood quite still and watched him draw up a full sack after him.

"There is some one before us on the same errand," said Edwin; but Ottley hushed him without replying.

The man looked round as Edwin's voice broke the profound stillness. Ottley shouted to him, "Wait where you are, mate, and I will come to your help."

The coachman knew if the man were on honest work intent he would gladly accept his offer, for the sack was so full he could hardly move it. But he thought, if the fellow is a thief, he will try to get rid of me. Ottley turned to Edwin, saying carelessly, with the air of one at home in the place, "You will find some hay for your horse inside that window. Give him a good feed, whilst I look round and see if all is safe."

He was speaking loud enough for the man to hear him. He was trying to make the fellow understand that he was there to protect Mr. Hirpington's property. He left Edwin to feed his horse, and walked quickly across the heaps of mud Mr. Lee had shovelled away from the window nearest to the water.

The man had let the sack drop, and now stood idly on the main beam, which had not been displaced, as if he too were surveying the extent of the mischief. Ottley leaped across and stood beside him, observing, "The colonists are everywhere returning to their homes. The general opinion seems to be that the danger is over. Hirpington may be expected any minute. I came over to help him."

The men stood looking at each other, and Edwin recognized the fellow on the roof. It was the rabbiter who had spoken to him in the dark when he thought no one could hear him but his father.

"O Mr. Ottley," he called out, "it is one of the rabbiters who came to our help."

"And are you the farmer's son?" asked the man, descending from the roof to speak to him.

Edwin was feeling very grateful to the rabbiters. Hal was nursing his father, and he looked on them as friends. So when the man approached and asked him what he had come to the ford for he answered him freely, explaining all that had happened since they parted. Edwin ended his account with the dismaying intelligence, "Mr. Ottley says there is no food to be had--nothing to give the poor Maoris to eat--so we have come to look if we can find any food among these ruins."

"No harm in that," returned the man quickly. "We are all on the same errand."

These were Edwin's own words, and he smiled, not knowing anything of Ottley's suspicion that the man was bent on plunder. The rabbiter walked off, and they saw no more of him.

Ottley continued his examination of the premises. The house to the river-side was not greatly damaged. If the roof were repaired, Mr. Hirpington could inhabit it again, and clear away the mud from the garden side at his leisure. But Ottley had no idea where his friend had taken refuge. He could send him no warning to return and see after his property. The window of the store-room looked to the river. As he went round to examine it, he found the old ford-horse wading about in the water, cropping at the weeds which grew on its margin. When Dunter let him loose--for no power on earth could make him travel on land--he swam down stream, and returned to his beloved ford, which he had crossed and recrossed several times, for his own gratification. Ottley called him out of the water, and led him round to share the hay with Beauty. He was anxious about his own coach-horses, for whose benefit the store of hay had been provided. They were gone. Probably Mr. Hirpington had opened the stable-doors at the first shock of earthquake. The hay was his own, and he told Edwin to tie up a bundle and take it away with him for Beauty. He was glad to see the man had gone off quietly, and said no more about him. He saw no occasion to put Edwin on his guard, as he was going to take him back to his father directly. He had not much faith in any boy's discretion, and he thought he might talk about the man to Hal.

Ottley knew well, when there were so many abandoned homes and so many homeless wanderers, what was sure to follow. "But," he said to himself, "this state of things will not last many days; yet a lot of mischief may be done, and how is the property to be protected? Life must stand first. A good dog would guard the ruins, but Hirpington's must all have followed their master."

He crawled into the hay-loft and pulled out a tarpaulin, which, with Edwin's assistance, he spread over the broken roof, and fastened as securely as he could, to keep out the weather and other depredators. Then he cut away the lattice of the store-room window with his pocket-knife, until he had cleared a space big enough for Edwin to slip through.

"This feels like house-breaking," said the boy with a laugh, as his feet found a resting-place on Mrs. Hirpington's chopping-block, and he drew in his head and stood upright.

"Ah! but it is not," returned Ottley gravely. "All this is accommodation provided for my 'coach,' and paid for. It will be all right between me and Hirpington. If anybody talks of following in our steps, tell them what I say. Now hand me up that cheese, and the ham on the opposite shelf, and look if there is a round of beef in salt. There should be bovril and tea and sugar somewhere. We may want those for your father. Now for the flour!"

Edwin undid the window from the inside, but he could not lift a sack of flour. He handed up a biscuit-tin, and pound after pound of coffee, until Ottley began to think they had as much as they could carry away. Like a careful housekeeper, Mrs. Hirpington kept the door of her store-room locked, so they could not get through to the kitchen to find the bacon. Where Mrs. Hirpington kept her bread was a puzzle. Then Ottley remembered there was another pantry; but they could not get at it. He discovered two great baskets in the loft, used in the fruit-gathering. He slung them over Beauty's back, and filled them full. Edwin got out of the window again, and shut it after him. Mrs. Hirpington's pastry-board was converted into a temporary shutter. But as all Ottley's fastenings had to be done on the outside, they could also be undone if any one were so minded. Yet this consideration could not weigh against the starving people by the lake. Ottley pulled the hay still in the loft close up to the window, which they left open, so that the old forder could help himself. Then they attempted once again to cross the bush. Poor Beauty was terribly annoyed by his panniers. He conceived the wild idea of rolling over on the ground, to get rid of them. But Ottley promptly circumvented all such attempts. As for the load of hay on his back, Beauty was decidedly of opinion the best way to free himself from that was to eat it up. Edwin contented him with an occasional handful, and much patting and coaxing to soothe his ruffled temper.

It was the middle of the day before they reached Nga-Hepe's whare, which the kindly band of excavators had so expeditiously unroofed. When their work was over in that direction, they had dug into the mud heaps which marked the site of the Rota Pah, and many a poor Maori had been lifted into light and air.

Some of the inhabitants of the village had rushed out at the first alarm, and had escaped in their canoes; others had taken refuge in Nga-Hepe's strongly-built whare; but many had perished beneath their falling roofs.

The captain and his mates had bent all their energies to the task. They had shovelled away the mud from the council-hall, which was also, according to Maori custom, the sleeping-room of the tribe. Here they found men, women, and children huddled together, for the stronger beam of its roof had not yet given way under the weight of the mud. They had carried the survivors to the fire on the bank of the lake, and left them in Whero's care, to await Ottley's return with the food. There was nothing more that the captain and his companions could do here. But other lives might yet be saved elsewhere; and they hurried back to the help of the comrades they had abandoned when Ottley's message reached them.

The natives, swathed in their mats and blankets, were lying in groups on the frozen mud, still gasping and groaning, suffering as much from terror as from physical exhaustion. But the rich men of the tribe, who may always be known by some additional bit of European clothing, were not among them.

The aged patriarch Kakiki, who had been among the first to rally, had raised himself on his elbow, and was asking eager questions about them.

"Where is Pepepe? Hopo-Hopo where? Are there none to answer?" he demanded, gazing at the dazed faces around him. "Then will I tell you. They are struck by the gods in their anger. Who are the gods we worship? who but the mighty ones of the tribe--men whose anger made the brave tremble even here on earth. Who then can hope to stand against their anger in the dwelling of the gods? Is not Hepe the terrible one foremost among them? Did ye at all appease him when ye sent the tana to a son of his race? See his vengeance on Pepepe! He lies dead in the pah, he who proposed it. Who shall carry up his bones to the sacred mountain, that he may sleep with his fathers? The gods will have none of him, for has he not eaten up their child? Ye who brought hunger to this whare, in this place has hunger found you. Ye left Nga-Hepe naught but a roof to shelter him; he has naught but that shelter to give you now. As the lightning shrivels up the fern, so shame shall shrivel up the tongue which asks of him the food of which ye have robbed him."

He ceased speaking as Ottley came in sight. Whero was hidden among the reeds, filling a pail he had exhumed with the muddy water from the lake. Four or five of the other Maoris staggered to their feet and intercepted the horse, clamouring and snatching at the food in its panniers. They had eaten nothing since the night of the eruption. The supply Ottley had brought looked meagre and poor amongst so many, and whilst he promised every man a share, he steadily resisted all their attempts to help themselves until he came up with the little cluster of women and children cowering between the heaps of thatch, when a dozen hands were quickly tearing out the contents of the baskets.

Old Konga seized a stick and tried to beat them off, while Marileha stood behind her imploring her old friends to remember her famishing babes.

Edwin was pushed down, but he scrambled up and ran to meet Whero, as Kakiki Mahane rose slowly from the ground and laid a detaining hand upon the horse's mane. "Who fights with starving men?" he exclaimed, and the stick fell from Ronga's hand in mute obedience.

"What is the matter?" asked Whero, as the boys stood face to face. "There is trouble in your eyes, my brother--a trouble I do not share."

"Ottley has promised to take me on to father; the time is flying, and he cannot get away," said Edwin.

Whero's cheek was rubbed softly against his, a word was whispered between them, and Whero went round to where his own father lay groaning on the ground, leaving his pail behind him. "Father, father, rouse yourself," he entreated, "or the men of the pah will tear the kind coachman to pieces!"

Edwin caught up the pail and threw away the muddy water which Whero had taken such pains to reach, but no vexation at the sight brought the slightest cloud to his dusky face.

"Throw me that tin of coffee," shouted Edwin to the resolute Ottley, who was dividing the food so that every one should have a share, according to his promise.

The desired tin came flying through the air. Edwin emptied its contents into his pail. "Whoever wants coffee," he cried, "must fill this at the geyser."

Nga-Hepe lifted his head from the ground where he had been lying, apparently taking no notice, and said something to his wife. She moved slowly amidst the group until she reached her old friend the coachman. "Go," she whispered. "The boiling spring is choked by the mud. The men are scattering to find another. Go before they return. In their hearts they love you not as we do. Go!"

He put the remainder of his stores into her hands, sprang upon Beauty, and caught up Edwin behind him. They looked back to the old man and the children, and waved their hands in farewell, taking nothing away with them but the bovril and the tea in Edwin's pocket.