Part 2

"I am not of his tribe," answered Nga-Hepe. "I come of the Ureweras, the noblest and purest of our race. Our dead men rest upon the sacred hills where the Maori chiefs lie buried. When a child of Hepe dies," he went on, pointing to the mountain range, "the thunder rolls and the lightning flashes along those giant hills, that all men may know his hour has come. No matter where the Hepe lay concealed, men always knew when danger threatened him. They always said such and such a chief is dying, because the thunder and lightning are in such a place. Look up! the sky is calm and still. The hills are silent; Mount Tarawera rears its threefold crest above them all in its own majestic grandeur. Well, I know no real danger menaces me to-night."

"I trust you are right, Nga-Hepe, but--" began Edwin quickly. The Maori turned his head away; he could admit no "buts," and the English boy made vain endeavours to argue the question.

A noisy, boisterous jabbering arose from the village as the crowd outside the grand whare hailed the decision of the elders holding council within. Dogs, pigs, and boys added their voices to the general acclamation, and drowned Edwin's so completely he gave up in despair; and after all he thought, "Can any one wonder at Nga-Hepe clinging to the old superstitions of his race? In the wild grandeur of a spot like this it seems in keeping."

So he said no more. They crossed the broken ground. Before them gleamed the waters of the lake, upon whose bank Nga-Hepe's house was standing--the old ancestral whare, the dwelling-place of the Hepes generation after generation. Its well-thatched roof was higher than any of the roofs in the pah, and more pointed. The wood of which this whare was built was carved into idol figures and grinning monsters, now black and shining with excessive age.

The garden around it was better cultivated, and the ample store of roots and grain in the smaller whare behind it told of the wealth of its owner. Horses and pigs were snorting and squealing beneath the hoary trees, overshadowing the mud-hole and the geyser spring, by which the Maori loves to make his home. The canoe was riding on the lake, the lovely lake, as clear and blue as the sky it mirrored.

The sight of it recalled Edwin to his purpose, and he once more questioned Nga-Hepe as to the whereabouts of the ford.

"Enter and eat," said the Maori, alighting at his low-browed door.

The gable end of the roof projected over it like a porch, and Edwin paused under its shadow to take in the unfamiliar surroundings. Beneath the broad eaves huge bundles of native flax and tobacco were drying. In the centre of the long room within there was a blazing fire of crackling wood. But its cheerful welcome seemed to contend with a sense of desertion which pervaded the place.

Nga-Hepe called in vain for his accustomed attendant to take his horse. No one answered his summons. He shouted; no answer. The wooden walls of the neighbouring pah faintly echoed back his words. All his men were gone. He muttered something in his own tongue, which Edwin could not understand, as he led the way into the long room. In so grand a whare this room was divided into separate stalls, like a well-built stable. An abundance of native mats strewed the floor.

The Maori's eyes fell upon the corner where his greenstone club, the treasured heirloom of many generations, leaned against an English rifle, and on the boar's tusks fixed in the wall at intervals, where his spears and fishing-rods were ranged in order. By their side hung a curious medley of English apparel. The sweeping feathers of a broad felt hat drooped above a gaudy table-cloth, which by its many creases seemed to have done duty on the person of its owner. Edwin's merriment was excited by the number of scent-bottles, the beautiful cut-glass carafe, and many other expensive articles suspended about the room--all bearing a silent testimony to the wealth of which Nga-Hepe had spoken. Two happy-looking children, each wearing a brightly-coloured handkerchief folded across their tiny shoulders in true Maori fashion, were grinding at a barrel-organ. One fat little knee served as a pillow for a tangle of rough black hair, which a closer inspection showed him was the head of a sleeping boy.

Nga-Hepe's wife, wearing a cloak of flowered silk, with a baby slung in a shawl at her back, and a short pipe in her mouth, met him with soft words of pleading remonstrance which Edwin could not understand.

Her husband patted her fondly on the arm, touched the baby's laughing lips, and seated himself on the floor by the fire, inviting Edwin to join him.

The sleeping boy gave a great yawn, and starting to his feet, seemed to add his entreaties to his mother's. He held a book in his hand--a geography, with coloured maps--which he had evidently been studying; but he dropped it in despair, as his father only called for his supper.

"Help us to persuade him," he whispered to Edwin in English; "he may listen to a pakeha. Tell him it is better to go away."

"Why?" asked Edwin.

"Why!" repeated the boy excitedly; "because the chief is threatening him with a muru. He will send a band of men to eat up all the food, and carry off everything we have that can be carried away; but they will only come when father is at home."

"A bag of talk!" interrupted Nga-Hepe. "Shall it be said the son of the warrior sneaks off and hides himself at the first threat?"

"But," urged Edwin, "you promised to row back for Mr. Bowen."

"Yes, and I will. I will eat, and then I go," persisted Nga-Hepe, as his wife stamped impatiently.

Two or three women ran in with the supper which they had been cooking in a smaller whare in the background. They placed the large dishes on the floor: native potatoes--more resembling yams in their sweetness than their English namesakes--boiled thistles, and the ancient Maori delicacy, salted shark.

They all began to eat, taking the potatoes in their hands, when a wild cry rang through the air--a cry to strike terror to any heart. It was the first note of the Maori war-song, caught up and repeated by a dozen powerful voices, until it became a deafening yell. Hepe's wife tore frantically at her long dark hair.

The Maori rose to his feet with an inborn dignity, and grasped the greenstone club, taking pride in the prestige of such a punishment. Turning to Edwin he said: "When the ferns are on fire the sparks fall far and wide. Take the horse--it is yours; I give it to you. It is the last gift I shall have it in my power to make for many a day to come. There lies your path through the bush; once on the open road again the ford-house will be in sight, and Whero shall be your guide. Tell the old pakeha the canoe is mine no more."

The woman snatched up the children and rushed away with them, uttering a wailing cry.

Edwin knew he had no alternative, but he did not like the feeling of running away in the moment of peril.

"Can't I help you, though I am only a boy?" he asked.

"Yes," answered Hepe's wife, as she almost pushed him out of the door in her desperation; "take this."

She lifted up a heavy bag from the corner of the whare, and put it into his hands. Whero had untied the horse, and was pointing to the distant pah, from which the yells proceeded.

A band of armed men, brandishing clubs and spears, were leading off the war-dance. Their numbers were swelling. The word of fear went round from lip to lip, "The tana is coming!"

The tana is the band of armed men sent by the chief to carry out this act of savage despotism. They had been on the watch for Nga-Hepe. They had seen him riding through the pah. All hope of getting him out of the way was over.

Father and mother joined in the last despairing desire to send off Whero, their little lord and first-born, of whom the Maoris make so much, and treat with so much deference. They never dreamed of ordering him to go. A freeborn Maori brooks no control even in childhood. But their earnest entreaties prevailed. He got up before Edwin. He would not ride behind him, not he, to save his life. He yielded for the sake of the horse he loved so well. He thought he might get it back from the young pakeha, but who could wrest it from the grasp of the tana? Perhaps Nga-Hepe shared the hope. The noble horse was dear to father and son.

"Oh, I am so sorry for you!" said Edwin as he guessed the truth; "and so will father be, I'm sure." He stopped in sudden silence as another terrific yell echoed back by lake and tree.

He felt the good horse quiver as they plunged into the safe shelter of the bush, leaving Hepe leaning on his club on the threshold of his whare.

Edwin's first care now was to get to Mr. Hirpington's as fast as he could. But his desire to press on met with no sympathy from his companion, who knew not how to leave the spot until his father's fate was decided. He had backed the horse into the darkest shadow of the trees, and here he wanted to lie in ambush and watch; for the advancing warriors were surrounding the devoted whare, and the shrieking women were flying from it into the bush.

How could Edwin stop him when Whero would turn back to meet his mother? The rendezvous of the fugitives was a tall karaka tree--a forest king rearing its giant stem full seventy feet above the mossy turf. A climbing plant, ablaze with scarlet flowers, had wreathed itself among the branches, and hung in long festoons which swept the ground. The panting women flung themselves down, and dropped their heavy burdens at its root; for all had snatched up the nearest thing which came to hand as they ran out. One had wrapped the child she carried in a fishing-net; another drew from beneath the folds of the English counterpane she was wearing the long knife that had been lying on the floor by the dish of shark; while Whero's mother, shaking her wealth of uncombed hair about her like a natural veil, concealed in her arms a ponderous axe.

The big black horse gave a loving whinny as he recognized their footsteps, and turning of his own accord, cantered up to them as they began to raise the death-wail--doing tangi as they call it--over the outcast children crying for the untasted supper, on which the invaders were feasting.

"May it choke the pigs!" muttered Whero, raising himself in the stirrups and catching at the nearest bough, he gave it a shake, which sent a shower of the karaka nuts tumbling down upon the little black heads and fighting fists. The women stopped their wail to crack and eat. The horse bent down his head to claim a share, and the children scrambled to their feet to scoop the sweet kernel from the opened shell. The hungry boys were forced to join them, and Edwin found to his surprise that leaf and nut alike were good and wholesome food. They ate in silence and fear, as the wild woods rang with the shouts of triumph and derision as the rough work of confiscation went forward in the whare.

With the much-needed food Edwin's energy was returning. He gave back the bag to Whero's mother, assuring her if her son would only guide him to the road he could find his own way to the ford.

"Let us all go farther into the bush," said the oldest woman of the group, "before the tana comes out. The bush they cannot take from us, and all we need the most the bush will provide."

The weight of the bag he had carried convinced Edwin it was full of money.

Whero's mother was looking about for a place where she could hide it; so they wandered on until the sun shone brightly between the opening trees, and they stepped out upon an unexpected clearing.

"The road! the road!" cried Whero, pointing to the gleam of water in the distance, and the dark roof of the house by the ford, half buried in the white blossom of the acacia grove beside it.

"All right!" exclaimed Edwin joyfully. "You need go no farther."

He took the bridle from Whero, and turned the horse's head towards the ford, loath to say farewell to his strange companions. As he went at a steady trot along the road, he could not keep from looking back. He saw they were burying the bag of treasure where two white pines grew near together, and the wild strawberries about their roots were ripening in the sun. The road, a mere clearing in the forest, lay straight before him. As Nga-Hepe had said, an hour's ride brought him to Mr. Hirpington's door.

The house was large and low, built entirely of corrugated iron. It was the only spot of ugliness in the whole landscape. A grassy bank higher than Edwin's head surrounded the home enclosure, and lovely white-winged pigeons were hovering over the yellow gorse, which formed an impenetrable wall on the top of the bank. A gate stood open, and by its side some rough steps cut in the rock led down to the riverbed, through a tangle of reeds and bulrushes. Like most New Zealand rivers, the bed was ten times wider than the stream, and the stretch of mud on either side increased the difficulties of the crossing.

Edwin rode up to the gate and dismounted, drew the bridle through the ring in the post, and entered a delightful garden, where peach and almond and cherry trees brought back a thought of home. The ground was terraced towards the house, which was built on a jutting rock, to be out of the reach of winter floods. Honeysuckle and fuchsia, which Edwin had only known in their dwarfed condition in England, rose before him as stately trees, tall as an English elm, eclipsing all the white and gold of the acacias and laburnums, which sheltered the end of the house.

The owner, spade in hand, was at work among his flower-beds. His dress was as rough as the navvy's, and Edwin, who had studied Mr. Hirpington's photograph so often, asked himself if this man, so brown and brawny and broad, could be his father's friend?

"Please, I'm Edwin Lee," said the boy bluntly. "Is Mr. Hirpington at home?"

The spade was thrown aside, and a hand all smeared with garden mould grasped his own, and a genial voice exclaimed, "Yes, Hirpington is here, bidding you heartily welcome! But how came you, my lad, to forerun the coach?"

Then Edwin poured into sympathetic ears the tale of their disaster, adding earnestly, "I thought I had better come on with your messenger, and tell you what had happened."

"Coach with a wheel off in the gorge!" shouted Mr. Hirpington to a chum in-doors, and Edwin knew he had found the friend in need, whose value no one can estimate like a colonist.

Before Edwin could explain why Nga-Hepe had failed in his promise to return with his canoe, Mr. Hirpington was down the boating-stairs, loosening his own "tub," as he called it, from its moorings. To the Maori's peril he lent but half an ear. "No use our interfering there," he said. "I'm off to your father."

A head appeared at a window overlooking the bed of rushes, and two men came out of the house door, and assisted him to push the boat into the water. The window above was thrown open, and a hastily-filled basket was handed down. Then a kind, motherly voice told Edwin to come in-doors.

The room he entered was large and faultlessly clean, serving the threefold purpose of kitchen, dining-room, and office. The desk by the window, the gun in the corner, the rows of plates above the dresser, scarcely seemed to encroach on each other, or make the long dining-table look ashamed of their company.

Mrs. Hirpington, who was expecting the "coach to sleep" under her roof that night, was preparing her meat for the spit at the other end of the room. The pipes and newspaper, which had been hastily thrown down at the sound of Mr. Hirpington's summons, showed Edwin where the men had been resting after their day's work. They were, as he guessed, employes on the road, which was always requiring mending and clearing, while Mr. Hirpington was their superintendent, as well as ford-keeper.

His wife, in a homely cotton dress of her own making, turned to Edwin with the well-bred manner of an English lady and the hearty hospitality of a colonist.

"Not a word about being in the way, my dear; the trouble is a pleasure. We shall have you all here, a merry party, before long. There are worse disasters than this at sea." She smiled as she delayed the roast, and placed a chop on the grill for Edwin's benefit.

The cozy sense of comfort which stole over him was so delightful, as he stretched himself on the sofa on the other side of the fire, it made him think the more of the homeless wanderers in the bush, and he began to describe to Mrs. Hirpington the strange scene he had witnessed.

A band of armed men marching out of the village filled her with apprehension. She ran to the window overlooking the river to see if the boat had pushed off, and called to the men remaining behind--for the ford was never left--to know if the other roadmen had yet come in.

"They are late," she said. "They must have heard the coachman's 'coo,' and are before us with their help. They have gone down to the gorge. You may rest easy about your father."

But she could not rest easy. She looked to the loading of the guns, put the bar in the gate herself, and held a long conference with Dunter over the alarming intelligence.

But the man knew more of Maori ways than she did, and understood it better. "I'll not be saying," he answered, "but what it will be wise in us to keep good watch until they have all dispersed. Still, with Hepe's goods to carry off and divide, they will not be thinking of interfering with us. Maybe you'll have Nga-Hepe's folk begging shelter as the night draws on."

"I hope not," she retorted quickly. "Give them anything they ask for, but don't be tempted to open the gate. Tell them the coach is coming, and the house is full."

A blaze of fire far down the river called everybody into the garden. Some one was signalling. But Dunter was afraid to leave Mrs. Hirpington, and Mrs. Hirpington was equally afraid to be left.

A great horror fell upon Edwin. "Can it be father?" he exclaimed.

Dunter grasped the twisted trunk of the giant honeysuckle, and swung himself on to the roof of the house to reconnoitre. Edwin was up beside him in a moment.

"Oh, it is nothing," laughed the man--"nothing but some chance traveller waiting by the roadside for the expected coach, and, growing impatient, has set a light to the dry branches of a ti tree to make sure of stopping the coach."

But the wind had carried the flames beyond the tree, and the fire was spreading in the bush.

"It will burn itself out," said Dunter carelessly; "no harm in that."

But surely the coach was coming!

Edwin looked earnestly along the line which the bush road had made through the depths of the forest. He could see clearly to a considerable distance. The fire was not far from the two white pines where he had parted from his dusky companions, and soon he saw them rushing into the open to escape from the burning fern. On they ran towards the ford, scared by the advancing fire. How was Mrs. Hirpington to refuse to open her gates and take them in? Women and children--it could not be done.

Edwin was pleading at her elbow.

"I saw it all, Mrs. Hirpington; I know how it happened. Nga-Hepe gave me his horse, that I might escape in safety to you."

"Well, well," she answered, resigning herself to the inevitable. "If you will go out and meet them and bring them here, Dunter shall clear the barn to receive them."

Edwin slid down the rough stem of the honeysuckle and let himself out, and ran along the road for about half-a-mile, waving his hat and calling to the fugitives to come on, to come to the ford.

The gray-haired woman in the counterpane, now begrimed with mud and smoke, was the first to meet him.

She shouted back joyfully, "The good wahini [woman] at the ford has sent to fetch us. She hear the cry of the child. Good! good!"

But the invitation met with no response from Whero and his mother.

"Shall it be said by morning light Nga-Hepe's wife was sleeping in the Ingarangi [English] bed, and he a dead man lying on the floor of his forefathers' whare, with none to do tangi above him!" she exclaimed, tearing fresh handfuls from her long dark hair in her fury.

"Oh to be bigger and stronger," groaned Whero, "that I might play my game with the greenstone club! but my turn will come."

The blaze of passion in the boy's star-like eyes recalled his mother to calmness. "What are you," she asked, "but an angry child to court the blow of the warrior's club that would end your days? A man can bide his hour. Go with the Ingarangi, boy."

"Yes, go," urged her companion.

A bright thought struck the gray-haired woman, and she whispered to Edwin, "Get him away; get him safe to the Ingarangi school. Nothing can reach him there. He loves their learning; it will make him a mightier man than his fathers have ever been. If he stays with us, we can't hold him back. He will never rest till he gets himself killed."

"Ah, but my Whero will go back with the Ingarangi boy and beg a blanket to keep the babies from the cold night wind," added his mother coaxingly.

"Come along," said Edwin, linking his arm in Whero's and setting off with a run. "Now tell me all you want--blankets, and what else?"

But the boy had turned sullen, and would not speak. He put his hands before his face and sobbed as if his heart would break.

"Where is the horse?" he asked abruptly, as they reached Mrs. Hirpington's gate.

"In there," said Edwin, pointing to the stable.

The Maori boy sprang over the bar which Dunter had fixed across the entrance to keep the horse in, and threw his arms round the neck of his black favourite, crying more passionately than ever.

"He is really yours," put in Edwin, trying to console him. "I do not want to keep the horse when you can take him back. Indeed, I am not sure my father will let me keep him."

But he was speaking to deaf ears; so he left Whero hugging his four-footed friend, and went in-doors for the blankets. Mrs. Hirpington was very ready to send them; but when Edwin returned to the stable, he found poor Whero fast asleep.

"Just like those Maoris," laughed Dunter. "They drop off whatever they are doing; it makes no difference. But remember, my man, there is a good old saying, 'Let sleeping dogs lie.'"

So, instead of waking Whero, they gently closed the stable-door; and Edwin went off alone with the blankets on his shoulder. He found Nga-Hepe's wife still seated by the roadside rocking her baby, with her two bigger children asleep beside her. One dark head was resting on her knee, the other nestling close against her shoulder. Edwin unfolded one of the blankets he was bringing and wrapped it round her, carefully covering up the little sleepers. Her companions had not been idle. To the Maori the resources of the bush are all but inexhaustible. They were making a bed of freshly-gathered fern, and twisting a perfect cable from the fibrous flax-leaves. This they tied from tree to tree, and flung another blanket across it, making a tent over the unfortunate mother. Then they crept behind her, under the blanket, keeping their impromptu tent in shape with their own backs.

"Goo'-night," they whispered, "goo' boy. Go bush a' right."

But Edwin lingered another moment to tell the disconsolate mother how he had left Whero sleeping by the horse.

"Wake up--no find us--then he go school," she said, wrinkling the patch of tattoo on her lip and chin with the ghost of a smile.

*CHAPTER III.*

*A RIDE THROUGH THE BUSH.*

The fire by the white pines had died away, but a cloud of smoke rose from the midst of the trees and obscured the view. A faint rumbling sound and the dull thud of horses' feet reached Edwin from time to time as he ran back to the ford.

A lantern was swinging in the acacia tree. The white gate was flung open, and Dunter, with his hand to his ear, stood listening to the far-off echo.