Part 14

"Father," he went on cheerily, "the worst is over. Mr. Hirpington is here. He has come to see after you."

"Too late, too late," moaned Mr. Lee. "I fear I am done for. The activity of my days is over, Edwin; and what remains to us?"

"We don't know yet, father," answered the boy, gravely. "I'm young and ever so strong, and if I've only got you to tell me what to do, I can do a lot."

"But, Edwin, have you seen anything of my belt?" asked Mr. Lee, collecting his wandering thoughts.

Edwin shook his head.

"What has become of it?" repeated the sick man nervously, as Mr. Hirpington appeared above the stones. Edwin went to meet him, and to gather together the remainder of his load, which he had left for Beauty to inspect at will.

"A horse up here!" exclaimed Mr. Hirpington. "He must have the feet and knees of a goat."

"I think he has," answered Edwin, backing his favourite to a respectful distance as Mr. Hirpington stepped on to the top of the hill, panting and puffing from the toilsomeness of the long ascent.

He looked around him bewildered, and followed Edwin into the dim recesses beyond the gloomy colonnade of trees, whose hoary age was beyond their reckoning.

"I am the most miserable of men!" he exclaimed, as he stooped over his prostrate friend, and clasped the hand which had saved him at such a cost. "How do I find you?"

"Alive," answered Mr. Lee, "and likely to live, a burden--"

"No, no, father," interposed Edwin.

"Don't say that!" exclaimed Mr. Hirpington, winking hard to get rid of a certain moisture about the eyelids very unusual to him. "To think how I have been living in clover all these days whilst you were lying here, it unmans me. But where on earth are you bivouacking? in a charnel-house?" He ceased abruptly with a shudder, as he discovered it was a human skull he was crushing beneath the heel of his boot.

Hal was busy with the basket, and Edwin ran off to his assistance.

"Sit down, Hal, and begin to eat," urged Edwin. "Now I have come back let me see after father."

But the sight of the longed-for food was too much for the old man. He began to cry like a child.

If the first glance into the full basket had been more than poor Hal could bear, the first taste was a sight from which Mr. Hirpington had to turn away. The one great object before him and Edwin was to get the two to eat, for the starving men seemed at first to refuse the food they were craving for; in fact they could hardly bear it. Mr. Lee put back the cold meat and bread, unable to swallow more; so Edwin at once turned stoker, and lit up a jolly fire of sticks and drying roots.

"We must get them something hot," said Mr. Hirpington, opening one of the many tins of soup which he had brought with him. Soon the savoury contents of the steaming kettle brought back a shadow of English comfort.

Mr. Hirpington had passed many a night of camping out before he settled down at the ford, and he set to work like an old hand. The canvas of the tent was stretched from tree to tree and well pegged down, so as to form a screen on the windward side. The dry moss and still drier fern that could be collected about the brow of the hill where Beauty was ranging, were brought in and strewed over the gnarled and twisted roots, until they gained a warm and comparatively level floor, with an excrescence here and there which served them for a seat. The basket was hung up to preserve its remaining contents from the inspection of centipedes and crawling things, for which Edwin as yet had no nomenclature.

Then the men pulled up their collars to their ears, set their backs against the wind, lit a well-filled pipe, and laid their plans. The transfer of Mr. Hirpington's tobacco-pouch to Hal's pocket had brought back a gleam of sunshine--wintry sunshine, it must be confessed; but who could look for more? Mr. Lee, too, was undeniably better. The shake his brains had received was going over. He was once more able to listen and understand.

"I have telegraphed to Auckland," explained Mr. Hirpington. "I shall have my store of corrugated iron by the next coaster, and Middleton's barge will bring it up to the ford. Thank God for our waterways, there is no stoppage there! I have always kept to the river. But, old friend, before we mend up my own house we must get a roof over your head. There is not a man under me who will not be eager to help us at that; and we cannot do much to the road until the mud hardens thoroughly, so for once there will be help to be had. We are booked for the night up here; but to-morrow I propose to take your boy with me, and go over to your place and see the state it is in. A wooden house stands a deal of earthquaking. Edwin thinks it was the chimney came down. We must put you up an iron one. You have plenty of timber ready felled to mend the roof, and rushes are growing to hand. It is only the work that has to be done, and we all know how to work in New Zealand."

"Oh ay," chimed in old Hal; "most on us sartinly do, and this little chap ain't no foreigner there."

He was already nodding. The comforting influences of the soup and the pipe were inviting the return of "tired nature's sweet restorer." By-and-by he slipped from his seat upon the soft moss, and was lost to every trouble in balmy sleep. Edwin covered him up, feeling rich in the possession of a blanket for every one of the party.

The wintry twilight was gathering round them, cold and chill. The skeleton of the bird monster rattled and shook, and gleamed in spectral whiteness between the blackness of the shadows flung by the interlacing boughs. A kiore working amongst the dry bones seemed to impart a semblance of life to them which effectually banished sleep from Mr. Hirpington, who persuaded Edwin to come closer to him, declaring the boy looked frightened; and well he might, for who but a clod could lay his head on such a floor?

Assured at last that Hal was lost to all outward perception, Mr. Lee whispered the story of his loss. The belt was gone--taken from him whilst he was unconscious. No doubt about that. Mr. Hirpington described the state in which he found his house--the three sackfuls ready to be carried off. Edwin thought he had better tell his father now of the digging up of Whero's treasure.

"There is a thief amongst us," said Mr. Hirpington, "and suspicion points to the gang of rabbiters."

"No, not to Hal," interposed Mr. Lee; "not to all. We may yet find the belt."

He was growing excited and restless. He had talked too much.

"I must have this matter over with Dunter," was Mr. Hirpington's conclusion, when he saw how unable poor Mr. Lee was to bear any lengthened conversation. Before they settled to sleep he charged Edwin to be very careful, and not let any alteration in his manner put the old man on his guard.

The three arose in the gray of the morning with renewed energy. To take Beauty to water, to light a fire and prepare a breakfast in the solitary fastness, left scant time for any further discussion. But second thoughts told Mr. Lee that in such strange circumstances loss was almost inevitable. If his belt had been taken off when his leg was set, it might have been dropped in the all-surrounding mud and never missed.

"True, true," answered Mr. Hirpington, and leaving Mr. Lee to his son's care, he strolled across to the fire, where Hal was brewing the morning coffee, and began to question him about the accident--how and where the tree fell. But no new light was thrown upon the loss. It was hopeless to dig about in the mud, supposing Mr. Lee's last surmise to be correct. He determined to ride Beauty to the ford and look round the scene of the disaster with Edwin.

The day was well up when he stepped across the sunken fence which used to guard his own domain, and found Dunter fixing a pail at the end of the boat-hook to facilitate the bailing out of the mud.

The Maori boy had deserted him, he said, and a fellow single-handed could do little good at work like his. No one else had been near the place. He had kept his watch-fire blazing all night as the best scare to depredators. In Dunter's opinion prevention was the only cure. With so many men wandering homeless about the hills, and with so many relief-parties marching up in every direction, there was sure to be plenty of pilfering, but who could track it home?

The hope of discovering the belt appeared to grow less and less.

"What shall we do without the money?" lamented Edwin, as he continued his journey with his father's friend. "Trouble seems to follow trouble."

"It does," said Mr. Hirpington; "for one grows out of another. But you have not got it all, my boy; for my land, which would have sold for a pound an acre last Saturday week, is not worth a penny with all this depth of volcanic mud upon it. Nothing can grow. But when we get to your father's, where the deposit is only a few inches deep, we shall find the land immensely improved. It will have doubled its value."

As they drew nearer to the little valley the road grew better. The mud had dried, and the fern beneath it was already forcing its way through the crust. The once sparkling rivulet was reduced to a muddy ditch, choked with fallen trees and stones, which the constant earthquaking had shaken down from the sides of the valley.

Beauty took his way to the familiar gate, and neighed. Edwin jumped down and opened it. All was hopeful here, as Mr. Hirpington had predicted. The ground might have been raised a foot, but the house had not been changed into a cellar. The daylight shone through the windows, broken as they were. The place was deluged, not entombed.

"You might return to-morrow," said Mr. Hirpington. "This end of the house is uninjured."

The chimney was down, it was true, the sleeping-rooms were demolished, but the workshop and storeroom were habitable. Whilst Mr. Hirpington considered the roof, Edwin ran round and peeped in at the broken windows. Dirt and confusion reigned everywhere, but no trace as yet of unwelcome visitors. A feeble mew attracted his attention, and Effie's kitten popped up its little head from the fallen cupboard in which it had evidently been exploring. It was fat and well. An unroofed pantry had been its hunting-ground; not the little room at the other end of the veranda, but a small latticed place which Mr. Lee had made to keep the uncooked meat in. The leg of a wild pig and a brace of kukas or wild pigeons, about twice the size of their English namesake, were still hanging on the hooks where Audrey had left them.

The leg of pork had been nibbled all round, and the heads were torn from the pigeons.

"Lucky Miss Kitty," said Edwin. "We thought you had got the freedom of the bush, and here you've been living in luxury whilst the rest of the world was starving. Come; you must go shares, you darling!"

It clawed up the wall, and almost leaped into his arms, to be covered with kisses and deafened with promises which were shouted out in the joy of his heart, until Mr. Hirpington began to wonder what had happened.

"My boy, have you gone quite crazy?" he exclaimed. "Why don't you look after your horse? you will lose him!"

Edwin looked round, and saw Beauty careering up the side of the valley. He shut the kitten carefully into the workshop. Mr. Hirpington had just got the other door open, and came out to assist in recalling Beauty to his duty.

Edwin started off after his horse; but he had not gone far when he was aware of another call, to which his Beauty paid more heed than he seemed disposed to show to Edwin's reiterated commands to come back.

The call was in Maori, and in a few minutes Nga-Hepe himself emerged from the bush and seized the horse by the forelock.

*CHAPTER XVII.*

*EDWIN IN DANGER.*

When Mr. Hirpington came up he found his little English friend in earnest argument with the Maori warrior.

Nga-Hepe's looks were excited and wild. He was carrying the famous greenstone club, which he brandished every now and then in the heat of the conversation.

"Come with me," he was saying peremptorily--"come with me and find the man."

"I cannot," answered Edwin, toughly. "I cannot leave my father. Take the horse, if you will, and follow the tracks in the mud. I will show you which is Lawford's footprint."

"Show me the man, and I will believe you," retorted Nga-Hepe, swinging himself lightly upon Beauty's back as he spoke.

Edwin glanced round at Mr. Hirpington. It was a look which said, "Stand by me." The appeal was mute, and he answered it neither by word nor sign. Edwin thought despairingly he had not understood him, but a hand was laid on his shoulder. He almost fancied he was pushed aside, as Mr. Hirpington spoke to Nga-Hepe in his cheeriest tones:--

"Well met, old neighbour. Both of us above ground once again, thank God in his mercy. As for me and mine, we were fairly buried alive, and should have died under the mud but for this lad's father. We left everything and fled for our lives, and so it was with most of us. But now the danger is over, I have come back to look after my property, and find a thief has been there before me. According to this boy's account, I am afraid the same fellow has walked off with something of yours. But I have a plan to catch him, and you are the one to help me."

"A' right," answered the Maori. "You catch your man, I catch my boy. Man and boy go hand in hand."

"No," said Edwin stoutly; "I have nothing to do with Lawford."

Nga-Hepe raised his club. "You, who but you," he asked, "watched my wife dig hole? Who but you set foot on the spot? Who but you say, 'Man dig here'? I'll make you say a little more. Which had the bag?"

"I have never seen or touched the bag since I gave it back to your wife Marileha on the night of the tana's visit," answered Edwin.

"A' right," repeated Nga-Hepe. "No, you are not a' right, or you would go with me to find the man; for who but you knows who he is? If you won't, you are a' wrong, and I have come here to kill you."

An exasperated savage on horseback, with a club in his hand, was no mean foe. Edwin thought of old Hal's words. Was it a bad day's work which restored Nga-Hepe to life? But he answered himself still with an unwavering "No."

"You are returning me evil for good," said Edwin quietly. "Whero would not have dared to follow the kaka over the mud if I had not gone with him; but for me you would have been a dead man. Ask Whero--ask your own son."

"I take no counsel with boys," answered the Maori loftily.

"Neither do I think overmuch of boys," interposed Mr. Hirpington; "but we will keep young Lee with us, and all go together and find the man if possible. Yet with you on his back that horse will go like the wind. How are we to keep up with you?"

"You have ridden behind me before," said Nga-Hepe, turning to Edwin; "you can do it again."

"Only I won't," thought Edwin; but aloud he said, "So I could, but then there is Mr. Hirpington. What is he to do?"

"Ah!" put in the latter, taking out his pipe and lighting it deliberately, "the question is not how we shall go, but which way. The relief-parties are beginning to disperse. Now, Nga-Hepe, I am as earnestly desiring to help you as I am to defend myself. Only I see plainly if we try to follow the fellow among these wild hills we shall miss him. He belongs to a gang of rabbiters. I know their leader. Let him call his chums together. I'll provide the lure--a reward and a jolly good dinner for every one of the poor fellows who came so gallantly to our help at the risk of their own lives. We must bear in mind that after Mr. Lee these rabbiters were the first in the field. If there is a black sheep among them, we shall have him. But I must get my own men about me, and then we will confront him with Edwin Lee, in the presence of them all."

"Your plan is good," answered the Maori. "Try it and I try mine; then one or other of us will catch him."

"That will be me," remarked Mr. Hirpington, in a knock-down tone.

"Jump up!" cried Nga-Hepe, turning to Edwin.

"No, no," interposed Mr. Hirpington; "it is I who must have young Lee. I have left a watchman at the ford ready to pounce on the thief if he should return there for his booty. I may want this boy any minute. Ride fast from camp to camp. Ask for any of my roadmen among them, and give my message to them. Ask if there are any rabbiters, and give the other in Hal's name. I'll make it right with the old man. We shall throw our net so wide this Lawford can't escape our meshes. He must have got your bag about him, and the other money I suspect he has taken. We'll make him give it all up."

No one was noticing Edwin. He made a slight sound, which set Beauty off trotting, as he knew it would.

The delight of feeling his own good horse beneath him once again induced Nga-Hepe to quicken the trot to a gallop. He did not turn back to prolong the discussion, but only waved his arm in reply.

Edwin thought to increase the distance between them by running off in the opposite direction.

"No, no," said Mr. Hirpington; "just stand still by me. If he saw you begin to run, he would be after you in a minute. If the ape and the tiger lie dormant in some of us, the wild animal is rampant in him. Face him to the last."

Edwin looked up with admiring gratitude at the friend who had so skilfully delivered him.

They watched the vanishing figure as Edwin had watched him on the day of his first acquaintance with the Maori warrior.

"He will never give back my Beauty," he sighed, as horse and rider were lost to view in the darkling bush.

"Your horse may prove your ransom," said Mr. Hirpington, as they retraced their steps. He knew that the boy's life was no longer safe within the reach of the angry savage. What was he to do? Send him off to a friend at a distance until the affair had blown over? Yes; row him down the river and put him on board one of the Union steamers.

He began to question Edwin. "Had they any other friends in New Zealand?"

"None," answered the boy.

"More's the pity," said Mr. Hirpington; "for it will not do for you and your father to remain alone with Hal on that hill any longer. We must separate you from the rabbiters, for the gang will be sure to draw together soon. It is nearly a week since the eruption. I hope and trust some of my men may get my message, and come to us before Nga-Hepe returns."

"If any of the surveying party are about still, they would help us," said Edwin. "Mr. Ottley told me how to signal to them, and they answered at once. They said we were to signal again if we wanted them. The captain of the coaster is with them. He would be sure to come."

Mr. Hirpington knew nothing about the captain, but he assented. "Signal by all means. If we have Englishmen enough about us, we shall carry this through. We must get your father home. One or two men will soon mend the roof. I'll spare you Dunter; he would keep a sharp look-out. As the relief-parties disperse, we shall see who comes our way. Chance may favour us."

Then the two started again for the ford, leaving pussy once more in possession of the valley farm. Mr. Hirpington was struck when he saw the difference a single day's hard work had effected.

"I want to be by your side, Dunter, putting my own shoulder to the wheel, and we should soon fetch the mistress home. But we are in for an awful deal of trouble with these poor Lees, and we can't fail them. Somehow they do not square it with their Maori neighbours," he sighed.

"Not quite up to managing 'em yet, I guess," replied Dunter, as he showed his master a kitchen clear of mud, although a stranger still to the scrubbing-brush. A few loose boards were laid down as pathways to the bedroom doors, which all stood wide, letting in the clear river breeze from the windows beyond. Dunter was washing his hands to have a spell at the bedmaking, as he said.

"We are all relegated to the cellar," sighed his master, "and we cannot stay to enjoy even that. We shall have a row with Nga-Hepe's people if we are not on the alert. I want to get this young Lee out of their way. Where will he be safest for to-night?"

"Here with me, abed and asleep," answered the man unhesitatingly.

Mr. Hirpington glanced into the range of bedrooms, still left as at the moment when their occupants rushed out in the first alarm. "That will do," he assented. "Trust a boy to go to sleep. He will tumble in just as the beds are. Anything for his supper?"

"Plenty, but it is all poisoned with the horrid sulphurous stench. Something out of the tins is best," groaned Dunter.

"Give him one or two to open for himself, and shut him in. Drive that meal-barrel against the door, and don't you let him out till I come back," was Mr. Hirpington's parting charge, as he pushed off in his boat for the lake, to light the beacon-fires on the hills around it, to summon the help he so much needed.

Edwin, who had been hunting up the kaka, was disappointed to find himself left behind.

"All the better for you," retorted Dunter. "Take the bird in with you, and get a sound sleep, now you have the chance."

"Oh, you are good!" exclaimed Edwin, when he saw a jug of river-water, a tin of sardines, and another of brawn, backed by a hunch of mouldy bread, provided for his supper.

The door was shut, and he lay down without a suspicion of the kindly-meant imprisonment on which he was entering. Both men were sure he would never have consented to it had he known of their intentions beforehand. They did not want to make the boy too much afraid of his dusky neighbours; "for he has got to live in the midst of them," they said. "He will let them alone after this," thought Dunter. "He has had his scare for the present; let him sleep and forget it."

The deep and regular breathing of a sleeper soon told Dunter his wish was realized.

It was a weary vigil for Mr. Hirpington. He kept his watch-fire blazing from dusk till dawn.

It was a wakeful, anxious night for Hal and Mr. Lee, who saw the beacon-lights afar, and wondered more and more over the unlooked-for sight.

"It is some one signalling for help," groaned Mr. Lee, feeling most painfully his inability to give it. It might be Edwin, it might be some stranger. He wanted his companion to leave him and go to see. But the old man only shook his head, and muttered, "There is no go left in me, I'm so nearly done."

Mr. Hirpington had given up hope. He had coiled himself in his blanket, laid his head on the hard ground, and yielded to the overwhelming desire for sleep.

The returning party of surveyors, who started on their march with the first peep of the dawn, caught the red glow through the misty gray. They turned their steps aside, and found, as they supposed, a sleeping traveller. It was the only face they had seen on the hills which was not haggard and pale. In the eyes of those toilworn men, fresh from the perils of the rescue, it seemed scarcely possible that any one there could look so ruddy and well unless he had been selfishly shirking his duty to his neighbour, and the greeting they gave him was biting with its caustic.

"There is no help for me out of such a set of churls," thought Mr. Hirpington bitterly, as he tried to tell his story, without making much impression, until he mentioned the name of Edwin Lee, and then they turned again to listen, for the captain was amongst them.

But as for this stranger, had he not food and friends of his own? what did he want of them? they asked.

"Help for a neighbour who has saved more lives than can be counted, and is now lying on the hills with a broken leg; help to convey him to his home," Mr. Hirpington returned, with increasing warmth, as he showed them there was but one way of doing that. They must carry the poor fellow through the bush on a stretcher. "When did colonists turn their back on a chum in distress?" he asked reproachfully.