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.. meta::
   :PG.Id: 43620
   :PG.Title: Doing and Daring
   :PG.Released: 2013-09-02
   :PG.Rights: Public Domain
   :PG.Producer: Al Haines
   :DC.Creator: Eleanor Stredder
   :DC.Title: Doing and Daring
              A New Zealand Story
   :DC.Language: en
   :DC.Created: 1899
   :coverpage: images/img-cover.jpg

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DOING AND DARING
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      Cover

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      :alt: THE OLD CHIEF.  Page 81.

      THE OLD CHIEF.  Page `81`_.

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      DOING AND DARING

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      A New Zealand Story

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      BY

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      ELEANOR STREDDER

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      *Author of "Lost in the Wilds," "The Merchant's Children,"
      "Jack and his Ostrich,"
      etc.*

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   ..

   |  "Who counts his brother's welfare
   |    As sacred as his own,
   |  And loves, forgives, and pities,
   |    He serveth Me alone.
   |  I note each gracious purpose,
   |    Each kindly word and deed;
   |  Are ye not all my children!
   |    Shall not the Father heed?"
   |                      WHITTIER.

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      \T. NELSON AND SONS
      *London, Edinburgh, and New York*
      1899

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   Contents

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I.  `IN THE MOUNTAIN GORGE`_
II.  `THE WHARE BY THE LAKE`_
III.  `A RIDE THROUGH THE BUSH`_
IV.  `THE NEW HOME`_
V.  `POSTING A LETTER`_
VI.  `MIDNIGHT ALARMS`_
VII.  `THE RAIN OF MUD`_
VIII.  `A RAGING SEA`_
IX.  `NOTHING TO EAT`_
X.  `THE MAORI BOY`_
XI.  `WIDESPREAD DESOLATION`_
XII.  `EDWIN'S DISCOVERY`_
XIII.  `FEEDING THE HUNGRY`_
XIV.  `RAIN AND FLOOD`_
XV.  `WHO HAS BEEN HERE?`_
XVI.  `LOSS AND SUSPICION`_
XVII.  `EDWIN IN DANGER`_
XVIII.  `WHERO TO THE RESCUE`_
XIX.  `MET AT LAST`_
XX.  `JUST IN TIME`_
XXI.  `THE VALLEY FARM`_

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.. _`IN THE MOUNTAIN GORGE`:

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   DOING AND DARING.

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   CHAPTER I.

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   IN THE MOUNTAIN GORGE.

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It was a glorious autumn day, when the New
Zealand bush was at its loveliest—as enchanting
as if it truly were the fairy ground of the Southern
Ocean; yet so unlike every European forest that
weariness seemed banished by its ceaseless variety.
Here the intertwining branches of majestic trees, with
leaves of varied hue, shut out the sky, and seemed to
roof the summer road which wound its devious track
towards the hills; there a rich fern-clad valley,
from which the murmuring sound of falling water
broke like music on the ear.  Onwards still a little
farther, and an overgrown creek, gently wandering
between steep banks of rich dark fern and graceful
palm, came suddenly out of the greenwood into an
open space, bounded by a wall of rock, rent by a
darkling chasm, where the waters of the creek,
tumbling over boulder stone and fallen tree, broadened
to a rushing river.  Along its verge the road
continued, a mere wheel-track cut in the rock, making
it a perilous crossing, as the driver of the weekly mail
knew full well.

His heavy, lumbering coach was making its way
towards it at that moment, floundering through the
two feet deep of mud which New Zealanders call a
bush road.  The five poor horses could only walk, and
found that hard work, while the passengers had enough
to do to keep their seats.

Fortunately the coach was already lightened of a
part of its load, some fares with which it started
having reached their destination at the last
stopping-place.  The seven remaining consisted of a rough,
jolly-looking, good-humoured fellow, bound for the
surveyors' camp among the hills; an old identity, as
New Zealanders call a colonist who has been so long
resident in the land of his adoption that he has
completely identified himself with it; and a newly-arrived
settler with his four children, journeying to take
possession of a government allotment in the Waikato
district.

With the first two passengers long familiarity with
the discomforts of bush travelling had grown to
indifference; but to Mr. Lee and his family the
experience was a trying one, as the coach swayed
heavily to this side and that, backwards and forwards,
up and down, like a boat on a rough sea.  More than
once Mr. Lee's little girls were precipitated into the
arms of their *vis-à-vis*, or bumped backwards with
such violence a breakage seemed inevitable; but
which would suffer the most, the coach or its
passengers, was an open question.

Any English-made vehicle with springs must have
been smashed to pieces; but the New Zealand mail had
been constructed to suit the exigencies of the country.
With its frame of iron and sides of leather, it could
resist an amount of wear and tear perfectly incredible
to Mr. Lee.  He sat with an arm round each of his
daughters, vainly trying to keep them erect in their
places.  Their two brothers bobbed recklessly from
corner to corner, thinking nothing of the bruises in
their ever-increasing merriment when the edge of
Erne's broad-brimmed straw hat went dash into the
navvy's eyes, or Audrey's gray dust-cloak got entangled
in the buckles of the old identity's travelling-bag.

Audrey, with a due regard for the proprieties, began
a blushing apology.

"My dear child," exclaimed the portly old gentleman,
"you speak as if I did not know you could not
help it."

The words were scarcely uttered, when the whole
weight of his sixteen stone went crushing on to little
Cuthbert, who emerged from the jolly squeeze with a
battered hat and an altogether flattened appearance.
Then came an unexpected breathing-space.  The
coachman stopped to leave a parcel at the roadman's
hut, nestling beneath the shelter of the rocks by the
entrance of the gorge.

New Zealand roads are under the care of the
government, who station men at intervals all along
their route to keep them in order.  The special duty
of this individual was to see that no other traffic
entered the gorge when the coach was passing through
it.  Whilst he exchanged greetings with the coachman,
the poor passengers with one accord gave a stretch
and a yawn as they drew themselves into a more
comfortable position.

On again with renewed jolts between the towering
walls of rock, with a rush of water by their side
drowning the rumble of the wheels.  The view was
grand beyond description, but no rail or fence protected
the edge of the stream.

Mr. Lee was leaning out of the window, watching
anxiously the narrow foot of road between them and
destruction, when, with a sudden lurch, over went the
coach to the other side.

"A wheel off," groaned the old identity, as he
knocked heads with the navvy, and became painfully
conscious of a struggling heap of arms and legs
encumbering his feet.

.. _`AN AWKWARD PLIGHT.`:

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   :alt: AN AWKWARD PLIGHT.

   AN AWKWARD PLIGHT.

Audrey clung to the door-handle, and felt herself
slowly elevating.  Mr. Lee, with one arm resting on
the window-frame, contrived to hang on.  As the
coach lodged against the wall of rock, he scrambled
out.  Happily the window owned no glass, and the
leathern blind was up.  The driver was flung from
his seat, and the horses were kicking.  His first
thought was to seize the reins, for fear the frightened
five should drag them over the brink.  The shaft-horse
was down, but as the driver tumbled to his
feet, he cut the harness to set the others free; earnestly
exhorting the passengers to keep where they were
until he could extricate his horses.

But Edwin, the eldest boy, had already followed the
example of his father.  He had wriggled himself out
of the window, and was dropping to the ground down
the back of the coach, which completely blocked the
narrow road.

His father and the coachman both shouted to him
to fetch the roadman to their help.  It was not far
to the hut at the entrance of the gorge, and the boy,
who had been reckoned a first-rate scout on the
cricket-field, ran off with the speed of a hare.  The
navvy's stentorian "coo"—the recognized call for
assistance—was echoing along the rocky wall as he
went.  The roadman had heard it, and had left his
dinner to listen.  He saw the panting boy, and came
to meet him.

"Coach upset," gasped Edwin.

"Here, lad, take my post till I come back; let
nobody come this way.  I'll be up with poor coachee in
no time.  Anybody hurt?"

But without waiting for a reply the man set off.
Edwin sank into the bed of fern that clustered round
the opening of the chasm, feeling as if all the breath
had been shaken out of him.  There he sat looking
queer for an hour or more, hearing nothing, seeing
nothing but the dancing leaves, the swaying boughs,
the ripple of the waters.  Only once a big brown rat
came out of the underwood and looked at him.  The
absence of all animal life in the forest struck him:
even the birds sing only in the most retired recesses.
An ever-increasing army of sand-flies were doing their
utmost to drive him from his position.  Unable at
last to endure their stings, he sprang up, trying to
rid himself of his tormentors by a shake and a dance,
when he perceived a solitary horseman coming towards
him, not by the coach-road, but straight across the
open glade.

The man was standing in his stirrups, and seemed
to guide his horse by a gentle shake of the rein.
On he rode straight as an arrow, making nothing
of the many impediments in his path.  Edwin saw
him dash across the creek, plunge through the all but
impenetrable tangle of a wild flax-bush, whose tough
and fibrous leaves were nine feet long at least, leap
over a giant boulder some storm had hurled from the
rocks above, and rein in his steed with easy grace at
the door of the roadman's shanty.  Then Edwin
noticed that the man, whose perfect command of his
horse had already won his boyish admiration, had a
big mouth and a dusky skin, that his cheeks were
furrowed with wavy lines encircling each other.

IN THE MOUNTAIN GORGE.  15

"A living tattoo," thought Edwin.  The sight of
those curiously drawn lines was enough to proclaim a
native.

Some Maori chief, the boy was inclined to believe
by his good English-made saddle.  The tall black hat
he wore might have been imported from Bond Street
at the beginning of the season, barring the sea-bird's
feathers stuck upright in the band.  His legs were
bare.  A striped Austrian blanket was thrown over
one shoulder and carefully draped about him.  A
snowy shirt sleeve was rolled back from the dusky arm
he had raised to attract Edwin's attention.  A striped
silk scarf, which might have belonged to some
English lady, was loosely knotted round his neck, with
the ends flying behind him.  A scarlet coat, which
had lost its sleeves, completed his grotesque appearance.

"Goo'-mornin'," he shouted.  "Coach gone by yet?"

"The coach is upset on that narrow road," answered
Edwin, pointing to the ravine, "and no one can pass
this way."

"Smashed?" asked the stranger in tolerable
English, brushing away the ever-ready tears of the
Maori as he sprang to the ground, expecting to find
the treasure he had commissioned the coachman to
purchase for him was already broken into a
thousand pieces.  Then Edwin remembered the coachman
had left a parcel at the hut as they passed; and
they both went inside to look for it.  They found it
laid on the bed at the back of the hut—a large,
flat parcel, two feet square.

The address was printed on it in letters half-an-inch
high: "Nga-Hepé, Rota Pah."

"That's me!" cried the stranger, the tears of
apprehension changing into bursts of joyous laughter as
he seized it lovingly, and seemed to consider for a
moment how he was to carry it away.  A shadow
passed over his face; some sudden recollection changed
his purpose.  He laid his hand persuasively on
Edwin's shoulder, saying, "Hepé too rich, Nga-Hepé
too rich; the rana will come.  Hide it, keep it safe
till Nga-Hepé comes again to fetch it."

Edwin explained why he was waiting there.  He
had only scrambled out of the fallen coach to call the
roadman, and would soon be gone.

"You pakeha [white man] fresh from Ingarangi
land? you Lee?" exclaimed the Maori, taking a
letter from the breast-pocket of his sleeveless coat, as
Edwin's surprised "Yes" confirmed his conjecture.

The boy took the letter from him, and recognized
at once the bold black hand of a friend of his
father's whose house was to be their next halting-place.
The letter was addressed to Mr. Lee, to be
left in the care of the coachman.

Meanwhile, the roadman had reached the scene of
the overturn just as the navvy had succeeded in
getting the door of the coach open.  Audrey and
Effie were hoisted from the arms of one rough man
to another, and seated on a ledge of rock a few feet
from the ground, where Mr. Lee, who was still busy
with the horses, could see the torn gray cloak and
waving handkerchief hastening to assure him they
were unhurt.

Poor little Cuthbert was crying on the ground.
His nose was bleeding from a blow received from
one of the numerous packages which had flown out
from unseen corners in the suddenness of the shock.

"Mr. Bowen," said the navvy, "now is your turn."

But to extricate the stout old gentleman, who had
somehow lamed himself in the general fall, was a far
more difficult matter.

The driver, who scarcely expected to get through
a journey without some disaster, was a host in
himself.  He got hold of the despairing traveller by one
arm, the roadman grasped the other, assuring him,
in contradiction to his many assertions, that his
climbing days were not all over; the navvy gave a
leg up from within, and in spite of slips and bruises
they had him seated on the bank at last, puffing and
panting from the exertion.  "Now, old chap," added
the roadman, with rough hospitality, "take these poor
children back to my hut; and have a rest, and make
yourself at home with such tucker as you can find,
while we get the coach righted."

"We will all come down and help you with the
tucker when our work is done," laughed the navvy,
as the three set to their task with a will, and began
to heave up the coach with cautious care.  The many
ejaculatory remarks which reached the ears of
Audrey and Mr. Bowen filled them with dismay.

"Have a care, or she'll be over into the water,"
said one.

"No, she won't," retorted another; "but who on
earth can fix this wheel on again so that it will keep?
Look here, the iron has snapped underneath.  What
is to be done?"

"We have not far to go," put in the coachman.
"I'll make it hold that distance, you'll see."

A wild-flax bush was never far to seek.  A few
of its tough, fibrous leaves supplied him with
excellent rope of nature's own making.

Mr. Bowen watched the trio binding up the
splintered axle, and tying back the iron frame-work of
the coach, where it had snapped, with a rough and
ready skill which seemed to promise success.  Still
he foresaw some hours would go over the attempt,
and even then it might end in failure.

He was too much hurt to offer them any assistance,
but he called to Cuthbert to find him a stick
from the many bushes and trees springing out of
every crack and crevice in the rocky sides of the
gorge, that he might take the children to the
roadman's hut.  They arrived just as Nga-Hepé was
shouting a "Goo'-mornin'" to Edwin.  In fact, the
Maori had jumped on his horse, and was cantering
off, when Mr. Bowen stopped him with the question,—

"Any of your people about here with a canoe?
I'll pay them well to row me through this gorge," he
added.

"The coach is so broken," said Audrey aside to her
brother, "we are afraid they cannot mend it safely."

"Never mind," returned Edwin cheerily; "we
cannot be far from Mr. Hirpington's.  This man has
brought a letter from him.  Where is father?"

"Taking care of the horses; and we cannot get at
him," she replied.

Mr. Bowen heard what they were saying, and
caught at the good news—not far from Hirpington's,
where the Lees were to stop.  "How far?" he
turned to the Maori.

"Not an hour's ride from the Rota Pah, or lake
village, where the Maori lived."  The quickest way
to reach the ford, he asserted, was to take a short
cut through the bush, as he had done.

Mr. Bowen thought he would rather by far trust
himself to native guidance than enter the coach
again.  But there were no more horses to be had,
for the coachman's team was out of reach, as the
broken-down vehicle still blocked the path.

Nga-Hepé promised, as soon as he got to his home,
to row down stream and fetch them all to Mr. Hirpington's
in his canoe.  Meanwhile, Edwin had rushed
off to his father with the letter.  It was to tell
Mr. Lee the heavy luggage he had sent on by packet had
been brought up from the coast all right.

"You could get a ride behind Hirpington's
messenger," said the men to Edwin, "and beg him to
come to our help."  The Maori readily assented.

They were soon ascending the hilly steep and
winding through a leafy labyrinth of shadowy arcades,
where ferns and creepers trailed their luxuriant
foliage over rotting tree trunks.  Deeper and deeper
they went into the hoary, silent bush, where song of
bird or ring of axe is listened for in vain.  All was
still, as if under a spell.  Edwin looked up with
something akin to awe at the giant height of mossy
pines, or peered into secluded nooks where the
sun-shafts darted fitfully over vivid shades of glossy
green, revealing exquisite forms of unimagined ferns,
"wasting their sweetness on the desert air."  Amid
his native fastnesses the Maori grew eloquent,
pointing out each conical hill, where his forefathers had
raised the wall and dug the ditch.  Over every trace
of these ancient fortifications Maori tradition had its
fearsome story to repeat.  Here was the awful
war-feast of the victor; there an unyielding handful
were cut to pieces by the foe.

How Edwin listened, catching something of the
eager glow of his excited companion, looking every
inch—as he knew himself to be—the lord of the soil,
the last surviving son of the mighty Hepé, whose
name had struck terror from shore to shore.

As the Maori turned in his saddle, and darted
suspicious glances from side to side, it seemed to Edwin
some expectation of a lurking danger was rousing the
warrior spirit within him.

They had gained the highest ridge of the wall of
rock, and before them gloomed a dark descent.  Its
craggy sides were riven and disrupted, where cone
and chasm told the same startling story, that here, in
the forgotten long ago, the lava had poured its stream
of molten fire through rending rocks and heaving
craters.  But now a maddened river was hissing and
boiling along the channels they had hollowed.  It
was leaping, with fierce, impatient swoop, over a
blackened mass of downfallen rock, scooping for
itself a caldron, from which, with redoubled hiss and
roar, it darted headlong, rolling over on itself, and
then, as if in weariness, spreading and broadening to
the kiss of the sun, until it slept like a tranquil lake
in the heart of the hills.  For the droughts of
summer had broadened the muddy reaches, which now
seemed to surround the giant boulders until they
almost spanned the junction.

Where the stream left the basin a mass of huge
logs chained together, forming what New Zealanders
call a "boom," was cast across it, waiting for the
winter floods to help them to start once more on
their downward swim to the broader waters of the
Waikato, of which this shrunken stream would then
become a tributary.

On the banks of the lake, or rota—to give it the
Maori name—Edwin looked down upon the
high-peaked roofs of a native village nestling behind its
protecting wall.

As the wind drove back the light vapoury cloudlets
which hovered over the huts and whares (as the
better class of Maori dwellings are styled), Edwin saw
a wooden bridge spanning the running ditch which
guarded the entrance.

His ears were deafened by a strange sound, as if
hoarsely echoing fog-horns were answering each other
from the limestone cliffs, when a cart-load of burly
natives crossed their path.  As the wheels rattled
over the primitive drawbridge, a noisy greeting was
shouted out to the advancing horseman—a greeting
which seemed comprised in a single word the English
boy instinctively construed "Beware."  But the
warning, if it were a warning, ended in a hearty laugh,
which made itself heard above the shrill whistling
from the jets of steam, sputtering and spouting from
every fissure in the rocky path Nga-Hepé was
descending, until another blast from those mysterious
fog-horns drowned every other noise.

With a creepy sense of fear he would have been
loath to own, Edwin looked ahead for some sign of
the ford which was his destination; for he knew
that his father's friend, Mr. Hirpington, held the
onerous post of ford-master under the English
Government in that weird, wild land of wonder, the
hill-country of the north New Zealand isle.





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.. _`THE WHARE BY THE LAKE`:

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   CHAPTER II.


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   THE WHARE BY THE LAKE.

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A deep fellow-feeling for his wild, high-spirited
guide was growing in Edwin's mind as they
rode onward.  Nga-Hepé glanced over his shoulder
more than once to satisfy himself as to the effect the
Maori's warning had had upon his young companion.

Edwin returned the hasty inspection with a look
of careless coolness, as he said to himself, "Whatever
this means, I have nothing to do with it."  Not a
word was spoken, but the flash of indignant scorn in
Nga-Hepé's brilliant eyes told Edwin that he was
setting it at defiance.

On he spurred towards the weather-beaten walls,
which had braved so many a mountain gale.

A faint, curling column of steamy vapour was
rising from the hot waters which fed the moat, and
wafted towards them a most unpleasant smell of
sulphur, which Edwin was ready to denounce as
odious.  To the Maori it was dear as native air:
better than the breath of sweet-brier and roses.

Beyond the bridge Edwin could see a pathway
made of shells, as white and glistening as if it were
a road of porcelain.  It led to the central whare, the
council-hall of the tribe and the home of its chief.
Through the light haze of steam which veiled everything
Edwin could distinguish its carved front, and
the tall post beside it, ending in a kind of figure-head
with gaping mouth, and a blood-red tongue hanging
out of it like a weary dog's.  This was the flagstaff.
The cart had stopped beside it, and its recent
occupants were now seated on the steps of the whare,
laughing over the big letters of a printed poster which
they were exhibiting to their companions.

"Nothing very alarming in that," thought Edwin,
as Nga-Hepé gave his bridle-rein a haughty shake
and entered the village.  He threaded his way
between the huts of mat and reeds, and the wood-built
whares, each in its little garden.  Here and there
great bunches of home-grown tobacco were drying
under a little roof of thatch; behind another hut a
dead pig was hanging; a little further on, a group
of naked children were tumbling about and bathing
in a steaming pool; beside another tent-shaped hut
there was a huge pile of potatoes, while a rush basket
of fish lay by many a whare door.

In this grotesque and novel scene Edwin almost
forgot his errand, and half believed he had misunderstood
the hint of danger, as he watched the native
women cooking white-bait over a hole in the ground,
and saw the hot springs shooting up into the air,
hissing and boiling in so strange a fashion the
English boy was fairly dazed.

Almost all the women were smoking, and many of
them managed to keep a baby riding on their backs
as they turned their fish or gossiped with their
neighbours.  Edwin could not take his eyes off the
sputtering mud-holes doing duty as kitchen fires
until they drew near to the tattooed groups of burly
men waiting for their supper on the steps of the
central whare.  Then many a dusky brow was lifted,
and more than one cautionary glance was bestowed
upon his companion, whilst others saw him pass them
with a scowl.

Nga-Hepé met it with a laugh.  A Maori scorns
to lose his temper, come what may.  As he leaped
the steaming ditch and left the village by a gap in the
decaying wall, he turned to Edwin, observing, with a
pride which bordered on satisfaction: "The son of
Hepé is known by all men to be rich and powerful,
therefore the chief has spoken against him."

"Much you care for the chief," retorted Edwin.

"I am not of his tribe," answered Nga-Hepé.  "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 Hepé
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 Hepé 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-Hepé, 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-Hepé 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-Hepé's house was standing—the
old ancestral whare, the dwelling-place of the
Hepés 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-Hepé 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-Hepé 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-Hepé 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-Hepé'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-Hepé.  "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-Hepé, 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.
Hepé'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 Hepé'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-Hepé.  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-Hepé 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 Hepé 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-Hepé 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-Hepé 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, employés
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
Hepé's goods to carry off and divide, they will not be
thinking of interfering with us.  Maybe you'll have
Nga-Hepé'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-Hepé 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-Hepé'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-Hepé'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.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`A RIDE THROUGH THE BUSH`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER III.


.. class:: center medium bold

   A RIDE THROUGH THE BUSH.

.. vspace:: 2

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.

A splash of oars among the rushes, and the shock
of a boat against the stairs, recalled him to the house.
Edwin ran joyfully down the steps, and gave a hand
to Mr. Bowen.

"We are not all here now," the old gentleman
said.  "Your father stuck by the coach, and he
would have his daughters with him, afraid of an open
boat on a night like this."

Then Edwin felt a hand in the dark, which he
knew was Cuthbert's; and heard Mr. Hirpington's
cheery voice exclaiming, "Which is home first—boat
or coach?"

"Hard to say," answered Dunter, as the coach
drove down the road at a rapid pace, followed by a
party of roadmen with pickaxe on shoulder, coming
on with hasty strides and a resolute air about them,
very unusual in men returning from a hard day's
labour.

The coach drew up, and Mr. Lee was the first to
alight.  He looked sharply round, evidently
counting heads.

"All here, all right," answered Mr. Hirpington.
"Safe, safe at home, as I hope you will all feel it,"
he added, in his heartiest tones.

There was no exact reply.  His men gathered
round him, exclaiming, "We heard the war-cry from
the Rota Pah.  There's mischief in the wind to-night.
So we turned our steps the other way and waited for
the coach, and all came on together."

"It is a row among the Maoris themselves," put
in Dunter, "as that lad can tell you."

The man looked sceptical.  A new chum, as fresh
arrivals from the mother country are always termed,
and a youngster to boot, what could he know?

Mr. Hirpington stepped out from the midst of the
group and laid his hand on Mr. Lee's shoulder, who
was bending down to ask Edwin what all this meant,
and drew him aside.

"I trust, old friend," he said, "I have not blundered
on your behalf, but all the heavy luggage you sent
on by packet arrived last week, and I, not knowing
how to take care of it, telegraphed to headquarters
for permission to put it in the old school-house until
you could build your own.  I thought to do you a
service; but if our dusky neighbours have taken
offence, that is the cause, I fear."

Mr. Lee made a sign to his children to go in-doors.
Edwin led his sisters up the terrace-steps, and came
back to his father.  The coach was drawn inside the
gate, and the bar was replaced.  The driver was
attending to his horses; but all the others were
holding earnest council under the acacia tree, where the
lantern was still swinging.

"But I do not understand about this old schoolhouse,"
Mr. Lee was saying; "where is it?"

"Over the river," answered several voices.  "The
government built it for the Maoris before the last
disturbance, when the Hau-Hau [pronounced *How
How*] tribe turned against us, and went back to their
old superstitions, and banded together to sell us no
more land.  It was then the school was shut up, but
the house was left; and now we are growing friendly
again," added Mr. Hirpington, "I thought all was
right."

"So it is," interposed Mr. Bowen, confidently.
"My sheep-run comes up very near to the King
country, as they like to call their district, and I want
no better neighbours than the Maoris."

Then Edwin spoke out.  "Father, I can tell you
something about it.  Do listen."

They did listen, one and all, with troubled, anxious
faces.  "This tana," they said, "may not disperse
without doing more mischief.  Carry on their work
of confiscation at the old school-house, perhaps."

"No, no; no fear of that," argued Mr. Bowen and
the coachman, who knew the Maoris best.

"I'll run no risk of losing all my ploughs and
spades," persisted Mr. Lee.  "How far off is the
place?"

"Not five miles across country," returned his friend.
"I have left it in the care of a gang of rabbiters, who
have set up their tents just outside the garden
wall—safe enough, as it seemed, when I left."

"Lend me a horse and a guide," said Mr. Lee, "and
I'll push on to-night."

The children, of course, were to be left at the ford;
but Edwin wanted to go with his father.  Dunter
and another man were getting ready to accompany him.

"Father," whispered Edwin, "there is the black
horse; you can take him.  Come and have a look at
him."

He raised the heavy wooden latch of the stable-door,
and glanced round for Whero.  There was the
hole in the straw where he had been sleeping, but the
boy was gone.

"He must have stolen out as we drove in," remarked
the coachman, who was filling the manger with corn
for his horses.

The man had far more sympathy with Nga-Hepé
in his trouble than any of the others.  He leaned
against the side of the manger, talking to Edwin
about him.  When Mr. Lee looked in he stooped
down to examine the horse, feeling its legs, and the
height of its shoulder.  On such a congenial subject
the coachman could not help giving an opinion.
Edwin heard, with considerable satisfaction, that the
horse was a beauty.

"But I do not like this business at all, and if I had
had any idea Mr. Hirpington's messenger was a native,
you should never have gone with him, Edwin," Mr. Lee
began, in a very decided tone.  "However," he
added, "I'll buy this horse, I don't mind doing that;
but as to taking presents from the natives, it is out
of the question.  I will not begin it."

"But, father," put in Edwin, "there is nobody here
to buy the horse of; there is nobody to take the
money."

"I'll take the money for Nga-Hepé," said the
coachman.  "I will make that all right.  You saw how it
was as we came along.  The farmers and the natives
are on the watch for my coming, and they load me
with all sorts of commissions.  You would laugh at
the things these Maoris get me to bring them from
the towns I pass through.  I don't mind the bother
of it, because they will take no end of trouble in
return, and help me at every pinch.  I ought to carry
Nga-Hepé ten pounds."

Mr. Lee thought that cheap for so good a horse,
and turned to the half light at the open door to count
out the money.

"But I shall not take him away with me to-night.
I will not be seen riding a Maori's horse if Hirpington
can lend me another," persisted Mr. Lee.

Then Mr. Bowen limped up to the stable-door, and
Edwin slipped out, looking for Whero behind the farm
buildings and round by the back of the house.  But
the Maori boy was nowhere to be seen.  The
coachman was right after all.  Mr. Hirpington went
indoors and called to Edwin to join him.  He had the
satisfaction of making the boy go over the ground
again.  But there was nothing more to tell, and Edwin
was dismissed to his supper with an exhortation to
be careful, like a good brother, not to frighten his
sisters.

He crossed over and leaned against the back of
Audrey's chair, simply observing, "Father is going on
to-night."

"Well?" she returned eagerly.

"It won't be either well or fountain here," he
retorted, "but a boiling geyser.  I've seen one in the
distance already."

"Isn't he doing it nicely?" whispered Effie, nodding.
"They told him to turn a dark lantern on us.  We
heard—Audrey and I."

"Oh yes," smiled her sister; "every word can be
heard in these New Zealand houses, and no one ever
seems to remember that.  I give you fair warning."

"It is a rare field for the little long-eared pitchers
people are so fond of talking about—present
representatives, self and Cuthbert.  We of course must
expect to fill our curiosity a drop at a time; but you
must have been snapped up in a crab-shell if you
mean to keep Audrey in the dark," retorted Effie.

"Cuthbert!  Cuthbert!" called Edwin, "here is a
buzzing bee about to sting me.  Come and catch it,
if you can."

Cuthbert ran round and began to tickle his sister
in spite of Audrey's horrified "My dear!"

The other men came in, and a look from Mr. Lee
recalled the young ones to order.  But the grave
faces, the low words so briefly interchanged among
them, the business-like air with which the supper
was got through, in the shortest possible time, kept
Audrey in a flutter of alarm, which she did her best
to conceal.  But Mr. Bowen detected the nervous
tremor in her hand as she passed his cup of coffee,
and tried to reassure her with the welcome intelligence
that he had just discovered they were going to
be neighbours.  What were five-and-twenty miles in
the colonies?

"A very long way off," thought the despondent Audrey.

At a sign from Mr. Lee, Mrs. Hirpington conducted
the girls to one of the tiny bedrooms which ran along
the back of the house, where the "coach habitually
slept."  As the door closed behind her motherly
good-night, Effie seized upon her sister, exclaiming,—

"What are we in for now?"

"Sleep and silence," returned Audrey; "for we
might as well disclose our secret feelings in the
market-place as within these iron walls."

"I always thought you were cousin-german to the
discreet princess; but if you reduce us to dummies,
you will make us into eaves-droppers as well, and we
used to think that was something baddish," retorted
Effie.

"You need not let it trouble your conscience to-night,
for we cannot help hearing as long as we are
awake; therefore I vote for sleep," replied her sister.

But sleep was effectually banished, for every sound
on the other side of the thin sheet of corrugated iron
which divided them from their neighbours seemed
increased by its resonance.

They knew when Mr. Lee drove off.  They knew
that a party of men were keeping watch all night by
the kitchen fire.  But when the wind rose, and a cold,
pelting rain swept across the river, and thundered on
the metal roof with a noise which could only be
out-rivalled by the iron hail of a bombardment, every
other sound was drowned, and they did not hear what
the coachman was saying to Edwin as they parted for
the night.  So it was possible even in that house of
corrugated iron not always to let the left hand know
what the right was doing.  Only a few words passed
between them.

"You are a kind-hearted lad.  Will you come
across to the stables and help me in the morning?  I
must be up before the dawn."

There was an earnestness in the coachman's
request which Edwin could not refuse.

With the first faint peep of gray, before the
morning stars had faded, the coachman was at Edwin's
door.  The boy answered the low-breathed summons
without waking his little brother, and the two were
soon standing on the terraced path outside the house
in the fresh, clear, bracing air of a New Zealand
morning, to which a touch of frost had been
superadded.  They saw it sparkling on the leaves of the
stately heliotropes, which shaded the path and waved
their clustering flowers above the coachman's head as
they swayed in the rising breeze.  He opened the
gate in the hedge of scarlet geraniums, which divided
the garden from the stable-yard, and went out with
Edwin, carrying the sweet perfume of the heliotropes
with them.  Even the horses were all asleep.

"Yes, it is early," remarked Edwin's companion.
"The coach does not start until six.  I have got old
time by the forelock, and I've a mind to go over to
the Rota Pah, if you can show me the way."

"I think I can find it," returned Edwin, with a
confidence that was yet on the lee side of certainty.

"Ay, then we'll take the black horse.  If we give
him the rein, he will lead us to his old master's door.
It is easy work getting lost in the bush, but I never
yet turned my back on a chum in trouble.  Once a
chum always a chum with us.  Many's the time
Nga-Hepé's stood my friend among these wild hills, and I
want to see him after last night's rough handling.
That is levelling down with a vengeance."

The coachman paused, well aware his companions
would blame him for interfering in such a business,
and very probably his employers also, if it ever reached
their ears.  So he led the horse out quietly, and
saddled him on the road.  The ground was white
with frost.  The moon and stars were gradually
paling and fading slowly out of sight.  The forest was
still enwrapped in stately gloom, but the distant hills
were already catching the first faint tinge of rosy light.

Edwin got up behind the coachman, as he had
behind Nga-Hepé.  They gave the horse its head, and
rode briskly on, trusting to its sagacity to guide them
safely across the bush with all its dangers—dangers
such as Edwin never even imagined.  But the
coachman knew that one unwary step might mean death
to all three.  For the great white leaves of the deadly
puka-puka shone here and there, conspicuous in the
general blue-green hue of the varying foliage; a poison
quickly fatal to the horse, but a poison which he loves.
The difficulty of getting out of the thicket, where it
was growing so freely, without suffering the horse to
crop a single leaf kept them from talking.

"If I had known that beastly white-leaved thing
was growing here, I would not have dared to have
brought him, unless I had tied up his head in a net,"
grumbled the coachman, making another desperate
effort to leave the puka-puka behind by changing his
course.  They struggled out of the thicket, only to
get themselves tied up in a detestable supple-jack—a
creeper possessing the power to cling which we faintly
perceive in scratch-grass, but in the supple-jack this
power is intensified and multiplied until it ties together
everything which comes within its reach, making it
the traveller's plague and another terrible foe to a
horse, a riderless horse especially, who soon gets so
tied up and fettered that he cannot extricate himself,
and dies.  By mutual help they broke away from the
supple-jack, and stumbled upon a mud-hole.  But
here the good horse started back of his own accord,
and saved them all from a morning header in its
awful depths.  For the mud was seething, hissing,
boiling like some witch's caldron—a horrid, bluish
mud, leaving a yellow crust round the edge of the
hole, and sending up a sulphurous smell, which set
Edwin coughing.  The coachman alighted, and led
the horse cautiously away.  Then he turned back to
break off a piece of the yellow crust and examine it.

Edwin remembered his last night's ride with the
Maori, how he shot fearlessly forward, avoiding all
these insidious dangers as if by instinct, "So that I
did not even know they existed," exclaimed the boy,
with renewed admiration for the fallen chief.

   |  "'The rank puts on the guinea stamp,
   |  But the man's the gold for a' that,'"

he cried, with growing enthusiasm.

"Gold or stamp," retorted the coachman; "well, I
can't lay claim to either.  I'm a blockhead, and yet
not altogether one of nature's making, for I could
have done better.  When I was your age, lad, who
would have thought of seeing me, Dilworth Ottley,
driving a four-in-hand over such a breakneck path
as we crossed yesterday?  Yet I've done it, until I
thought all sense of danger was deadened and gone.
But that horrid hole brings back the shudder."

"What is it?" asked Edwin.

"One of the many vents through which the volcanic
matter escapes.  In my Cantab days—you stare;
but I was a Cantab, and got ploughed, and
rusticated—I was crack whip among the freshmen.  The horses
lost me the 'exam;' and I went on losing, until it
seemed that all was gone.  Then I picked up my
whip once more; and here you find me driving the
cross-country mail for so much a week.  But it makes
a fellow feel when he sees another down in his luck
like this Maori, so that one cannot turn away with
an easy conscience when it is in one's power to help
him, or I'd go back this very moment."

"No, don't," said Edwin earnestly; "we are almost there."

The exceeding stillness of the dawn was broken by
the wailing cry of the women.  The horse pricked
up his ears, and cantered forward through the basket
willows and acacias which bordered the sleeping lake.
Along its margin in every little creek and curve canoes
were moored, but from the tiny bay-like indentation
by the lonely whare the canoe had vanished.

The sudden jets of steam uprising in the very
midst of the Maori pah looked weird and ghostlike
in the gray of the dawn.  Only one wild-cat crept
stealthily across their path.  Far in the background
rose the dim outline of the sacred hills where the
Maori chiefs lie buried.

Edwin looked upward to their cloud-capped summits
awestruck, as the wild traditionary tales he had
heard from Hepé's lips only last night rushed back
upon his recollection.

There before him was the place of graves; but
where was the still more sacred Te Tara, the
mysterious lake of beauty, with its terraced banks, where
fairy-like arcades of exquisite tracery rise tier above
tier, shading baths fed by a stream of liquid sun in
which it is happiness to bathe?

Edwin had listened to the Maori's description as
if it had been a page from some fairy tale; but
Ottley, in his matter-of-fact way, confirmed it all.

"This Maori's paradise," he said, "may well be
called the last-discovered wonder of the world.  I
bring a lot of fellows up here to see it every year;
that is what old Bowen is after now.  'A thing of
beauty is a joy for ever.'  This magic geyser has
built a bathing-house of fair white coral and enamel
lace, with basins of shell and fringes of pearl.  What
is it like? there is nothing it is like but a Staffa, with
its stalactites in the daylight and the sunshine.  If
Nature forms the baths, she fills them, too, with
boiling water, which she cools to suit every fancy as she
pours it in pearly cascades from terrace to terrace,
except in a north-east wind, which dries them up.
All these Maoris care for is to spend their days like
the ducks, swimming in these pools of delight.  It is
a jealously-guarded treasure.  But they are wide
awake.  The pay of the sightseer fills their pockets
without working, and they all disdain work."

They were talking so earnestly they did not
perceive a patch of hot, crumbling ground until the
horse's fore feet went down to the fetlocks as if it
were a quicksand, shooting Ottley and Edwin over
his head among the reeds by the lake.  Ottley picked
himself up in no time, and flew to extricate the horse,
warning Edwin off.

"Whatever you may say of the lake, there are a
lot of ugly places outside it," grumbled Edwin,
provoked at being told to keep his distance when he
really felt alight with curiosity and wonder as to
what strange thing would happen next.  Having got
eyes, as he said, he was not content to gape and stare;
he wanted to investigate a bit.

Once more the wail of the women was borne across
the lake, rising to a fearsome howl, and then it
suddenly ceased.  The two pressed forward, and tying
the horse to a tree, hastened to intercept the agonized
wife venturing homewards with the peep of light,
only to discover how thoroughly the tana had done
its work.

But the poor women fled shrieking into the bush
once more when they perceived the figure of a man
advancing toward them.

"A friend! a friend!" shouted Ottley, hoping that
the sound of an Englishman's voice would reassure
them.

There was a crashing in the bushes, and something
leaped out of the wild tangle.

"It is Whero!" exclaimed Edwin, running to meet
him.  They grasped hands in a very hearty fashion,
as Edwin whispered almost breathlessly, "How have
they left your father?"

"You have come to tangi with us!" cried Whero,
in gratified surprise; and to show his warm
appreciation of the unexpected sympathy, he gravely
rubbed his nose against Edwin's.

"Oh, don't," interposed the English boy, feeling
strangely foolish.

Ottley laughed, as he saw him wipe his face with
considerable energy to recover from his embarrassment.

"Oh, bother!" he exclaimed.  "I shall be up to it
soon, but I did not know what you meant by it.
Never mind."

"Let us have a look round," said the coachman,
turning to Whero, "before your mother gets here."

"I have been watching in the long grass all night,"
sobbed the boy; "and when the tramp of the last
footsteps died away, I crept out and groped my way
in the darkness.  I got to the door, and called to my
father, but there was no answer.  Then I turned again
to the bush to find my mother, until I heard our own
horse neigh, and I thought he had followed me."

Ottley soothed the poor boy as best he could as
they surveyed the scene of desolation.  The fences
were all pulled up and flung into the lake, and the
gates thrown down.  The garden had been thoroughly
ploughed, and every shrub and tree uprooted.
The patch of cultivated ground at the back of the
whare had shared the same fate.

It was so late in the autumn Ottley hoped the
harvest had been gathered in.  It mattered little.  The
empty storehouse echoed to their footsteps.  All, all
was gone.  They could not tell whether the great
drove of pigs had been scared away into the bush or
driven off to the pah.  Whero was leading the way
to the door of the principal whare, where he had last
seen his father.  In the path lay a huge, flat stone
smashed to pieces.  The hard, cold, sullen manner
which Whero had assumed gave way at the sight,
and he sobbed aloud.

Edwin was close behind them; he took up a splinter
from the stone and threw it into the circle of bubbling
mud from which it had been hurled.  Down it went
with a splash—down, down; but he never heard it
reach the bottom.

"Did that make anything rise?" asked Ottley
anxiously, as he looked into the awful hole with a
shudder.

"They could not fill this up," retorted Whero
exultantly.  "Throw in what you will, it swallows it all."

To him the hot stone made by covering the dangerous
jet was the embodiment of all home comfort.  It
was sacred in his eyes—a fire which had been lighted
for the race of Hepé by the powers of heaven and
earth; a fire which nothing could extinguish.  He
pitied the Ingarangi boy by his side, who had never
known so priceless a possession.

"Watch it," said Ottley earnestly.  "If anything
has been thrown in, it will rise to the surface after
a while incrusted with sulphur; but now—"  He
pushed before the boys and entered the whare.

There lay Nga-Hepé, a senseless heap, covered with
blood and bruises.  A stream of light from the open
door fell full on the prostrate warrior.  The rest of
the whare was in shadow.

Whero sprang forward, and kneeling down beside
his father, patted him fondly on his cheek and arm,
as he renewed his sobbing.

After the tana had feasted to their heart's content.
after they had carried off everything movable,
Nga-Hepé had been called upon to defend himself against
their clubs.  Careful to regulate their ruthless
proceedings by ancient custom, his assailants came upon
him one at a time, until his powerful arm had
measured its strength with more than half the
invading band.  At last he fell, exhausted and bereft of
everything but the greenstone club his unconscious
hand was grasping still.

"He is not dead," said Ottley, leaning over him;
"his chest is heaving."

An exclamation of thankfulness burst from Edwin's lips.

Ottley was looking about in vain for something to
hold a little water, for he knew that the day was
breaking, and his time was nearly gone.  All that he
could do must be done quickly.  He was leaving the
whare to pursue his quest without, when he perceived
the unfortunate women stealing through the shadows.
He beckoned the gray-haired Maori, who had waited
on Marileha from her birth, to join him.  A few
brief words and many significant gestures were
exchanged before old Ronga comprehended that the life
yet lingered in the fallen chief.  She caught her
mistress by the arm and whispered in her native tongue.

The death-wail died away.  Marileha gazed into
the much-loved face in breathless silence.  A murmur
of joy broke from her quivering lips, and she looked
to Whero.

He went out noiselessly, and Edwin followed.  A
hissing column of steam was still rising unchecked
from a rough cleft in the ground, rendered bare and
barren by the scalding spray with which it was
continually watered.  Old Ronga was already at
work, making a little gutter in the soft mud with
her hands, to carry the refreshing stream to the bed
of a dried-up pond.  Edwin watched it slowly filling
as she dug on in silence.

"The bath is ready," she exclaimed at last.  The
word was passed on to her companions, who had laid
down the sleepy children they had just brought home
in a corner of the great whare, still huddled together
in Mrs. Hirpington's blanket.  With Ottley's assistance
they carried out the all but lifeless body of
Nga-Hepé, and laid him gently in the refreshing pool,
with all a Maori's faith in its restorative powers.

Marileha knelt upon the brink, and washed the
blood-stains from his face.  The large dark eyes
opened, and gazed dreamily into her own.  Her heart
revived.  What to her were loss and danger if her
warrior's life was spared?  She glanced at Ottley
and said, "Whilst the healing spring still flows by his
father's door there is no despair for me.  Here he
will bathe for hours, and strength and manhood will
come back.  Whilst he lies here helpless he is safe.
Could he rise up it would only be to fight again.
Go, good friend, and leave me.  It would set the
jealous fury of his tribe on fire if they found you
here.  Take away my Whero.  My loneliness will be
my defence.  What Maori would hurt a weeping woman
with her hungry babes?  There are kind hearts in the
pah; they will not leave me to starve."

She held out her wet hand as she spoke.  Ottley
saw she was afraid to receive the help he was so
anxious to give.  Whilst they were speaking, Edwin
went to find Whero.

He had heard the black horse neigh, and was
looking round for his favourite.  "They will seize
him!" he muttered between his set teeth.  "Why will
you bring him here?"

"Come along with us," answered Edwin quickly,
"and we will go back as fast as we can."

But the friendly ruse did not succeed.

"I'll guide you to the road, but not a step beyond
it.  Shall men say I fled in terror from the sound of
clubs—a son of Hepé?" exclaimed Whero.  "Should
I listen to the women's fears?"

"All very fine," retorted Edwin.  "If I had a
mother, Whero, I'd listen to what she said, and I'd
do as she asked me, if all the world laughed.  They
might call me a coward and a jackass as often as they
liked, what would I care?  Shouldn't I know in my
heart I had done right?"

"Have not you a mother?" said Whero.

Edwin's "No" was scarcely audible, but it touched
the Maori boy.  He buried his face on the horse's
shoulder, then suddenly lifting it up with a defiant
toss, he asked, "Would you be faithless and desert
her if she prayed you to do it?"

This was a home-thrust; but Edwin was not to be
driven from his position.

"Well," he retorted, "even then I should say to
myself, 'Perhaps she knows best.'"

He had made an impression, and he had the good
sense not to prolong the argument.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE NEW HOME`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER IV.


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE NEW HOME.

.. vspace:: 2

The sun had risen when Edwin and the coach
man started on their way to the ford.  With
Whero running by the horse's head for a guide, the
dangers of the bush were avoided, and they rode
back faster than they came.  The gloom had vanished
from the forest.  The distant hills were painted with
violet, pink, and gold.  Sunbeams danced on scarlet
creepers and bright-hued berries, and sparkled in a
thousand frosted spiders' webs nestling in the forks
of the trees.  Whero led them to the road, and there
they parted.  "If food runs low," he said, "I shall
go to school.  With all our winter stores carried
away it must; I know it."

"Don't try starving before schooling," said Ottley,
cheerily.  "Watch for me as I come back with the
coach, and I'll take you down to Cambridge and on
to the nearest government school.—Not the Cambridge
you and I were talking of, Edwin, but a little
township in the bush which borrows the grand old
name.—You will love it for a while, Whero; you tried it
once."

"And I'll try it again," he answered, with a smile.
"There is a lot more that I want to know about—why
the water boils through the earth here and not
everywhere.  We love our mud-hole and our boiling
spring, and you are afraid of them."

"They are such awful places," said Edwin, as
Whero turned back among the trees and left them,
not altogether envious of a Maori's patrimony.  "It is
such a step from fairy-land to Sodom and Gomorrah,"
persisted Edwin, reverting to Nga-Hepé's legends.

"Don't talk," interrupted Ottley.  "There is an
awful place among these hills which goes by that
name, filled with sulphurous smoke and hissing mud.
The men who made that greenstone club would have
finished last night's work by hurling Nga-Hepé into its
chasms.  Thank God, that day is done.  We have
overcome the cannibal among them; and as we draw their
young lads down to our schools, it will never revive."  They
rode on, talking, to the gate of the ford-house.

"I shall be late getting off," exclaimed Ottley, as
he saw the household was astir.  He gave the bridle
to Edwin and leaped down.  The boy was in no
hurry to follow.  He lingered outside, just to try if
he could sit his powerful steed and manage him
single-handed.  When he rode through the gate at
last, Ottley was coming out of the stable as intent
upon his own affairs as if nothing had occurred.

Breakfast was half-way through.  The passengers
were growing impatient.  One or two strangers had
been added to their number.  The starting of the
coach was the grand event of the day.  Mrs. Hirpington
was engrossed, and Edwin's entrance passed
unquestioned.  His appetite was sharpened by his
morning ride across the bush, and he was working
away with knife and fork when the coach began to fill.

"If ever you find your way to Bowen's Run, you
will not be forgotten," said the genial colonist, as he
shook hands with the young Lees and wished them
all success in their new home.

The boys ran out to help him to his seat, and see
the old ford-horse pilot the coach across the river.

Ottley laid his hand on Edwin's shoulder for a
parting word.

"Tell your father poor Marileha—I mean Whero's
mother—dare not keep the money for the horse; but
I shall leave all sorts of things for her at the
roadman's hut, which she can fetch away unnoticed at
her own time.  When you are settled in your new
home, you must not forget I'm general letter-box."

"We are safe to use you," laughed Edwin; and so
they parted.

The boys climbed up on the garden-gate to watch
the crossing.  The clever old pilot-horse, which
Mr. Hirpington was bound by his lease to keep, was
yoked in front of the team.  Good roadsters as the
coach-horses were, they could not manage the river
without him.  Their feet were sure to slip, and one
and all might be thrown down by the force of the
current.  But this steady old fellow, who spent his
life crossing and recrossing the river, loved his work.
It was a sight no admirer of horses could ever
forget to see him stepping down into the river, taking
such care of his load, cautiously advancing a few
paces, and stopping to throw himself back on his
haunches and try the bottom of the river with one
of his fore feet.  If he found a boulder had been
washed down in the night too big for him to step
over, he swept the coach round it as easily and
readily as if it were a matter of course, instead of
a most unexpected obstruction.  The boys were in
ecstasies.  Then the sudden energy he put forth to
drag the coach up the steep bank on the opposite
side was truly marvellous.  When he considered his
work was done, he stood stock-still, and no power on
earth could make him stir another step.  As soon as
he was released, splash he went back into the water,
and trotted through it as merrily as a four-year-old.

"Cuthbert," said Edwin, in a confidential whisper,
"we've got just such another of our own.  Come along
and have a look at him."

Away went the boys to the stable, where Mr. Hirpington
found them two hours after making
friends with "Beauty," as they told him.

At that hour in the morning every one at the
ford was hard at work, and they were glad to leave
the boys to their own devices.  Audrey and Effie
occupied themselves in assisting Mrs. Hirpington.
When they all met together at the one-o'clock dinner,
Edwin was quite ready to indemnify his sisters for
his last night's silence, and launched into glowing
descriptions of his peep into wonderland.

"Shut up," said Mr. Hirpington, who saw the
terror gathering in Effie's eyes.  "You'll be persuading
these young ladies we are next-door neighbours
to another Vesuvius.—Don't believe him, my dears.
These mud-jets and geysers that he is talking about
are nature's safety-valves.  I do not deny we are
living in a volcanic region.  We feel the earth tremble
every now and then, setting all the dishes rattling,
and tumbling down our books; but it is nothing
more than the tempests in other places."

"I'm thinking more of the Maoris than of their
mud," put in Effie, shyly; while Audrey quietly
observed, everything was strange at present, but they
should get used to it by-and-by.

"The Maoris have been living among nature's
water-works for hundreds of years, and they would
not change homes with anybody in the world; neither
would we.  Mr. Bowen almost thinks New Zealand
beats old England hollow," laughed Mr. Hirpington.
"If that is going a little too far, she is the gem of
the Southern Ocean.  But seriously now," he added,
"although the pumice-stone we can pick up any day
tells us how this island was made, there has been no
volcanic disturbance worth the name of an eruption
since we English set foot on the island.  The Maoris
were here some hundreds of years before us, and
their traditions have been handed down from father to
son, but they never heard of anything of the kind."

Mr. Hirpington spoke confidently, and all New
Zealand would have agreed with him.

Edwin thought of Whero.  "There are a great many
things I want to understand," he said, thoughtfully.

"Wife," laughed Mr. Hirpington, "is not there a
book of Paulett Scroope's somewhere about?  He is
our big gun on these matters."

As Mrs. Hirpington rose to find the book, she
tried to divert Effie's attention by admitting her
numerous family of cats: seven energetic mousers,
with a goodly following of impudent kittens—tabby,
tortoise-shell, and black.  When Effie understood she
was to choose a pet from among them, mud and
Maoris seemed banished by their round green eyes
and whisking tails.  The very title of Edwin's book
proved consolatory to Audrey—"Geology and
Extinct Volcanoes in Central France."  A book in the
bush is a book indeed, and Edwin held his treasure
with a loving clasp.  He knew it was a parting gift;
and looking through the river-window, he saw
Dunter and his companion returning in a big lumbering
cart.  They drew up on the opposite bank of the
river and waved their hats.

"They have come to fetch us," cried Audrey.
Mrs. Hirpington would hardly believe it.  "I
meant to have kept you with me for some days at
least," she said; but the very real regret was set
aside to speed the parting of her juvenile guests.

According to New Zealand custom, Mr. Lee had
been obliged to buy the horse and cart which brought
his luggage up country, so he had sent it with
Dunter to fetch his children.

The men had half filled it with freshly-gathered
fern; and Edwin was delighted to see how easily his
Beauty could swim the stream, to take the place of
Mr. Hirpington's horse.

"He would make a good pilot," exclaimed the
man who was riding him.

Mrs. Hirpington was almost affectionate in her
leave-taking, lamenting as she fastened Effie's cloak
that she could not keep one of them with her.  But
not one of the four would have been willing to be
left behind.

The boat was at the stairs; rugs and portmanteaus
were already thrown in.

Mr. Hirpington had seized the oar.  "I take you
myself," he said; "that was the bargain with your father."

In a few minutes they had crossed the river, and
were safely seated in the midst of a heap of fern,
and found it as pleasant as a ride in a hay-cart.
Mr. Hirpington sat on the side of the cart teaching
Cuthbert how to hold the reins.

The road which they had taken was a mere
cart-track, which the men had improved as they came;
for they had been obliged to use their hatchets freely
to get the cart along.  Many a great branch which
they had lopped off was lying under the tree from
which it had fallen, and served as a way-mark.  The
trees through which they were driving were tall and
dark, but so overgrown with creepers and parasites it
was often difficult to tell what trees they were.  A
hundred and fifty feet above their heads the red
blossoms of the rata were streaming like banners, and
wreathing themselves into gigantic nests.  Beneath
were an infinite variety of shrubs, with large, glossy
leaves, like magnolias or laurels; sweetly fragrant
aromatic bushes, burying the fallen trunk of some old
tree, shrouded in velvet moss and mouse-ear.  Little
green and yellow birds were hopping from spray to
spray through the rich harvest of berries the bushes
afforded.

The drive was in itself a pleasure.  A breath of
summer still lingered in the glinting sunlight, as if it
longed to stay the falling leaves.  The trees were
parted by a wandering brook overgrown with brilliant
scarlet duckweed.  An enormous willow hanging over
its pretty bank, with a peep between its drooping
branches of a grassy slope just dotted with the
ever-present ti tree told them they had reached their
journey's end.  They saw the rush-thatched roof and
somewhat dilapidated veranda of the disused
schoolhouse.  Before it stretched a lovely valley, where the
brook became a foaming rivulet.  A little group of
tents and a long line of silvery-looking streamers
marked the camp of the rabbiters.

But the children's eyes were fastened on the
moss-grown thatch.  Soon they could distinguish the
broken-down paling and the recently-mended gate, at
which Mr. Lee was hammering.  A shout, in which
three voices at least united, made him look round.
Down went bill and hammer as he ran to meet them,
answering with his cheeriest "All right!" the welcome
cry of, "Father, father, here we are!"

Mr. Hirpington sprang out and lifted Audrey to
the ground.  Mr. Lee had Effie in his arms already.
The boys, disdaining assistance, climbed over the back
of the cart, laughing merrily.  The garden had long
since gone back to wilderness, but the fruit still hung
on the unpruned trees—apples and peaches dwindling
for want of the gardener's care, but oh, so nice in
boyish eyes!  Cuthbert had shied a stone amongst the
over-ripe peaches before his father had answered his
friend's inquiries.

No, not the shadow of a disturbance had reached
his happy valley, so Mr. Lee asserted, looking round
the sweet, secluded nook with unbounded satisfaction.

"You could not have chosen better for me," he
went on, and Edwin's beaming face echoed his father's
content.

Mr. Hirpington was pulling out from beneath the
fern-leaves a store of good things of which his friend
knew nothing—-wild pig and hare, butter and eggs,
nice new-made bread; just a transfer from the larder
at the ford to please the children.

Age had given to the school-house a touch of the
picturesque.  Its log-built walls were embowered in
creepers, and the sweet-brier, which had formerly
edged the worn-out path, was now choking the
doorway.  Although Mr. Lee's tenancy could be counted
by hours, he had not been idle.  A wood fire was
blazing in the room once sacred to desk and form.
The windows looking to the garden behind the house
had been all forced open, and the sunny air they
admitted so freely was fast dispelling the damp and
mould which attach to shut-up houses in all parts of
the world.

One end of the room was piled with heterogeneous
bales and packages, but around the fire-place a sense
of comfort began to show itself already.  A
camp-table had been unpacked and screwed together, and
seats, after a fashion, were provided for all the party.
The colonist's "billy," the all-useful iron pot for camp
fire or farmhouse kitchen, was singing merrily, and
even the family teapot had been brought back to
daylight from its chrysalis of straw and packing-case.
There was a home-like feeling in this quiet taking
possession.

"I thought it would be better than having your
boys and girls shivering under canvas until your
house was built," remarked Mr. Hirpington, rubbing
his hands with the pleasant assurance of success.
"You can rent the old place as long as you like.  It
may be a bit shaky at the other corner, but a good
prop will make it all right."

The two friends went out to examine, and the
brothers and sisters drew together.  Effie was hugging
her kitten; Cuthbert was thinking of the fruit; but
Beauty, who had been left grazing outside, was
beforehand with him.  There he stood, with his fore feet
on the broken-down paling, gathering it for himself.
It was fun to see him part the peach and throw
away the stone, and Cuthbert shouted with delight to
Edwin.  They were not altogether pleased to find
Mr. Hirpington regarded it as a very ordinary
accomplishment in a New Zealand horse.

"We are in another hemisphere," exclaimed Edwin,
"and everything about us is so delightfully new."

"Except these decaying beams," returned his father,
coming round to examine the state of the roof above
the window at which Edwin and Effie were standing
after their survey of the bedrooms.

Audrey, who had deferred her curiosity to prepare
the family meal, was glad to learn that, besides the
room in which Mr. Lee had slept last night, each end
of the veranda had been enclosed, making two more
tiny ones.  A bedstead was already put up in one,
and such stores as had been unpacked were shut in
the other.

When Audrey's call to tea brought back the
explorers, and the little party gathered around their
own fireside, Edwin could but think of the dismantled
hearth by the Rota Pah, and as he heard his father's
energetic conversation with Mr. Hirpington, his
indignation against the merciless tana was ready to
effervesce once more.

"Now," Mr. Lee went on, "I cannot bring my mind
to clear my land by burning down the trees.  You
say it is the easiest way."

"Don't begin to dispute with me over that," laughed
his friend.  "You can light a fire, but how will you
fell a tree single-handed?"

The boys were listening with eager interest to their
father's plans.  To swing the axe and load the faggot-cart
would be jolly work indeed in those lovely woods.

Mr. Hirpington was to ride back on the horse he
had lent to Mr. Lee on the preceding evening.  When
he started, the brothers ran down the valley to get a
peep at the rabbiter's camp.  Three or four men were
lying round their fire eating their supper.  The line
of silver streamers fluttering in the wind proved to be
an innumerable multitude of rabbit-skins hanging up
to dry.  A party of sea-gulls, which had followed the
camp as the rabbiters moved on, were hovering about,
crying like cats, until they awakened the sleeping
echoes.

The men told Edwin they had been clearing the
great sheep-runs between his father's land and the
sea-shore, and the birds had followed them all those
miles for the sake of the nightly feast they could
pick up in their track.

"You can none of you do without us," they said.
"We are always at work, moving from place to place,
or the little brown Bunny would lord it over you all."

The boys had hardly time to exchange a good-night
with the rabbiters, when the daylight suddenly faded,
and night came down upon vale and bush without the
sweet interlude of twilight.  They were groping their
way back to the house, when the fire-flies began their
nightly dance, and the flowering shrubs poured forth
their perfume.  The stars shone out in all their
southern splendour, and the boys became aware of a
moving army in the grass.  Poor Bunny was
mustering his myriads.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`POSTING A LETTER`:

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   CHAPTER V.


.. class:: center medium bold

   POSTING A LETTER.

.. vspace:: 2

Mr. Lee and his boys found so much to do in
their new home, days sped away like hours.
The bright autumn weather which had welcomed them
to Wairoa (to give their habitation its Maori name)
had changed suddenly for rain—a long, deluging rain,
lasting more than a week.

The prop which Mr. Hirpington had recommended
was necessarily left for the return of fine weather.
But within doors comfort was growing rapidly.  One
end of the large room was screened off for a workshop,
and shelves and pegs multiplied in convenient corners.
They were yet a good way off from that happy condition
of a place for everything, and everything in its
place.  It was still picnic under a roof, as Audrey said;
but they were on the highroad to comfort and better
things.  When darkness fell they gathered round the
blazing wood-fire.  Mr. Lee wrote the first letters for
England, while Edwin studied "Extinct Volcanoes."  Audrey
added her quota to the packet preparing for
Edwin's old friend, "the perambulating letter-box,"
and Effie and Cuthbert played interminable games of
draughts, until Edwin shut up his book and evolved
from his own brains a new and enlarged edition of
Maori folk-lore which sent them "creepy" to bed.

It seemed a contradiction of terms to say May-day
was bringing winter; but winter might come upon
them in haste, and the letters must be posted before
the road to the ford was changed to a muddy rivulet.

Mr. Lee, who had everything to do with his own
hands, knew not how to spare a day.  He made up
his mind at last to trust Edwin to ride over with
them.  To be sure of seeing Ottley, Edwin must stay
all night at the ford, for after the coach came in it
would be too late for him to return through the bush
alone.

Edwin was overjoyed at the prospect, for Ottley
would tell him all he longed to know.  Was Nga-Hepé
still alive?  Had Whero gone to school?  He might
even propose another early morning walk across the
bush to the banks of the lake.

Edwin was to ride the Maori Beauty, which had
become the family name for the chieftain's horse.
Remembering his past experiences with the
white-leaved puka-puka, he coaxed Audrey to lend him a
curtain she was netting for the window of her own
bedroom.  She had not much faith in Edwin's assurances
that it would not hurt it a bit just to use it for
once for a veil or muzzle; but she was horrified into
compliance by his energetic assertion that her refusal
might cost his Beauty's life.  Cuthbert, mounted on
an upturned pail, so that he could reach the horse's
head, did good service in the difficult task of putting
it on.  The veil was not at all to the Beauty's mind,
and he did his best to get rid of it.  But the four
corners were drawn through his collar at last, and
securely tied.

With Mr. Lee's parting exhortation to mind what
he was about and look well to Beauty's steps, Edwin
started.

The road was changed to a black, oozy, slimy
track.  Here and there the earth had been completely
washed away, and horse and rider were floundering
in a boggy swamp.  A little farther on a perfect
landslip from the hills above had obliterated every
trace of road, and Edwin was obliged to wind his way
through the trees, trusting to his Beauty's instinct to
find it again.

With the many wanderings from the right path
time sped away.  The lamp was swinging in the
acacia tree as he trotted up to the friendly gate of the
ford-house.

"Coach in?" he shouted, as he caught sight of
Dunter shovelling away the mud from the entrance.

"Not yet; but she's overdue," returned the man,
anxiously.  "Even Ottley will never get his horses
through much longer.  We may lock our stable-doors
until the May frosts begin.  It is a tempting of
Providence to start with wheels through such a swamp,
and I told him so last week."

"Then I am just in time," cried Edwin joyfully,
walking his horse up to the great flat stone in the
middle of the yard and alighting.  He slipped his
hand into his coat to satisfy himself the bulky letters
in his breast-pocket were all right, and then led his
Beauty to the horse-trough.  He had half a mind not
to go in-doors until he had had his talk with Ottley.

Dunter, who was looking forward to the brief
holiday the stopping of the coach secured him, leaned
on his spade and prepared for a gossip.

"Did Mr. Lee think of building a saw-mill?"
Edwin's reply ended with the counter-inquiry,
"Had Mr. Hirpington got home?"

Dunter shook his head.  "Not he: we all hold on
as long as the light lasts.  He is away with the men,
laying down a bit of corduroy road over an earthslip,
just to keep a horse-track through the worst of the
winter."

Whilst Edwin was being initiated into the mysteries
of road-making in the bush, the coach drove up.

Horses and driver were alike covered with mud,
and the coach itself exhibited more than its usual
quota of flax-leaf bandages—all testifying to the
roughness of the journey.

"It is the last time you will see me this season,"
groaned Ottley, as he got off the box.  "I shall get
no farther."  He caught sight of Edwin, and recognized
his presence with a friendly nod.  The passengers,
looking in as dilapidated and battered condition
as the coach, were slowly getting out, thankful to find
themselves at a stopping-place.  Among them Edwin
noticed a remarkable old man.

.. _`81`:

His snowy hair spoke of extreme old age, and
when he turned a tattooed cheek towards the boy,
Edwin's attention was riveted upon him at once.
Lean, lank, and active still, his every air and gesture
was that of a man accustomed to command.

"Look at him well," whispered Dunter.  "He is a
true old tribal chief from the other side of the
mountains, if I know anything; one of the invincibles, the
gallant old warrior-chiefs that are dying out fast.
You will never see his like again.  If you had heard
them, as I have, vow to stand true for ever and ever
and ever, you would never forget it.—Am I not right,
coachee?" he added in a low aside to Ottley, as he
took the fore horse by the head.

The lantern flickered across the wet ground.  The
weary passengers were stamping their numbed feet,
and shaking the heavy drops of moisture from
hat-brims and overcoats.  Edwin pressed resolutely
between, that he might catch the murmur of Ottley's
reply.

"He got in at the last stopping-place, but I do not
know him."

There was such a look of Whero in the proud flash
of the aged Maori's eye, that Edwin felt a secret
conviction, be he who he might, they must be kith and
kin.  He held his letter aloft to attract the coachman's
attention, calling out at his loudest, "Here, Mr. Ottley,
I have brought a letter for you to post at last."

"All right," answered the coachman, opening a
capacious pocket to receive it, in which a dozen
others were already reposing.  "Hand it over, my
boy; there is scarcely a letter reaches the post from
this district which does not go through my hands."

"Did you post this?" asked the aged Maori, taking
another from the folds of his blanket.

"I did more," said Ottley, as he glanced at the
crumpled envelope, "for I wrote it to Kakiki Mahane,
the father of Nga-Hepé's wife, at her request."

"I am that father," returned the old chief.

"And I," added Ottley, "was the eye-witness of
her destitution, as that letter tells you."

They were almost alone now in the great wet yard.
The other passengers were hurrying in-doors, and
Dunter was leading away the horses; but Edwin
lingered, regardless of the heavy drops falling from
the acacia, in his anxiety to hear more.

"I have brought no following with me to the
mountain-lake, for by your letter famine is brooding
in the whare of my child.  Well, I know if the men
of the Kota Pah heard of my coming, they would
spread the feast in my honour.  But how should I eat
with the enemies of my child?  I wait for the rising
of the stars to find her, that none may know I am near."

"I'll go with you," offered Ottley.

"You need not wait for the stars," interposed
Edwin; "I'll carry the big coach-lantern before you
with pleasure.  Do let me go with you," he urged,
appealing to Ottley.

"How is this?" asked Kakiki.  "Does the pakeha
pity when the Maori frowns?  What has my son-in-law
been about, to bring down upon himself the
vengeance of his tribe?"

"Let your daughter answer that question," remarked
Ottley discreetly.

But Edwin put in warmly: "Nga-Hepé was too
rich and too powerful, and the chief grew jealous.
It was a big shame; and if I had been Whero, I
should have been worse than he was."

Whero's grandfather deigned no reply.  He stalked
up the well-worn steps into Mrs. Hirpington's kitchen,
and seating himself at the long table called out for
supper.  Edwin just peeped in at the door, avoiding
Mrs. Hirpington's eye, for fear she should interfere
to prevent him going with the old Maori.

"I shall see her when I come back," he thought, as
he strolled on towards the stable, keeping an
anxious watch over the gate, afraid lest the fordmaster
should himself appear at the last moment and detain him.

"You have brought Nga-Hepé's horse," said Ottley.
as he entered the nearest stall.  "We must have him,
for he knows the way.  We have only to give him
his head, and he is safe to take the road to his
master's door."

"If you have him you must have me," persisted
Edwin, and the thing was settled.  He nestled down
in the clean straw under Beauty's manger, and waited,
elate with the prospect of a night of adventure, and
stoutly resisted all Dunter's persuasions to go in to
supper.

Wondering at the shy fit which had seized the boy,
Dunter brought him a hunch of bread and cheese, and
left the lantern swinging in the stable from the hook
in the ceiling, ere he went in with Ottley to share the
good feed always to be found in Mrs. Hirpington's
kitchen, leaving Edwin alone with the horses.  He
latched the stable-door, as the nights were growing cold.
The gates were not yet barred, for Mr. Hirpington
and his men were now expected every minute.

Edwin's thoughts had gone back to the corduroy
road, which Dunter had told him was made of the
trunks of trees laid close together, with a layer of
saplings on the top to fill up the interstices.  He was
making it in miniature with some bits of rush and
reed scattered about the stables, when the latch was
softly lifted, and Whero stood before him.  Not the
Whero he had parted from by the white pines, but
the lean skeleton of a boy with big, staring eyes, and
bony arms coming out from the loose folds of the
blanket he was wearing, like the arms of a harlequin.
Edwin sprang up to meet him, exclaiming, "Your
grandfather is here."  But instead of replying, Whero
was vigorously rubbing faces with his good old Beauty.

"Have you come to meet your grandfather?" asked Edwin.

"No," answered the boy abruptly.  "I've come to
ask Ottley to take me to school."  His voice was
hollow, and his teeth seemed to snap together at the
sight of the bread in Edwin's hand.

"Whero, you are starving!" exclaimed Edwin,
putting the remainder of his supper into the dusky,
skinny fingers smoothing Beauty's mane.

"A man must learn to starve," retorted Whero.
"The mother here will give me food when I come of
nights and talk to Ottley."

"But your own mother, Whero, and Ronga, and
the children, how do they live?" Edwin held back
from asking after Nga-Hepé, "for," he said, as he
looked at Whero, "he must be dead."

"How do they live?" repeated Whero, with a
laugh.  "Is the door of the whare ever shut against
the hungry?  They go to the pah daily, but I will
not go.  I will not eat with the men who struck
down my father in his pride.  I wander through the
bush.  Let him eat the food they bring him—he
knows not yet how it comes; but his eyes are
opening to the world again.  When he sees me
hunger-bitten, and my sister Rewi fat as ever, he will want
the reason why.  I will not give it.  His strength is
gone if he starves as I starve.  How can it return?
No; I will go to school to-morrow before he asks me."

Edwin's hand grasped Whero's with a warmth of
sympathy that was only held in check by the dread of
another nasal caress, and he exclaimed, "Come along,
old fellow, and have a look at your grandfather too."

There was something about the grand old Maori's
face which made Edwin feel that he both could and
would extricate his unfortunate daughter from her
painful position.

"It is a fix," Edwin went on; "but he has come
to pull you through, I feel sure."

Still Whero held back.  He did not believe it was
his grandfather.  *He* would not come without a
following; and more than that, the proud boy could not
stoop to show himself to a stranger of his own race
in such a miserable guise.  He coiled himself round
in the straw and refused to stir.

"Now, Whero," Edwin remonstrated, "I call this
really foolish; and if I were you I would not, I could
not do it, speak of my own mother as one of the
women.  I like your mother.  It rubs me up to hear
you—"  The boy stopped short; the measured breathing
of his companion struck on his ear.  Whero had
already fallen fast asleep by Beauty's side.

"Oh, bother!" thought Edwin.  "Yet, poor fellow,
I won't wake you up, but I'll go and tell your
grandfather you are here."

He went out, shutting the door after him, and
encountered Mr. Hirpington coming in with his men.

"Hollo, Edwin, my boy, what brings you here?"
he exclaimed.

"Please, sir, I came over with a packet of letters
for Mr. Ottley to post," was the quick answer, as
Edwin walked on by his side, intent upon delivering
his father's messages.

"All right," was the hearty response.  "We'll see.
Come, now I think of it, we can send your father
some excellent hams and bacon we bought of the
Maoris.  Some of poor Hepé's stores, I expect."

"That was a big shame," muttered Edwin, hotly,
afraid to hurt poor Whero's pride by explaining his
forlorn state to any one but his grandfather.

He entered the well-remembered room with the
fordmaster, looking eagerly from side to side, as
Mr. Hirpington pushed him into the first vacant seat at
the long table, where supper for the "coach" was
going forward.  Edwin was watching for the old
chief, who sat by Ottley, gravely devouring heap after
heap of whitebait, potatoes, and pumpkins with which
the "coach" took care to supply him.  Mrs. Hirpington
cast anxious glances round the table, fearing
that the other passengers would run short, as the old
Maori still asked for "more," repeating in a loud
voice, "More, more kai!" which Ottley interpreted
"food."  Dunter was bringing forth the reserves from
the larder—another cheese, the remains of the
mid-day pudding, and a huge dish of brawn, not yet cold
enough to be turned out of the mould, and therefore
in a quaky state.  The old chief saw it tremble, and
thinking it must be alive, watched it curiously.

"What strange animals you pakehas bring over the
sea!" he exclaimed at last, adding, as he sprang to his
feet and drew the knife in his belt with a savage
gesture, "I'll kill it."

The laughter every one was trying to suppress
choked the explanation that would have been given
on all sides.  With arm upraised, and a contorted
face that alone was enough to frighten Mrs. Hirpington
out of her wits, he plunged the knife into the
unresisting brawn to its very hilt, utterly amazed to
find neither blood nor bones to resist it.  "Bah!" he
exclaimed, in evident disgust.

"Here, Edwin," gasped the shaking fordmaster,
"give the old fellow a spoon."

Edwin snatched up one from the corner of the
table, and careful not to wound the aged Maori's
pride, which might be as sensitive as his grandson's,
he explained to him as well as he could that brawn
was brawn, and very jolly stuff for a supper.

"Example is better than precept at all times,"
laughed Mr. Hirpington.  "Show him what to do
with the spoon."

Edwin obeyed literally, putting it to his own lips
and then offering it to Kakiki.  The whole room was
convulsed with merriment.  Ottley and Mr. Hirpington
knew this would not do, and exerted themselves
to recover self-control sufficiently to persuade the old
man to taste and try the Ingarangi kai.

He drew the dish towards him with the utmost
gravity, and having pronounced the first mouthful
"Good, good," he worked away at it until the whole
of its contents had disappeared.  And all the while
Whero was starving in the stable.

"I can't stand this any longer," thought Edwin.  "I
must get him something to eat, I must;" and following
Dunter into the larder, he explained the state of
the case.

"Wants to go by the coach and cannot pay for
supper and bed.  I see," returned Dunter.

Edwin thought of the treasure by the white pines
as he answered, "I am afraid so."

"That's hard," pursued the man good-naturedly;
"but the missis never grudges a mouthful of food to
anybody.  I'll see after him."

"Let me take it to him," urged Edwin, receiving
the unsatisfactory reply, "Just wait a bit; I'll see,"
as Dunter was called off in another direction; and
with this he was obliged to be content.

Ottley was so taken up with the aged chief—who
was considerably annoyed to find himself the laughing-stock
of the other passengers—that Edwin could not
get a word with him.  He tried Mr. Hirpington, who
was now talking politics with a Wellingtonian fresh
from the capital.  Edwin, in his fever of impatience,
thought the supper would never end.  After a while
some of the passengers went off to bed, and others
drew round the fire and lit their pipes.

Mrs. Hirpington, Kakiki, and the coachman alone
remained at the table.  At last the dish of brawn
was cleared, and the old Maori drew himself up with
a truly royal air.  Taking out a well-filled purse, in
which some hundreds of English sovereigns were
glittering, he began counting on his fingers, "One ten,
two ten—how muts?" (much).

Ottley, who understood a Maori's simple mode of
reckoning better than any one present, was assisting
Mrs. Hirpington to make her bill, and began to speak
to Kakiki about their departure.

The fordmaster could see how tired the chief was
becoming, and suddenly remembered a Maori's
contempt and dislike for the wretched institution of
chairs.  He was determined to make the old man
comfortable, and fetching a bear-skin from the inner
room, he spread it on the floor by the fire, and invited
Kakiki to take possession.  Edwin ran to his help,
and secured the few minutes for talk he so much
desired.  Mr. Hirpington listened and nodded.

"You will have to stay here until the morning,"
he added, "every one of you.  Go off with Dunter
and make the boy outside as comfortable as you can.
I should be out of my duty to let that old man cross
the bush at night, with so much money about him.
Better fetch his grandson in here."

Mrs. Hirpington laid her hand on Edwin's shoulder
as he passed, and told him, with her pleasant smile,
his bed was always ready at the ford.

Dunter pointed to a well-filled plate and a mug of
tea, placed ready to his hand on the larder shelf; and
stretching over Edwin's head, he unbolted the door to
let him out.

The Southern Cross shone brightly above the iron
roof as Edwin stepped into the yard to summon
Whero.  The murmur of the water as it lapped on
the boating-stairs broke the stillness without, and
helped to guide him to the stable-door.  The lantern
had burnt out.  He groped his way in, and giving
Whero a hearty shake, charged him to come along.

But the hand he grasped was withdrawn.

"I can't," persisted Whero; "I'm too ashamed."  He
meant too shy to face the "coach," and tell all he had
endured in their presence.  The idea was hateful to him.

Edwin placed the supper on the ground and ran
back for Ottley.  He found the coachman explaining to
Kakiki why Marileha had refused to accept the money
for the horse, and how he had kept it for her use.

"Then take this," cried Kakiki, flinging the purse
of gold towards him, "and do the like."

But Ottley's "No!" was dogged in its decision.

"What for no?" asked Kakiki, angrily.

"Who is his daughter?" whispered Mr. Hirpington
to his wife.

"You know her: she wears the shark's teeth, tied
in her ears with a black ribbon," Mrs. Hirpington
answered, sleepily.

Then he went to the rescue, and tried to persuade
Kakiki to place his money in the Auckland Bank for
his daughter's benefit, pointing out as clearly as he
could the object of a bank, and how to use it.  As
the intelligent old man began to comprehend him, he
reiterated, "Good, good; the pitfall is only dangerous
when it is covered.  My following are marching after
me up the hills.  If I enter the Rota Pah with the
state of a chief, there will be fighting.  Send back
my men to their canoes.  Hide the wealth that
remains to my child as you say, but let that wahini"
(meaning Mrs. Hirpington) "take what she will, and
bid her send kai by night to my daughter's whare,
that there may be no starving.  This bank shall be
visited by me, and then I go a poor old man to sleep
by my daughter's fire until her warrior's foot is firm
upon the earth once more.  I'll wrap me in that thin
sheet," he went on, seizing the corner of the
table-cloth, which was not yet removed.

Mr. Hirpington let him have it without a word,
and Ottley rejoiced to find them so capable and so
determined to extricate Marileha from her peril.

"Before this moon shall pass," said Kakiki, "I will
take her away, with her family, to her own people.
Let your canoe be ready to answer my signal."

"Agreed," replied Mr. Hirpington; "I'll send my
boat whenever you want it."

"For all that," thought Edwin, "will Nga-Hepé go
away?" He longed to fetch in Whero, that he might
enter into his grandfather's plans; and as, one after
another, the passengers went off to bed, he made his
way to Mrs. Hirpington.  Surely he could coax her
to unbar the door once more and let him out to the
stables.

"What, another Maori asleep in the straw!" she
exclaimed.  "They do take liberties.  Pray, my dear,
don't bring him in here, or we shall be up all night."

Edwin turned away again in despair.

Having possessed himself of the table-cloth, the old
chief lay down on the bear-skin and puffed away at
the pipe Mr. Hirpington had offered him, in silence
revolving his schemes.

He was most anxious to ascertain how his son-in-law
had brought down upon himself the vengeance of
the tribe amongst which he lived.  "I will not break
the peace of the hills," he said at length, "for he may
have erred.  Row me up stream while the darkness
lasts, that I may have speech of my child."

"Too late," said Mr. Hirpington; "wait for the daylight."

"Are there not stars in heaven?" retorted Kakiki,
rising to try the door.

"Am I a prisoner?" he demanded angrily, when
he found it fastened.

Mr. Hirpington felt he had been reckoning without
his host when he declared no one should leave his
roof that night.  But he was not the man to persist
in a mistake, so he threw it open.

"I'll row him," said Dunter.

Edwin ran out with them.  Here was the chance
he had been seeking.  He flew to the stable and
roused up Whero.  Grandfather and grandson met
and deliberately rubbed noses by the great flat stone
which Edwin had used as a horse-block.  Whilst
Dunter and Mr. Hirpington were getting out the boat,
they talked to each other in their native tongue.

"It will be all right now, won't it?" asked Edwin,
in a low aside to Ottley, who stood in the doorway
yawning.  But Kakiki beckoned them to the conference.

"The sky is black with clouds above my daughter's
head; her people have deserted her—all but Ronga.
Would they cut off the race of Hepé?  Some
miscreant met the young lord in the bush, and tried to
push him down a mud-hole; but he sprang up a tree,
and so escaped.  Take him to school as he wills.
When I go down to the bank I shall see him there.
It is good that he should learn.  The letter has saved
my child."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`MIDNIGHT ALARMS`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER VI.


.. class:: center medium bold

   MIDNIGHT ALARMS.

.. vspace:: 2

After his return home, Edwin felt as if mud
and rain had taken possession of the outside
world.  The rivulet in the valley had become a
raging torrent.  All the glamour of the woods was gone.
The fern-covered hills looked gaunt and brown.  The
clumps of flax and rush bent their flattened heads
low in the muddy swamp before the piercing night
winds.  The old trees in the orchard were shattered,
and their broken branches, still cumbering the ground,
looked drear and desolate.  The overgrowth of leaf
and stalk presented a mass of decaying vegetation,
dank and sodden.

One chill May morning brought a heavy snow,
veiling the calm crests of the majestic hills with
dazzling whiteness, becoming more intense and vivid
as their drapery of mist and storm-cloud blackened.
All movement seemed absorbed by the foaming cascades,
tearing down the rifts and gullies in the valley
slope.  Every sign of life was restricted to a
ghostly-looking gull, sated with dead rabbit, winging its heavy
flight to the blue-black background of dripping rock.

But in this England of the Southern Seas the
winter changes as it changes in the British Isles.
Sharp, frosty nights succeeded.  The ground grew
crisp to the tread.  The joyous work in the woods
began.  Mr. Lee went daily to his allotment with
axe on shoulder and his boys by his side.  His skill
in woodcraft was telling.  Many of the smaller trees
had already fallen beneath his vigorous stroke, when
the rabbiters—who glean their richest harvest in the
winter nights—reappeared.  They were so used to the
reckless ways of the ordinary colonist—who cuts and
slashes and burns right hand and left until the coast
is clear—that Mr. Lee's methodical proceedings began
to interest them.  His first step was to clear away
the useless undergrowth and half-grown trees, gaining
room for charcoal fires, and for stacks of bark which
his boys were stripping from the fallen trunks.  His
roving neighbours promised to leave their traps and
snares, and help him to bring down the forest giants
which he was marking for destruction.

One June evening, as the Lees were returning
from a hard day's work, they passed the rabbiters
going out as usual to begin their own.  A slight
tremor in the ground attracted the attention of both
parties.  As they exchanged their customary
good-night, one of the rabbiters observed there was an
ugly look about the sky.

The boys grumbled to each other that there was
an ugly look about the ground.  Although thousands
of little brown heads and flopping ears were bobbing
about among the withered thistle-stalks, thousands
more were lying dead behind every loose stone or
weedy tuft.

The ghoul-like gulls were hovering in increasing
numbers, some already pouncing on their prey and
crying to their fellows wheeling inland from the
distant shore.  No other sound disturbed the silence of
the bush.  The sense of profound repose deepened as
they reached their home.  To Mr. Lee it seemed an
ominous stillness, like the lull before the storm; but
in the cheerful light of his blazing fire he shook off
the feeling.

The weary boys soon went to bed.  For the
present they were sleeping in the same room as their
father, who slowly followed their example.

It was nearly midnight, when Edwin was awakened
with a dim feeling of something the matter.
Cuthbert was pulling him.  "Edwin!  Edwin!"

"What is it?" he cried.  Edwin's hurried exclamation
was lost in the bang and rattle all around.
Were the windows coming in?  He sprang upright as
the bed was violently shaken, and the brothers were
tossed upon each other.

"What now?" called out Mr. Lee, as the floor
swayed and creaked, and he felt himself rolling over
in the very moment of waking.  The walls were
beginning a general waltz, when the noise of falling
crockery in the outer room and the howling of the
rabbiters' dogs drowned every other sound.

A sickly, helpless sensation stole over them all,
Mr. Lee too, as everything around them became as
suddenly still—an eerie feeling which could not be
shaken off.  The boys lay hushed in a state of
nervous tension, not exactly fear, but as if their
senses were dumfoundered and all their being
centred in a focus of expectation.

Effie gave a suppressed scream.  Mr. Lee was
speaking to her through the wall.  "It is over, my
dear—it is over; don't be frightened," he was
saying.

"It—what it?" asked Cuthbert, drawing his head
under the bed-clothes.

"Our first taste of earthquake," returned his
father; "and a pretty sharp one, I fancy."

At this announcement Cuthbert made a speedy
remove to his father's bed, and cuddled down in the
blankets.  Mr. Lee walked round the room and
looked out of the window.  It was intensely dark;
he could see nothing.

"Oh my head!" they heard Audrey saying; "it
aches so strangely."

Mr. Lee repeated his consolatory assurance that it
was over, and returned to bed, giving way to the
natural impulse to lie still which the earthquake
seemed to produce.  The violence of the headache
every one was experiencing made them thankful to
lie down once more; but rest was out of the question.
In a little while all began again; not a violent
shock, as at the first, but a continual quaking.

Mr. Lee got up and dressed.  He was afraid to
light a lamp, for fear it should be upset; so he
persuaded his children to keep in bed, thinking they
would be rolled down in the darkness by the heaving
of the floor.  He groped his way into the outer room,
treading upon broken earthenware at every step.
This was making bad worse.  He went back and lit
a match.  It was just two o'clock.

Audrey, who heard him moving about, got up also,
and began to dress, being troubled at the destruction
of the plates and dishes.  In ten minutes they were
startled by a fearful subterranean roar.  Edwin could
lie still no longer.  He sprang up, and was hurrying
on his clothes, when the house shook with redoubled
violence.  Down came shelves, up danced chairs.  The
bang and crash, followed by a heavy thud just
overhead, made Edwin and his father start back to
opposite sides of the room as the roof gave way, and a
ton weight of thatch descended on the bed Edwin
had just vacated.

"The chimney!" exclaimed Mr. Lee.  "The chimney is down!"

The dancing walls seemed ready to follow.  Cuthbert
was grabbing at his shoes.  Mr. Lee ran to the
door, thinking of his girls in the other room.

"Audrey!  Effie!" he shouted, "are you hurt?"

But the weight of the falling thatch kept the door
from opening.  He saw the window was bulging
outwards.  He seized a stick standing in the corner, and
tried to wrench away the partition boarding between
him and his daughters.  But the slight shake this
gave to the building brought down another fall of
thatch, filling the room with dust.  Edwin just escaped
a blow from a beam; but the darkness was terrific,
and the intense feeling of oppression increased the
frantic desire to get out.

"In another moment the whole place will be about
our ears!" exclaimed Mr. Lee, forcing the window
outwards, and pushing the boys before him into the open.
He saw—no, he could not see, but rather felt the
whole building was tottering to its fall.  "Let the
horses loose!" he shouted to Edwin, as he ran round
to the front of the house to extricate the girls.

The boom as of distant cannon seemed to fill the air.

"O Lord above, what is it?" ejaculated one of the
rabbiters, who had heard the chimney go down, and
was hurrying to Mr. Lee's assistance.

Again the heavy roll as of cannon seemed to
reverberate along the distant shore.

"It is a man-of-war in distress off Manakau Head,"
cried a comrade.

"That! man, that is but the echo; the noise is from
the hills.  There is hot work among the Maoris, maybe.
They are game enough for anything.  The cannon is
there," averred old Hal, the leader of the gang.

"Then it is that Nga-Hepé blowing up the Rota
Pah by way of revenge," exclaimed the first speaker.

Edwin had opened the stable-door, and was running
after his father.  He caught the name Nga-Hepé, and
heard old Hal's reply,—

"He buy cannon indeed, when the muru took away
his all not three months since!"

Edwin passed the speaker, and overtaking his
father in the darkness, he whispered, "The man may
be right.  Nga-Hepé's wife buried his money by the
roadside, by the twin pines, father.  I saw her do it."

"Ah!" answered Mr. Lee, as he sprang up the
veranda steps and rapped on Audrey's window.  As
she threw it open a gruff voice spoke to Edwin out of
the darkness.

"So it was money Marileha buried?"

But Edwin gave no reply.  Mr. Lee was holding
out his arms to Erne, who had scrambled upon the
window-sill, and stood there trembling, afraid to take
the leap he recommended.

"Wrap her in a blanket, Audrey, and slide her
down," said their father.

Edwin was on the sill beside her in a moment.
The blanket Audrey was dragging forward was seized
and flung around the little trembler, enveloping head,
arms, and feet.  Mr. Lee caught the lower end, and
drawing it down, received his "bonnie birdie" in his
fatherly arms.  Edwin leaped into the darkness
within.

"Quick, Audrey, quick, or the house will fall upon
us," he urged.

She was snatching at this and that, and tying up a
bundle in haste.  Edwin pulled out another blanket
from the tumbled bed-clothes, and flung it on the
window-sill.

"No, no," said Audrey; "I'll jump."

She tossed her bundle before her, and setting
herself low on her feet, she gave one hand to her father
and the other to the gruff speaker who had startled
Edwin in the darkness.  They swung her to the
ground between them just as the log-built walls began
to roll.  Edwin was driven back among the ruins,
crouching under the bulrush thatch, which lay in
heaps by the debris of beam and chimney, snug like a
rabbit in its burrow, whilst beam and prop were
falling around him.  He heard Cuthbert calling
desperately, "Look, look! father, father! the world's on
fire!"

Edwin tugged furiously at the mass of dry and
dusty rushes in which he had become enveloped,
working with hands and feet, groping his way to space
and air once more.  The grand but terrific sight which
met his gaze struck him backwards, and he sank
confounded on the heap, from which he had scarcely
extricated himself.

The sacred Maori hills, which at sunset had reared
their snowy crests in majestic calm, were ablaze with
fire.  The intensity of the glare from the huge pillar
of flame, even at so great a distance, was more than
eyes could bear.  With both hands extended before
his face to veil the too terrific light, Edwin lay
entranced.  That vision of a thousand feet of ascending
flame, losing itself in a dome of cloud blacker and
denser than the blackness of midnight, might well
prelude the day of doom.  Unable to bear the sight
or yet to shut it out, he watched in dumb amazement.
White meteor globes of star-like brilliancy shot from
out the pall of cloud in every direction, and shed a
blue unearthly light on all around.  They came with
the roar as of cannon, and the rocks were riven by
their fall.  Huge fissures, opening in the mountain
sides, emitted streams of rolling fire.

Edwin forgot his own peril and the peril of all
around, lost in the immensity of the sight.  The cries
and groans of the rabbiters recalled him.  Some had
thrown themselves on their faces in a paroxysm of
terror.  Old Hal had fallen on his knees, believing
the end of the world had come.

Edwin heard his father's voice rising calm and clear
above the gasping ejaculations and snatches of
half-forgotten prayer.

"Would you court blindness?  Shut your eyes to
the awful sight.  It is an eruption of Mount
Tarawera.  Remember, Hal, we are in the hands of One
whom storm and fire obey."

The play of the lightning around the mountain-head
became so intense that the glare from the huge
column of volcanic fire could scarcely be distinguished.
The jagged, forked flashes shot downwards to the
shuddering forest, and tree after tree was struck to
earth, and fire sprang up in glade and thicket.

"To the open!" shouted Mr. Lee, blindfolding
Cuthbert with his handkerchief, and shrouding Effie
in the blanket, as he carried her towards the recent
clearing.

Cuthbert grasped his father's coat with both hands,
and stumbled on by his side.  A dull, red spot in the
distance marked the place where the charcoal fires
were smouldering still, just as Mr. Lee had left them.

He laid his burden down in the midst of the circling
heaps, which shed a warmth and offered something of
a shelter from the rising blast.  It was the safest spot
in which he could leave the two; and charging Cuthbert
to be a man and take care of his sister, he hurried
away to look for Edwin.

With their backs against the sods which covered
over the charring wood, the children sat with their
arms round each other's necks, huddled together in the
blanket, all sense of loneliness and fear of being left
by themselves absorbed in the awe of the night.

Inspired by Mr. Lee's example, old Hal had rallied.
He had caught Beauty, and was putting him in the
cart.  Audrey, with her recovered bundle on her arm,
with the quiet self-possession which never seemed to
desert her, was bringing him the harness from the
new-built shed, which was still standing.

The gruff rabbiter, who had been the first to come
to Mr. Lee's assistance, followed her for a fork to
move the heaps of thatch which hemmed Edwin in.
He was crossing to the ruined house with it poised
upon his shoulder as Mr. Lee came up.  He saw the
lightning flash across the steel, and dashed the fork
from the man's insensate grasp.  The fellow staggered
backwards and fell a senseless heap.  Star-like rays
were shooting from each pointing tine as the fork
touched the ground, and lines of fire ran from them
in every direction.  Edwin saw it also, and seizing a
loosened tie-beam, he gave the great heap of thatch
before him a tremendous heave, and sent it over.
The sodden mass of rush, heavy with frozen snow,
broke to pieces as it fell, and changed the running fire
to a dense cloud of smoke.

A deep-voiced "Bravo, young un!" broke from the
horror-stricken rabbiters, who had gathered round
their comrade.  But Mr. Lee was before them.  He
had loosened the man's collar and torn open his shirt.
In the play of the cold night air his chest gave a
great heave.  A sigh of thankfulness ran round the
group.  The lightning he had so unthinkingly drawn
down upon himself had not struck a vital part.

Audrey had dropped her bundle, and was filling
her lap with the frozen flags by the edge of the
stream.

They dragged him away from the smoke, and
Audrey's icy gleanings were heaped upon his burning
head.  A twitch of the nostrils was followed by a
deep groan.

"He'll do," said Hal.  "He's a coming round, thank God!"

With a low-breathed Amen, Mr. Lee turned away,
for the cloud of smoke his boy had raised completely
concealed him.  The cheery "All right" which
answered his shout for his son put new life into the
whole party.

Audrey and her father ran quickly to the end of
the house.  The great beam of the roof was cleared,
and Edwin was cautiously making his way across it
on his hands and knees.

"Stand back!" he cried, as he neared the end, and,
with a flying leap and hands outspread he cleared the
broken wall, and alighted uninjured on the ground.

Mr. Lee caught hold of him, and Audrey grasped
both hands.

"I'm all right," he retorted; "don't you bother
about me."

A terrible convulsion shook the ground; the men
flung themselves on their faces.  A splendid kauri
tree one hundred and seventy feet high, which shaded
the entrance of the valley, was torn up by the roots,
as an awful blast swept down the forest glades with
annihilating force.  The crash, the shock reverberating
far and wide, brought with it such a sense of
paralyzing helplessness even Mr. Lee gave up all for
lost.

They lifted up their heads, and saw red-hot stones
flying into the air and rolling down the riven slopes.

"O my little lambs!" groaned Mr. Lee, thinking
of the two he had left by the charcoal fires, "what
am I doing lying here, and you by yourselves in the
open?"

"Get 'em away," said Hal; "the cart is still there.
Put 'em all in, and gallop off towards the shore; it's
our only safety."

There was too much weight in the old man's words
to disregard them.  Mr. Lee looked round for his
other horse, which had rushed over him at a mad
bound when the last tree fell.  He saw it now, its
coat staring with the fright, stealing back to its
companion.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE RAIN OF MUD`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER VII.


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE RAIN OF MUD.

.. vspace:: 2

It was about four o'clock in the morning.  A new
thing happened—a strange new thing, almost
unparalleled in the world's history.  The eruption
had been hitherto confined to the central peak of
Tarawera, known among the Maori tribes as Ruawahia;
but now with a mighty explosion the south-west peak
burst open, and flames came belching forth, with
torrents of liquid fire.  The force of the earthquake
which accompanied it cracked the bed of the fairy
lake.  The water rushed through the hole upon the
subterranean fires, and returned in columns of steam,
forcing upwards the immense accumulation of soft
warm mud at the bottom of the lake.  The whole of
this was blown into the air, and for fifteen miles
around the mountain fell like rain.  The enormous
amount of steam thus generated could not find half
vent enough through the single hole by which the
water had poured in, and blew off the crust of the
earth above it.

Showers of rock, cinders, and dust succeeded the
mud, lashing the lake to fury—a fury which baffled
all imagination.  The roar of the falling water through
unseen depths beneath the lake, the screech of the
escaping steam, the hissing cannonade of stones,
created a volley of sound for which no one could
account, whilst the mud fell thick and fast, as the
snow falls in a blizzard.

The geysers, catching the subterranean rage, shot
their scalding spray above the trees.  Mud-holes were
boiling over and over, and new ones opening in
unexpected places.  Every ditch was steaming, every
hill was reeling.  For the space of sixty miles the
earth quivered and shook, and a horrid sulphurous
smell uprose from the very ground; while around
Tarawera, mountain, lake, and forest were enveloped
in one immense cloud of steam, infolding a throbbing
heart of flame, and ascending to the almost incredible
height of twenty-two thousand feet.  Beneath its
awful shadow the country lay in darkness—a darkness
made still more appalling when the huge rock
masses of fire clove their way upwards, to fall back
into the crater from which they had been hurled.

As Mr. Lee caught his horse by the forelock, the
first heavy drops of mud hissed on the frozen ground.
In another moment they came pelting thick and fast,
burning, blinding, burying everything in their path.
The horse broke loose from his master's hand, and
tore away to the shelter of the trees.  The heavy cart
lumbering at his heels alone kept Beauty from
following his mate.  Hal caught his rein, Edwin seized his
head, as the thick cloud of ashes and mud grew denser
and blacker, until Edwin could scarcely see his hand
before him.

"Get in! get in!" gasped the old rabbiter.

Edwin swung himself upon the horse's back, and
rode postilion, holding him in with all his might.

"The sick man first," said Mr. Lee, almost choking
with the suffocating smell which rose from the earth.
He lifted the poor fellow in his arms, a comrade
took him by the feet, and between them they got him
into the cart.  Hal had resigned the reins to Edwin,
and taken his place, ready to pillow the unconscious
head upon his knees.

"The Lord have mercy on us!" he groaned.

Mr. Lee groped round for Audrey.  Her feet were
blistering through her thin boots, as she sank
ankle-deep in the steaming slime, which came pouring down
without intermission.  Her father caught her by the
waist and swung her into the back of the cart.
Another of the rabbiters got up on the front and took
the reins from Edwin, who did not know the way.
The other two, with Mr. Lee, caught hold of the back
of the cart and ran until they came to their own
camp.  The tents lay flat; the howling dogs had fled;
but their horse, which they had tethered for the
night, had not yet broken loose.

Here they drew up, sorely against Mr. Lee's desire,
for he could no longer distinguish the glimmer of his
charcoal fires, and his heart was aching for his
children—his innocents, his babies, as he fondly called
them—in that moment of dread.  As the rabbiters
halted, he stooped to measure the depth of mud on
the ground, alarmed lest the children should be suffocated
in their sleep; for they might have fallen asleep,
they had been left so long.

"Not they," persisted Edwin.  "They are not such
duffers as to lie down in mud like this; and as for
sleep in this unearthly storm—" he stopped abruptly.

"Hark!" exclaimed his father, bending closer to the
ground.  "Surely that was a 'coo,' in the distance."

Every ear was strained.  Again it came, that
recognized call for help no colonist who reckons
himself a man ever refuses to answer.

Faint as was the echo which reached them, it
quivered with a passionate entreaty.

"They are cooing from the ford," cried one.  But
another contradicted.  It was only when bending
over the upturned roots of a fallen tree that the feeble
sound could be detected, amidst all the fearsome
noises raging in the upper air.

The rabbiters felt about for their spades, and
throwing out the mud from the cavity, knelt low in the
loosened earth.  They could hear it now more plainly.

Mr. Lee pressed his ear to the freshly-disturbed
mould, and listened attentively.  The cry was a cry
of distress, and the voice was the voice of his friend.

The rabbiters looked at each other, aghast at the
thought of returning to the thick of the storm.  It
was bad enough to flee before it; but to face the
muddy rain which was beating them to the earth, to
breathe in the burning dust which came whirling
through it, could any one do that and reach the ford
alive?  Not one dare venture; yet they would not
leave the spot.

At break of day they said, "We will go."  They
were glad of such shelter as the upheaved roots
afforded.  It was a moment's respite from the blistering,
blinding rain.  But whilst they argued thus, Mr. Lee
was striding onwards to the seven black heaps,
in the midst of which he had left his children.

The fires had long gone out; the blackness of
darkness was around him.  He called their names.  He
shouted.  His voice was thick and hoarse from the
choking atmosphere.  He stumbled against a hillock.
He sank in the drift of mud by its side.  A faint,
low sob seemed near him; something warm eluded
his touch.  His arms sought it in the darkness,
sweeping before him into empty space.  Two resolute
small hands fought back his own, and Cuthbert
growled out fiercely, "Whoever you are, you shan't
touch my Effie.  Get along!"

"Not touch your Effie, my game chick!" retorted
Mr. Lee, with the ghost of a smile in spite of his
despair.

"Oh, it is father! it is father!" they exclaimed,
springing into his arms.  "We thought you would
never come back any more."

He thought they would never stop kissing him,
but he got them at last, big children as they were,
one under each arm, lifting, dragging, carrying by
turns, till he made his way to the cart.  Then he
discovered why poor Effie hung so helplessly upon
him.  Both hands had tightly clinched in the shock
of the explosion, and her feet dragged uselessly along
the ground.

"She turned as cold as ice," said Cuthbert, "and
I've cuddled her ever since.  Then the mud came on
us hot; wasn't that a queer thing?"

They snugged poor Effie in the blanket, and Audrey
took her on her lap.

"I'm not afraid now," she whispered, "now we are
all together.  But I've lost the kitten."

"No," said Audrey; "I saw it after you were gone,
scampering up a tree."

Mr. Lee was leaning against the side of the cart,
speaking to old Hal.

They did not hear what he was saying, only the
rabbiter's reply: "Trust 'em to me.  I'll find some
place of shelter right away, down by the sea.  Here,
take my hand on it, and go.  God helping, you may
save 'em at the ford.  Maybe they are half buried
alive.  It is on my mind it will be a dig-out when
you get there.  The nearer the mischief the worse it
will be.  When our fellows see you have the pluck to
venture, there'll be some of 'em will follow, sure and
sartin."

"We are all chums here," said Mr. Lee, turning
to the men.  "Lend me that spade and I'm off to
the ford.  We must answer that coo somehow, my lads."

"We'll do what we can in the daylight," they answered.

"I am going to do what I can in the darkness," he
returned, as he shouldered the spade and crossed over
for a last look at his children.

Audrey laid her hand in his without speaking.

"You are not going alone, father, when I'm here,"
urged Edwin, springing off the horse.  "Take me
with you."

"No, Edwin; your post is here, to guard the others
in my absence.—Remember, my darlings, we are all
in God's hands, and there I leave you," said Mr. Lee.

He seized a broken branch, torn off by the wind,
and using it as an alpenstock, leaped from boulder to
boulder across the stream, and was up the other side
of the valley without another word.

Cuthbert was crying; the dogs were whining;
Audrey bent over Effie and rocked her backwards and
forwards.

The cart set off.  The mud was up to the axle-tree.
It was slow work getting through it.

The rest of the party were busy dragging their
tents out of the mire, and loading their own cart with
their traps as fast as they could, fumbling in the
dark, knee-deep in slush and mud.

As Beauty pulled his way through for an hour or
more, the muddy rain diminished, the earth grew
hard and dry.  The children breathed more freely as
the fresh sea-breeze encountered the clouds of burning
dust, which seemed now to predominate over the mud.

They could hear the second cart rumbling behind
them.  The poor fellow who had been struck by the
lightning began to speak, entreating his comrades to
lay him somewhere quiet.  "My head, my head!"
he moaned.  "Stop this shaking."

By-and-by they reached a hut.  They were entering
one of the great sheep-runs, where the rabbiters
had been recently at work.  Here the carts drew up,
and roused its solitary inmate.  One of the rabbiters
came round and told Hal they had best part company.

"There are plenty of bold young fellows among
Feltham's shepherds.  We are off to the great house
to tell him, and we'll give the alarm as we go.  He'll
send a party off to the hills as soon as ever he hears
of this awful business.  A lot of us may force a way.
We'll take this side of the run: you go the other
till you find somewhere safe to leave these children.
Wake up the shepherds in every hut you pass, and
send them on to meet us at Feltham's.  If we are
back by daylight we shall do," they argued.

"Agreed," said the old man.  "We can't better
that.  Dilworth and the traps had best wait here.
He will sleep this off," he added, looking
compassionately at his stricken comrade.

Out came the shepherd, a tall, gentlemanly young
fellow, who had passed his "little-go" at Trinity,
got himself "ploughed" like Ottley, and so went in
for the southern hemisphere and the shepherd's crook.

Pale and livid with the horror of the lone night-watch
in his solitary hermitage, he caught the full
import of the direful tidings at a word.  His bed
and his rations were alike at their service.  He
whistled up his horse and dog, and rode off at a
breakneck gallop, to volunteer for the relief-party,
and send the ill news a little faster to his master's
door, for his fresh horse soon outstripped the rabbiters'
cart.  Meanwhile old Hal drove onward towards the
sea.  A shepherd met him and joined company,
breathless for his explanation of all the terrors which
had driven him from his bed.  He blamed Mr. Lee
for his foolhardiness in venturing on alone into such
danger.

Freed at last from the clayey slime, Beauty rattled
on apace.  Cuthbert was fast asleep, and Edwin was
nodding, but Audrey was wide awake.  She gathered
from the conversation of the men fresh food for fear.
The "run" they were crossing was a large one.  She
thought they called it Feltham's.  It extended for
some miles along the sea-shore, and Audrey felt sure
they must have journeyed ten or fifteen miles at least
since they entered it.  Thirteen thousand sheep on
run needed no small company of shepherds.  Many
of them lived at the great house with Mr. Feltham;
others were scattered here and there all over the
wide domain, each in his little shanty.  Yet most
of them were the sons of gentlemen, certain to
respond to the rabbiters' call.  Again the cart drew up,
and a glimmer of firelight showed her the low
thatched roof of another shanty.  Hal called loudly
to a friend inside.

"Up and help us, man!  There is an awful eruption.
Tarawera is pouring out fire and smoke.  Half the
country round will be destroyed before the morning!"

Down sprang the shepherd.  "We are off to
Feltham's; but we must have you with us, Hal, for
a guide.  We don't know where we are wanted."

Edwin was wide awake in a moment.  The men
were talking eagerly.  Then they came round, lifted
the girls out of the cart, told them all to go inside
the hut and get a sleep, and they would soon send
somebody to see after them.

Hal laid his hand on Edwin's shoulder.  "Remember
your father's charge, lad," he said, "and just keep
here, so that I know where to find you."

It was still so dark they could scarcely see each
other's faces; but as Edwin gave his promise, Audrey
sighed a startled sigh of fear.  Were they going to
leave them alone?

"Must," returned all three of the men, with a
decision that admitted of no question.

"Afraid?" asked the shepherd, in a tone which
made Edwin retort, "Not a bit."

But Audrey could not echo her brother's words.
She stood beside him the picture of dismay, thinking
of her father.  Hal's friend Oscott picked up a piece
of wood and threw it on the dying lire; it blazed up
cheerily.

"My dear," said Hal, in an expostulating tone,
"would you have us leave your father single-handed?
We have brought you safe out of the danger.  There
are numbers more higher up in the hills; we must go
back."

"Yes, yes," she answered, desperately.  "Pray don't
think about us.  Go; do go!"

Oscott brought out his horse.  The shepherd smiled
pityingly at the children.  "We'll tell the
boundary-rider to look you up.  He will bring the dog his
breakfast, and I have no doubt Mrs. Feltham will
send him with yours."

With a cheery good-night, crossed by the shepherd
with a cheerier good-morning, intended to keep their
spirits up, the men departed.

Edwin put his arm round Audrey.  "Are you
really afraid?  I would not show a white feather
after all he said.  Come inside."

The hut was very similar to the one at the entrance
of the gorge, with the customary bed of fern leaves
and thick striped blanket.  The men had laid Effie
down upon it, and Cuthbert was kneeling beside her
rubbing her hands.

"I'll tell you a secret," he whispered.  "Our
Audrey has gone over to the groaners."

"No, she has not," retorted Edwin.  "But once I
heard that Cuthbert was with the criers."

"Where are we?" asked Effie piteously.

"Safe in the house that Jack built," said her
brother, wishing to get up a laugh; but it would
not do.

Audrey turned her head away.  "Let us try to
sleep and forget ourselves."

Edwin found a horse-rug in the hut, and went out
to throw it over Beauty's back, for the wind was
blowing hard.  There was plenty of drift-wood
strewing the shore, and he carefully built up the fire.
Having had some recent experience during the
charcoal-burning, he built it up remarkably well, hoping
the ruddy blaze would comfort Audrey—at least it
would help them to dry their muddy clothes.  The
sound of the trampling surf and the roar of the angry
sea seemed as nothing in the gray-eyed dawn which
followed that night of fear.

He found, as he thought, his sisters sleeping; and
sinking down in the nest of leaves which Cuthbert
had been building for him, he soon followed their
example.  But he was mistaken: Audrey only closed
her eyes to avoid speaking.  She dared not tell him
of their father's peril for fear he should rush off with
the men, urged on by a desperate desire to share it.
"I know now," she thought, "why father charged
him to remain with us."

Her distress of mind drowned all consciousness of
their strange surroundings.  What was the rising of
the gale, the trampling of the surf upon the sand, or
the dashing of the tumultuous waves, after the fire
and smoke of Tarawera?

But Cuthbert started in his dreams, and Edwin
woke with a cry.  Shaking himself from the clinging
leaves, now dry as winter hay, he ran out with the
impression some one had called him.  It was but the
scream of the sea-gull and the moan of the storm.
It should have been daylight by this time, but no
wintry sun could penetrate the pall-like cloud of
blue volcanic dust which loaded the atmosphere even
there.

It seemed to him as if the sea, by some mysterious
sympathy, responded to the wild convulsions of the
quaking earth.  The billows were rolling in towards
him mountains high.  He turned from the angry
waves to rebuild his fire.

Did Oscott keep it as a beacon through the night
on the ledge of rock which sheltered his hut from the
ocean breezes?  From its position Edwin was inclined
to think he did, although the men in the hurry of
their departure had not exactly said so.  By the light
of this fire he could now distinguish the outline of
a tiny bay—so frequent on the western coast of the
island—a stretch of sandy shore, and beyond the
haven over which the rock on which he stood seemed
sentinel, a sheet of boiling foam.

And what was that?  A coasting steamer, with
its screw half out of the water, tearing round and
round, whilst the big seas, leaping after each other,
seemed washing over the little craft from stem to
stern.

He flung fresh drift-wood on his beacon-fire until
it blazed aloft, a pyramid of flame.  "Audrey dear,
Audrey," he ran back shouting, "get up, get up!"

She appeared at the door, a wan, drooping figure,
shrinking from the teeth of the gale.  "Is it father?"
she asked.

"Father! impossible, Audrey.  We left him miles
away.  It is a ship—a ship, Audrey—going down in
the storm," he vociferated.

She clasped her hands together in hopeless despair.

Cuthbert pulled her back.  "You will be blown
into the sea," he cried.  "Let me go.  Boys like me,
we just love wild weather.  I shan't hurt.  What is it
brings the downie fit?" he asked.  "Tell old Cuth."

"It is father, dear—it is father," she murmured,
as his arms went round her coaxingly.

"I know," he answered.  "I cried because I could
not help it; but Edwin says crying is no good."

"Praying is better," she whispered, buttoning up
his coat a little closer.  But what was he wearing?

"Oh, I got into somebody's clothes," he said, "and
Edwin helped me."

"It is father's short gray coat," she ejaculated,
stroking it lovingly down his chest, as if it were all
she ever expected to see of her father any more.

"So much the better," he answered, undaunted.  "I
want to be father to-night."

"Night!" repeated Edwin, catching up the word,
"How can you stand there talking when there is a
ship going down before our eyes?"

Cuthbert ran up the rocky headland after his
brother, scarcely able to keep his footing in the
increasing gale.  There, by the bright stream of light
flung fitfully across the boiling waves, he too could
see the little vessel tossing among the breakers.  An
Egyptian darkness lay around them—a darkness that
might be felt, a darkness which the ruddiest glow of
their beacon could scarcely penetrate.

"You talk of night," Edwin went on, as the
brothers clung together, "but it is my belief it has
long since been morning.  I tell you what it is,
Cuth: the sun itself is veiled in sackcloth and ashes;
it can't break through this awful cloud."

Young as they were, they felt the importance of
keeping up the fire to warn the steamer off the rocks,
and again they set to work gathering fuel.  The men
had said but little about the fire, because they knew
it was close on morning when they departed, and now—yes,
the morning had come, but without the daylight.

Old roots and broken branches drifted in to shore
were strewing the beach.  But as the boys were soon
obliged to take a wider circle to collect them, Edwin
was so much afraid of losing his little brother he
dare not let go his hand.  Then he found a piece of
rope in the pocket of "father's coat," and tied their
arms together.  So they went about like dogs in
leash, as he told Cuthbert.  If dogs did their hunting
in couples, why should not they?

Meanwhile Audrey, whose heart was in the hills,
was watching landwards from the little window at
the back of the hut.  Edwin's pyramid of fire shot
fitful gleams above the roof and beyond the black
shadow of the shanty wall.  Beauty, who had never
known the luxury of a stable until he came into the
hands of his new masters, was well used to looking
out for himself.  He had made his way round to the
back of the hut, and now stood cowering under the
broad eaves, seeking shelter from the raging blast.

Where the firelight fell Audrey could faintly
distinguish a line of road, probably the one leading to
the mansion.  To the left, the wavering shadows cast
upon the ground told her of the near neighbourhood
of a grassy embankment, surmounted by a swinging
fence of wire, the favourite defence of the sheep-run,
so constructed that if the half-wild animals rush
against it the wire swings in their faces and drives
them back.  She heard the mournful howling of a
dog at no great distance.  Suddenly it changed to
a clamorous bark, and Audrey detected a faint but
far-away echo, like the trampling of approaching
horsemen.

She pushed the window to its widest and listened.
Her long fair hair, which had been loosely braided
for the night, was soon shaken free by the raging-winds,
and streamed about her shoulders as she leaned
out as far as she could in the fond hope that some
one was coming.

The knitted shawl she had snatched up and drawn
over her head when she jumped into her father's
arms was now rolled up as a pillow for Effie.  She
shivered in the wintry blast, yet courted it, as it blew
back from her the heated clouds of whirling ashes.
Faint moving shadows, as of trees or men, began to
fleck the pathway, and then a band of horsemen,
galloping their hardest, dashed across the open.

Audrey's pale face and streaming hair, framed in
the blackness of the shadowing roof, could not fail to
be seen by the riders.  With one accord they shook
the spades they carried in the air to tell their errand,
and a score of manly voices rang out the old-world
ballad,—

   |  "What lads e'er did our lads will do;
   |  Were I a lad I'd follow him too.
   |  He's owre the hills that I lo'e weel."
   |

Audrey waved her "God-speed" in reply.  With
their heads still turned towards her, without a
moment's pause, they vanished in the darkness.  Only
the roll of the chorus thrown back to cheer her, as
they tore the ground beneath their horses' hoofs, rose
and fell with the rage of the storm—

   |  "He's owre the hills we daurna name,
   |  He's owre the hills ayont Dumblane,
   |  Wha soon will get his welcome hame.
   |  My father's gone to fecht for him,
   |  My brithers winna bide at hame,
   |  My mither greets and prays for them,
   |  And 'deed she thinks they're no to blame.
   |              He's owre the hills," etc.
   |

The last faint echo which reached her listening
ears renewed the promise—

   |  "What lads e'er did our lads will do;
   |  Were I a lad I'd follow him too.
   |  He's owre the hills, he's owre the hills."
   |

The voices were lost at last in the howl of the
wind and the dash of the waves on the angry rocks.
But the music of their song was ringing still in
Audrey's heart, rousing her to a courage which was
not in her nature.

She closed the window, and knelt beside the sleeping
Effie with a question on her lips—that question
of questions for each one of us, be our emergency
what it may—"Lord, what wouldest thou have me
to do?"  She was not long in finding its answer.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`A RAGING SEA`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER VIII.


.. class:: center medium bold

   A RAGING SEA.

.. vspace:: 2

The boys rushed in exclaiming, "Audrey, Audrey! the
ship is foundering!  The men are getting
off into the boat, and they can't keep its head to the
sea.  She swings round broadside to the waves, and
must be filling.  Is there a rope about the hut—anywhere,
anywhere; a long, strong rope, dear Audrey?"

How should she know what was in the hut?  But
she knew what was put in the cart: the ropes which
tied the load were there.  She had pulled them out
of the shed with the harness herself.

Off went Edwin, shouting, "A rope! a rope! a
kingdom for a rope!"

Cuthbert released himself from the leash, which
was dragging him along too fast, and ran back to his
sister.

"Did you hear the singing?" she asked.  "Did
you see the men ride past?  They are gone to the
rescue, Cuth; they are gone to father's help.  May
God reward them all."

"And will you come to ours?" he said.  "Audrey,
you could feed the fire.  Edwin and I have got a lot
of wood together.  You have only to keep throwing
it on; and then I can help Edwin."

   |  "'What lads e'er did our lads will do;
   |  Were I a lad I'd follow him too,'"

she answered, slipping her shawl from under Effie's
head and tying it once more over her own.  They
went out together.  Cuthbert helped her up the rock,
pulled a big root in to the front of the fire to make
her a seat, and left her a willing stoker.  He had
pointed out the tiny cockle-shell of a boat—a small
dark speck beyond the sheet of boiling foam, with
the hungry, curling waves leaping after it.

Could it escape swamping in the outer line of
breakers it could never hope to cross?  It was
running before them now.  Edwin had put Beauty once
more into the cart, and was carefully knotting the
rope to the back of it.

He had learned to tie a safety-knot—a sailor's
knot—on their voyage out.  Thank God for that!
It whiled away an idle hour at the time; now it
might prove the saving of human creatures' lives.
That the cart was heavy and lumbering and strong
was cause for rejoicing.

"You and I, Cuth, could not pull a man through
such a sea; but Beauty can.  We know how well he
crossed the ford.  I shall back him into the water as
far as ever I can, and then jump into the cart and
throw the rope.  You see my plan?"

"I do," said Cuth; "but as soon as you leave go of
Beauty's head he'll come splashing back again out of
the water.  You must have me in the cart to hold
his reins."

"I dare not," protested Edwin.  "A shrimp like you
would be washed out to sea in no time; and I promised
father to take care of you.  No, Cuth, you are not
yet ten years old."

"I am sure I look a good bit older than that, in
father's coat," urged Cuthbert, looking down upon
himself with considerable satisfaction; but Edwin
was inexorable.  "Tie me in the cart, then," cried
Cuthbert.

"Where is the old leash?"

It was quickly found, and Edwin owned the
thought was a good one.

When all was ready a sudden impulse prompted
them to run back into the hut and look at Erne, and
then up the rock for a final word with Audrey.
They found her already wet with the salt sea spray,
and almost torn to pieces by the wind, but, as Edwin
said, "at it all the same."

The final word was spoken, reiterated, shouted;
who, alas! could hear it in the rage of the storm?
So it came to a snatch of kiss, and away they ran,
leaving Audrey with the impression that the moving
lips were trying to repeat, "Keep us a jolly blaze."

Voice being useless on such a morning, Audrey
made answer by action, and flung her brands upon the
fire with such rapidity that the column of flame rose
higher and higher, flinging its fitful gleams across the
sands, where the boys were busy.

The recent voyage had taken away all fear of the
sea even from Cuthbert, who was already tied to the
front of the cart, with Beauty's reins in his hand,
holding him in with all his might.  Edwin, with his
teeth set and a white look about his lips, had seized
the horse's head, and was backing him into the water.
Splash, splash into the wall of wave, rising higher
and higher at every step, and almost lifting Edwin off
his feet.  Then he swung himself into the cart by
Cuthbert's side.  Beauty felt his firmer grasp as the
reins changed hands, and turning his head with a
look in his resolute eye that showed him a willing
partner in the daring plan, he reversed the position,
choosing rather to breast the opposing billows.  Edwin
let him have his way, and with a dash and a snort
he plunged into their midst, carrying the boys full
fifteen yards into the raging sea.  The brothers clung
to the cart as the waves dashed in their faces.  Caps
were gone in a moment.  The cart was filling.
Beauty held his head high above the water, and
struggled on another yard or so.  Then Edwin felt
they must go no further, and turned the cart round.

It was no easy matter to make Beauty stand.  His
natural sense of danger, his high intelligence, his
increasing love for the boys, all prompted him to bring
them out of the water, not to stay in it.  He was
bent on rushing back to dry ground, as Cuthbert had
predicted.  The boys thundered "Whoa, whoa!" with
all the endearing epithets they were wont to lavish
upon him in his stable.  He was brought to a stand
at last, and Edwin, raising himself on the side of the
cart, looked round for the boat.

It was nowhere.  His heart sank cold within him.

"O Cuth, we are too late, too late!" he groaned.

Then Audrey's fire sent up a brighter blaze, and
hope leaped lightly into life once more, and he cried
out joyfully, "I see it!" but stopped abruptly, almost
drawing back his words with bated breath.

The momentary glimpse had shown him the luckless
boat, blown along by the force of the wind,
without the help of an oar, dash into the bursting
crest of a giant roller.  It flung the boat across the
line of boiling foam.  The men in it, finding their
oars useless, were kicking off their boots, preparing
for a swim.  He knew it by their attitudes.  He
seized the pole they had put in the cart to use as
a signal.  It was a willow sapling, torn up by its
roots, which they had found when they were
gathering the firewood.

Cuthbert had peeled off the bark at the thin end,
whilst Edwin had twisted its pliant boughs into a
strong hoop, to tie at the end of his rope.

As Edwin raised it high above his head—a tall,
white wand, which must be conspicuous in the
surrounding darkness—he saw the boat turn over, the
angry waves rush on, and all was gone.  A cry of
dismay broke from the brothers' lips: "Lord help us,
or they perish!"

"I could not have done this without you, Cuth.
We are only two boys, but now is our hour."

Edwin had learned a great deal from the sailors'
stories during their voyage, and he had been a crack
kite-flier on the playground at his English school; so
that he was quite alive to the importance of keeping
his rope free from entanglement, which really is the
vital point in throwing a rope at sea.  He had laid it
carefully on the bottom of the cart, fold upon fold,
backwards and forwards, and Cuth had stood upon it
to keep it in place.  The hoop lay on the top of the
coil, and to the hoop he had tied the plaid-scarf from
his own neck, to serve it as a sail.

The paralyzing fear came over him now that whilst
they were doing all this the time for help had gone
by.  "But we won't stop trying," he said, "if it seems
ever so hopeless; God only knows."

He took his brother's place on the coil of rope, and
unfolding a yard or two, flung the hoop from him,
taking aim at the spot where the boat had capsized.
The wind caught the scarf and bore the hoop aloft;
Edwin let his rope go steadily, fold after fold.  Would
it carry it straight?  Would the men see his scarf
fluttering in the wind?  He felt sure a hand might
catch the hoop if they only saw it.  But, alas, it was
so small!  He leaned against his brother back to back,
and if the hot tears came it was because he was only
a boy.  Cuthbert put a hand behind him.  There
was comfort to him in the touch.  One burning drop
just trickled on his thumb.

"What, you crying!" he exclaimed; "is not praying better?"

"God have mercy on us!" burst from Edwin's lips;
and Cuthbert echoed back the gasping words.  Had
they ever prayed like that before?  All, all that was
in them seemed to pour itself forth in that moment of
suspense, when God alone could hear.

.. _`A PERILOUS RESCUE.`:

.. figure:: images/img-132.jpg
   :align: center
   :alt: A PERILOUS RESCUE.

   A PERILOUS RESCUE.

The rope tightened in Edwin's grasp; something
had clutched it at last.  The tug had come.  Would
his knots give way?  He was faint with the fear
that his work was not well done—not strong enough
to stand the strain which he felt was increasing every
moment.  It seemed to him, as he watched with every
sense alert and tried to its uttermost, that each
successive earthquake shock, as it heaved the land, sent
a corresponding wave across the sea.  One of these
had carried out his hoop, and he knew he must wait
until it subsided to draw his rope in, or it might
snap like pack-thread under the awful strain.

"O Edwin, I am getting so tired!" said little Cuth,
in a tone of such utter exhaustion it went like a
knife through his brother to hear him.

"Only another minute," he replied; "just another
minute—if we can hold on."

The longed-for lull was coming.  Edwin gave
Beauty his head; but the poor horse was stiffened
with standing, and almost refused to move.  Then
Edwin tied himself to the cart.

"O Beauty, if you fail us we are done!"

The despairing cry roused the torpid energies of
the horse.  With a stretch and a snort he tugged
and strained, dragging his load a yard or two
landwards.  A man's head appeared above the water.
The joy of the sight brought back hope and
capability.  It was but a spasmodic effort; but Beauty
caught the thrill of joy animating the boyish voices,
cheering him on to renewed exertions.  The wheels
splashed round in the water; a cloud of muddy spray
rose between Edwin and the rescued man.  He could
not see the sailor's face.  The fire was dying.  Was
all the wood they had gathered—all that great
heap—burnt up at last?

Audrey raked the dying brands together, and a
fresh flame shot upwards, and by its welcome radiance
Edwin was aware of two hands working their way
along the tightened rope, one over the other, towards
the cart.

The tightened rope!  Yes; that was proof that
some one had grasped the hoop.  In another moment
that stranger hand was clasping Edwin's in the darkness
that was following fast upon those fitful flames.

"Hold hard!" shouted a stentorian voice, and a
man got up into the cart beside him.  A deep-drawn
breath, a muttered prayer, and the strong, powerful
hands clasped over Edwin's, and began to draw in
the rope.

Not a word was said, for the boys had no voice
left to make themselves heard.  The last shout of
joy to Beauty had left them spent and faint.  The
stranger, surprised at the smallness and feebleness of
the hand he now let go, gently pushed the boy aside
and took his place.  Edwin leaned against the front
of the cart beside his brother, dead beat and scarcely
conscious of anything but a halo of happiness
radiating from the blessed consciousness which found
expression in a murmured, "Cuth, old boy, we've done it."

The reins fell slack on Beauty's neck, but the good
horse needed no guiding.  He seemed aware that two
more men got up into the cart, and when a pause
followed he gave his proud head a triumphant toss,
and brought them up out of the water.  There were
three men in the cart and twice as many more
holding on by the rope.

Audrey ran down from the dying fire to meet them.

A strange, unnatural kind of twilight, a something
weird and ghastly, belonging to neither day nor night,
seemed to pervade the land, and shed a sepulchral
gleam across the men's pale faces.  Audrey pushed
open the door of the hut and beckoned to the sailors
to enter.

They gathered round her, shaking the salt water
from their dripping garments, and uttering broken
exclamations of surprise and thankfulness.  She saw
a boy in the midst of the group limping painfully.
As she hurried up to his assistance, she discovered
that it was neither Edwin nor Cuthbert; but he
grasped her outstretched hand so thankfully she
could not withdraw it.  There was a wildness in the
alarm with which she began to ask them for her
brothers the men could not mistake.  They gave the
forlorn girl an almost unanimous assurance that they
knew nothing of her brothers.  For the men clinging
to the rope had not seen the boys in the cart.  "But,"
added one heartily, "we'll protect you, for there is
wild work afoot somewhere to-night.  We have heard
the cannonading, broadside after broadside, or we
should not have gone rock-hunting in the dark.  It
is fool's work—you can give it no better
name—coasting along a dangerous shore, with a sky too
black for moon or star to penetrate."

"Yon's the little maid who fed the beacon," said
another.  "I saw her move across the front of the
fire and throw her sticks upon it.  God bless her!
Every minute I thought we should see her blown
over into the sea."

"Not me, not me," interposed poor Audrey.

Getting free in her desperation, and pressing
between the sailors, she ran towards Beauty, who was
slowly lagging round to the back of the hut.

"If my brothers are missing," she cried, "they
must have been washed out of the cart."  She clasped
her hands before her eyes to shut out the sight of
the drowning boys which imagination was picturing,
and so failed to perceive the two weary heads leaning
against the side of the cart.  It was but a moment
of agony, one of the unfounded alarms which always
cluster round a real danger and follow the shock of
dread like its shadow.

"Edwin, Edwin! where are you?" she cried.—"Cuthbert,
Cuthbert!  come to me!"

The rocks gave back the hollow echo, "Come to me!"

But she did not hear two faint voices feebly
expostulating, "We tied ourselves to the cart, and we
can't undo the knots.  We are here, like two galley-slaves
chained to the oars, and we can't get out."

A shock of earthquake sent Beauty with a shiver
of terror straight to the open.  The men threw
themselves on their faces, knowing how easily they might
lose their footing on the reeling ground; whilst
Audrey, neglecting this precaution, went over like a
nine-pin.

The hut shook as if its carefully-piled walls were
about to give way, and Audrey, who had seen their
house go down in the beginning of this fearful night,
shrieked out for Effie.

As the tremor subsided, and the sailors gathered
from poor Audrey's broken sentences some idea of
the awful catastrophe on land, they turned from the
hut, judging it safer to remain in the open.

Mates were looking out for mates.  Were they all
there?  Captain, boatswain, cook—not one of the
little coaster's crew was missing.  Passengers all
right: a gold-digger from Otago, the schoolboy from
Christchurch.  Are all saved?  Only the hand which
threw the rope was missing.

Who backed the cart into the sea? they asked; and
where was Oscott?

When they learned from Audrey's frantic replies
that every man had gone to the rescue, and the little
fugitives had been left in the hut alone, the sailors'
desire to find the missing boys was as earnest as her own.

They pointed to the cart jogging steadily across
the grassy plain, dotted with sheep, and shaded here
and there by groups of stately trees.

"God bless the young heroes!" they exclaimed.
"Why, there they are—off to the mansion to beg for
tucker for us all."

Audrey, set at rest from this last great fear, escaped
from her questioners, and retreated to Effie and the
empty hut, saying reproachfully,—

"How just like Edwin!  But they might have
told me what they were going to do."

It seemed a moment's reprieve.  There was nothing
more to be done.  Audrey sank upon the bed of fern
leaves, weary and wet and worn, unable any longer
to resist the craving for a little sleep.

The sailors lit a fire on the open grass beyond the
hut, and grouped themselves round it to talk and
rest.  The poor fellows who had been dragged to
shore, clinging to the rope, found their shoeless feet
cut and bleeding from the sharp edges of the
oyster-shells with which the sands were studded.  But when
an hour or more passed by, the sunless noon brought
with it sharper pangs of hunger to them all.

No cart had returned, no boundary rider had put
in an appearance, and the men began to talk of a
walk over the grass to find the mansion.  They were
all agreed as to the best course for them to pursue.
They must turn "sundowners"—the up-country name
for beggars—tramp across to the nearest port,
begging their way from farm to farm.  They knew very
well no lonely settler dare refuse supper and a night's
lodging to a party of men strong enough to take by
force what they wanted.

The embankment with its swinging fence, the
shepherd's hut where the girls were sleeping, told
them where they were—on the confines of a great
sheep-run.  Their route must begin with the owner's
mansion, which could not be very far off, as there
was no food in the hut, and no apparent means for
cooking any, so Audrey had told them.  But now the
storm was dying, the captain rose to look round the
hut for himself.  He was wondering what to do with
the Christchurch boy he had undertaken to land at
another great sheep-run about twenty-five miles
farther along the coast It was of no use to take
him back with them, a hundred miles the other way.
He hoped to leave him at the mansion.  The owner
must be a wealthy man, and would most likely
undertake to put the boy on board the next steamer, which
would pass that way in a week or ten days.

So he called to the boy to go with him, and
explained his purpose as they went.  They waked up
Audrey, to ask the owner's name.

"Feltham," she answered, putting her hand to her
head to recall her scattered senses; between rabbiters
and sailors she was almost dazed.

To be left alone again in that empty hut, without
food, without her brothers, was enough to dismay a
stouter heart than hers.  The captain spoke kindly.

"I want to see you all safe in this sheep-owner's
care before I leave you," he said.  "It was stupid in
those brothers of yours to go off with the cart, for
you are too exhausted to walk."

"Did you ever hear the name of Bowen in these
parts?" asked the Christchurch boy eagerly, nursing
a bleeding foot the while.

Audrey thought of the kind old gentleman in
Ottley's coach, and answered, brightening.

"I am his grandson," the boy replied.  "I am
Arthur Bowen."





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.. _`NOTHING TO EAT`:

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   CHAPTER IX.


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   NOTHING TO EAT.

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As the shock of the earthquake subsided, and
Beauty rallied from his terror, his pace began
to slacken.  If Edwin had not tied himself and
Cuthbert so securely in the cart, they might have
been thrown out when Beauty ran away.  So the
knots which would not be untied proved their
protection; and now they found themselves trotting
leisurely through verdant stretches, dotted with ti
tree and blue-gum, and overgrown with toi and flax
and rushes.  Before them rose the great gates of the
avenue leading to the central station-house.  The
white front of Feltham's mansion gleamed through
the tall stems of the trees which surrounded it;
whilst beyond and around them were the sheds and
walls, the pools and bridges, comprising stock-yards
and shearing-places, where thousands of wild cattle
and tens of thousands of wilder sheep were washed
and dipped, and counted and branded, year after year.

The ingenious arrangement of pool and paddock
and pen by which this gigantic undertaking is safely
accomplished looked to the boys like a wooden village.

Beauty drew up at the friendly gate of his own
accord, attracted by the welcome sounds of human
life as stockmen and shepherds hurried out to their
morning work.  Half the hands were off to the hills;
the remaining half found in consequence the more
to do.  The poor terrified cattle had suffered
considerably.  Sheep were cast in every ditch.  Cows
had gored each other in their mad terror; and broken
fences told of wild leaps and escaped bulls to be
sought for in the neighbouring bush.

The boundary rider, whose sole duty is to parade
the vast domain and give notice at headquarters of
unwary gaps and strays, had been spurring hither
and thither, delayed by the gloom of the morning
and the herds of wild bulls which had broken in,
while the tame had broken out.  With demolished
fences, and frightened sheep dying around them by
hundreds, the little fugitives in Oscott's hut had been
forgotten.

But when the boundary rider saw a cart at his
master's gate, blue with volcanic mud above, and
dripping from below with the slime of the sea, he
thought of the family from the hills waiting
somewhere for the breakfast he was to have carried in his
saddle-bag.  His circuit was but half completed.
"I shall find them yet," he said to himself, as he
galloped up behind the cart.  He saw the dangling
rope, and the white faces of the two boys huddled
together in a state of complete exhaustion.  He tied
his horse to the gate, and jumping into the cart,
rattled Beauty up the avenue to his master's door,
which stood wide open to all comers.  For every
hour brought fresh rumours, and fresh parties of
fugitives who had fled precipitately from their homes
when the storm of mud began.

He took his knife from his pocket and cut the
rope which tied Edwin and his brother to the cart.
Some one ran out with a cup of coffee, which he
poured down their throats, and then the boys began
to revive.  He wanted to take them in-doors and put
them to bed.  But the relief-party had already sent
down so many sufferers from the hills every bed was
full of children, women, and even men, who had been
dug out of the muddy stream in which they were
suffocating.

As soon as Edwin could speak, he added his story
to the others, entreating the men who turned their
heads to listen, as they hurried in and out, to send
some food to his sisters, who were left alone in Oscott's
hut.  As for the sailors, the feeling among Feltham's
people was decided: any one not from the hills must
be left to take care of himself.

Just then a horseman, covered with mud and foam,
came spurring towards the house, shouting to the
crowd around the door,—

"I've come for every man on the ground, by the
master's orders.  Leave everything.  Bring your
spades, and follow me.  The nearer we get to
Tarawera the thicker lies the mud.  Our government
station at Rotorua is buried beneath it, church and
all.  Te Ariki and Maura are nowhere to be seen.
The low whares in the Maori pahs are utterly
destroyed.  Wherever the roofs have been strong enough
to uphold the weight of the falling mud, the inhabitants
are alive beneath them now.  Come to the rescue—come!"

The last hoarse words were scarcely audible.  The
boundary rider took the unfinished cup from Edwin's
lips and passed it to the man, and the boy was glad
that he did so.

A cry of "Spades! spades!" rang through the
increasing group of listeners, which seemed to gather
and disperse with equal rapidity.  Mrs. Feltham made
her way through the midst to the bell-tower, and
rang a frantic peal to call all hands together.  Horses
were saddling; men were mounting; others were
hurrying up to learn the meaning of the hasty
summons.  Edwin drew his cart aside under the trees to
watch the departure.

Mrs. Feltham reappeared on her doorstep with
knife and loaf, trying to fill every pocket with bread
before each one rode off.  She could not make her
intention understood.  The men, in their impatience
to be gone, would hardly stop to take it.

"Oh," thought Edwin, "they forget they will want
it all to give away."

He leaned over his brother.  "Cuth, take the
reins."  But Cuth's numbed hands let them drop.  Edwin
twisted them round his arm, and with a nod and a
smile made his way to Mrs. Feltham.

His voice was so weak and faint she could not hear
what he said, but the ready hand was offering to pass
on the great hunches of bread she was cutting, and
she kept him at work, little dreaming how he had to
turn his head away again and again to resist the
impulse to take a bite by the way.  As he took the
last crust from her, and saw that it was the last, a
sudden faintness overcame him, and he dropped on
the stones at her feet.

"I am so very, very hungry," he said piteously.

"Why did not you tell me that before the basket
was empty?" she retorted.  "You must remember, my
boy, every bit of food for man and beast must be
buried under this dreadful mud for miles and miles.
I may have a famishing army round me before night,
and how am I to feed them all?  Not a crumb must
be wasted.  If you are so hungry, go into the kitchen
and clear up the scraps on the men's plates.  I would
turn all the flour in the granary into bread, and feed
you every one, if I had only hands to make it and
bake it.  Stop," she went on; "though you are a boy
you could be of some use.  You could wash and boil
a copperful of potatoes and pumpkins; that would be
something to set before the starving cart-loads I hope
and trust they will be successful in saving."

"No, ma'am," answered Edwin.  "I must go back
to my sisters.  I have left them alone with a lot
of rough sailors."

His "no" was round and resolute.

She took out her purse, saying almost coaxingly,
"Here is a week's wage for a day's work."

"I am very sorry, Mrs. Feltham, but I really can't
stay," he persisted.

She turned away with an impatient gesture and
went in-doors.

"She takes me for some unlucky beggar," thought
Edwin, crawling round to the kitchen door, glad to
avail himself of the somewhat ungracious permission
to look out for the scraps.  "It is dog's fare," thought
Edwin, "but it is more to me than her gold."  He
found a piece of newspaper, and walked round and
round the long breakfast-table, collecting into it such
morsels as he could find.  Of most of the dishes the
hungry young shepherds had made a clean sweep.
Still there were some unfinished crusts of bread, a
corner of Melton pie, a rasher of bacon burned in the
grilling.  On the dresser he discovered a bone of
mutton, evidently laid aside for the hounds.  He
would not touch the sugar in the basin, or take a
peep at the contents of the cupboards, feeling himself
on his honour.  The sounds within convinced him
Mrs. Feltham and the rest of her household were hard
at work transforming the hospitable mansion into a
temporary hospital, for the reception of the poor
unfortunates who might be dug out alive but scarcely
uninjured.

"O Cuth, we haven't been the worst off by a long
way!" exclaimed Edwin suddenly, as the brothers sat
together in their cart, enjoying their bone of mutton,
quite in the doggie line, but, as Cuthbert averred,
feeling themselves, as they ate, like new-made men.

Then they turned Beauty homewards.  Yes, that
queer little shanty was a kind of home.  It was still
dark as in a London fog, but the shocks of earthquake
were less, fainter and farther apart.

Half-way down the road they met the party of
sailors, walking barefoot on the edge of the grass.
They did not recognize the boys, but stopped to ask
the way to the central station.

"We have just been there to beg for food," said
Edwin, feeling it quite "infra dig" to acknowledge the
condition in which they reached Mrs. Feltham's gate.
"But," he added drearily, "we could not get it.  Not
enough for you all."

Then he hurried on to explain the tidings from the
hills and the general stampede to the rescue.

"Turn back," urged the captain, "and give us a lift."

"Lend us the cart," added Arthur Bowen.  "If any
harm should come to it, grandfather will pay you for
it; and as for the horse, he will get a good feed of
corn in Feltham's stable.  I will see after him."

Edwin was not sure he ought to trust the horse
and cart with strangers, but the prospect of a good
feed of corn for Beauty went a long way; for he had
nothing for the horse to eat but the winter grass
around the hut.  Down he jumped.

"If there are so many men at this station," the
sailors were saying, "maybe they can find us an old
pair of shoes; and if strong arms are in request, we
are ready to take our turn."

They shook hands all round.

"Good-bye, my lads, good-bye.  It was a brave act
to back that cart into the sea, and you'll take a sailor's
blessing with you to your home, wherever it is.  If
there is anything washed ashore from the little craft,
you'll store it up high and dry until another coaster
calls to fetch it away."

The promise was given on both sides.  Edwin
would find his Beauty safe at Feltham's, and the
captain his wreckage piled against the back of Oscott's
hut, although they might both be miles away when
the two were reclaimed.

Edwin took Cuthbert's hand in his and walked on
in grave silence.  One thing was clear—nobody would
have time or thought to care for them.  They must
just look out for themselves.

"It is playing at Robinson Crusoe in earnest, we
four in that little hut," said Cuthbert.  "He did lots
of things to make himself comfortable, but then he
was a man."

"It won't be for long," added Edwin.  "I hardly
think we shall see father to-night, but he may be
back to-morrow.  If we could only find something to
eat.  Whero and his mother lived on nuts and berries
after the muru, but then it was autumn."

They sank again into silence.  The barking of the
boundary dog warned them they were near the hut,
and when it died away to a low growl they
distinguished a faint, soft murmur of singing.

"Oh, hush!" they exclaimed.  "Oh, listen!  It is
the girls; that is Audrey."

It put fresh life into the weary feet as they heard
it clearer and clearer—

   |  "Hark, hark! the lark at heaven's gate sings."
   |

"Heaven's gate," repeated the boys: it was the only
word they could distinguish.

"Heaven's gate.  It is a word to comfort us, for
that is never shut," added Edwin, as they stumbled
against an uprooted ti tree.  The long, tapering stem,
with its waving plume of feathery leaves, barred their
progress.  Cuth was about to climb over it, for the
hard brown trunk at its base was six feet round; but
Edwin ran off to examine its leafy crown, where the
cabbage which gave the tree its name should lie hidden.

He parted the yard-long leaflets, and felt a something
tall and crisp growing up in their midst.

A shout of glee brought Cuth to his assistance.
They pulled the pliant boughs to this side and that,
and perceived what looked to them like a coil of white
ribbon, as thick and as long as a man's arm.  Was
this the cabbage of which they had heard so much,
for the sake of which the lordly tree was so often
cut down and destroyed?

They tore off one of the ribbon-like flakes and
tasted it.

Cuth declared it was like eating almonds, only not
so hard.

"But how can we cut it without a knife?" cried
Edwin, munching away at the raw flakes in his fingers,
and pronouncing them a right good feed for them all,
if they could but cut the cabbage out.

There might be a knife in the hut, who could say.
Away they rushed to explore, guided through the
tangle of flax and rushes by their sisters' voices.

The girls were sitting on the bed of fern in an
abandonment of despair, scarcely daring to believe
their own ears when the refrain of their song was
caught up and repeated—

   |  "With everything that pretty is,
   |    My ladies sweet, arise."
   |

"O Edwin, Edwin!" they exclaimed.  "We thought
you too had vanished."

"We could not bear ourselves," said Effie, "so we
took to singing.  We feared we were left to starve
on our bed of leaves, like the 'Children in the Wood,'
and we were afraid there was not a robin redbreast
anywhere here to cover us up."

"Oh, but there is a robin blackbreast," retorted
Edwin; "a true-born native, all the fitter for the
undertaker's work.  Only it is not going to be done
to-night, Dame Trot."  He took the wee white face
between his hands, and felt so strong, so vigorous, so
determined to take care of it somehow.  "I am not
going away again, Effie."  He pulled the newspaper
parcel out of his pocket and tossed it into Audrey's
lap.  "Beggars' crumbs!" he laughed.  But her cold,
nerveless fingers seemed incapable of untwisting the
paper.

"Hands were made before forks!" cried Cuthbert,
pushing in between his sisters, "and I've often heard
that pie-crust is made to be broken, like promises.
I can spy a bill-hook in the corner, a little too big for
cutting up a pie, but just the thing to chop the cabbage
out of a ti tree."

Edwin spun round and shouldered it in triumph.

"There goes smash to the promise: he is off again
as fast as he can go.  And now for the second breakage.
You must not mind my dirty pads for once, Audrey,"
Cuthbert went on, pulling the pie into two pieces and
making his sisters eat.

The slender store in the newspaper would be soon
exhausted.  Cuthbert, like a provident commissariat
officer, was anxious to make the most of it.  He laid
aside the bacon to eat with Edwin's cabbage, and
piled up the mutton-bones for their solitary neighbour,
the boundary dog, who, like themselves, had been
breakfasting on broken promise.

Audrey had recovered herself in some measure by
the time Edwin returned with his spoils.

"Who'll buy? who'll buy?" he shouted; "yards
upon yards of vegetable ribbon, white and delicate
enough to make the wedding favours for the queen of
cooks."

"Oh, don't talk about cooking," put in Cuthbert;
"it is so nice, let us eat it as it is."

So down they sat, breaking off flake after flake
until they were satisfied.  As hunger diminished
speech returned, and Audrey, who had scarcely uttered
a word whilst Edwin went over all they had heard
and seen at Mrs. Feltham's, became suddenly animated.
A thought had struck her, but she hesitated to
propose her plan too abruptly.

"Dears," she said earnestly, looking round at the
other three, "father will not come back to us perhaps
for a day or two; it may even be a week.  Think of
our own escape.  Think if one of us had been buried
in that awful mud.  How should we be feeling now?
Whilst there is another life to be saved father will
not come away—no, not for our sakes, and we must
not wish that he should."

Even Effie answered, "Oh no, we must not."

"Then," continued Audrey, still more earnestly.
"what are we going to do?"

"That is a poser," retorted Edwin.  "The storm
brought down the ti tree, and that gave us the
cabbage.  The gale is dying.  We had better take a walk
round and look about us.  We may find something
else.  Heaven's gate is open still, Audrey.  We must
bear this as patiently as we can, and help will come."

"Yes, dears," she answered, "if you can be patient
here a little longer, I think there is something I can
do to help us all."

"You, Audrey?" exclaimed her brothers; "you are
as white as a sheet.  Let us do; we are twice as
strong as you are."

"Strength is not everything," she returned quietly.
"There are some things which only a girl can do.
Now this is my plan.  If Edwin will walk with me
to the central station, I will ask Mrs. Feltham to let
me help her.  I will go for so much a day, and then
at night when she pays me I may persuade her to
sell me some flour and meat and tea, food enough for
us all, dears."

"Go out like a charwoman, Audrey!" exclaimed
Edwin, in amazement.  "Is that what you mean?"

"Well, yes," returned Audrey, in a considering tone,
"it certainly would be the same thing, if you like to
call it so."

"'Of old men called a spade a spade,'" grumbled
Edwin.  "I like to give things their plain names,
and then we know where we are."

"If little Mother Audrey goes out charing, Cuth
will poison himself, and then there will be no more
food wanting for him.  That Mrs. Feltham looked as
cross as two sticks," declared Cuthbert.

"Just listen to these proud young gentlemen,"
retorted Audrey.  "Erne, my dear, I turn to you to
support me."

"I'll do as you do," returned her little sister,
laying her head on her shoulder.

"Not quite so fast, Dame Trot," interposed Edwin.
"But if Audrey marches home at night with a bag of
flour on her back, you must make it into Norfolk
dumplings.  Cuthbert and I, it seems, are good for
nothing but to eat them."

"You ridiculous boys, why can't you be serious?"
said Audrey, adding, in an aside to Edwin, "Erne is
too ill to exist on your vegetable ribbon, even if we
boil it.  Well, is not my plan better—"

"Than robin blackbreast and the burying business?
Of course, you have shut me up," he answered.

So the decision was reached.  Audrey untied her
bundle.  Combs and brushes, soap and towels, a
well-worn text-book, a little box of her own personal
treasures, all knotted up in one of Effie's pinafores.
What a hoard of comfort it represented!

"That is a notice to quit for you and me, Cuth,"
remarked Edwin.  "We'll take the boundary dog his
bones, and accommodate our honest charwoman with
a pailful of sea-water to assist the toilet operations."

The storm had died away as suddenly as it rose,
and the receding waves had left the shelving sands
strewn with its debris—uprooted trees, old hats, and
broken boards, fringed with seaweed.  A coat was
bobbing up and down, half in the water and half out,
while floating spars told of the recent wreck.  A keg
sticking in the sand some feet below high-water mark
attracted the boys' attention, for Edwin was mindful
of his promise to the sailors.  As they set to work to
roll it up, they came upon the oysters sticking
edgeways out of the sand, and clinging in clusters to the
rocks.  With a hurrah of delight they collected a
goodly heap.  Here was a supper fit for a king.





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.. _`THE MAORI BOY`:

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   CHAPTER X.


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   THE MAORI BOY.

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The bath of sea-water which Edwin had provided
in the shepherd's pail did more than anything
else to restore poor Effie.  When the arduous task of
opening the oysters was at last accomplished, by the
aid of a great clasp nail and a splinter of stone, the
abundant and nourishing meal which followed did
them all so much good, Cuthbert and Effie declared
they did not mind being left alone in the hut half as
much as when father left them by the charcoal fires.
They all wanted Audrey to wait until morning, but
her answer was resolute.

"No, dears; the chance might be gone.  It is just
when the men come back from the hills Mrs. Feltham
will want me.  They may come in the middle of the
night.  Nobody knows when, and if I am there, at
least I shall hear what they say.  Perhaps they will
have been with father, and bring us a message."

This reconciled them all to her departure.  Then
she hurried away with Edwin by her side, for fear
the dark wintry day should close before she reached
her destination.

Edwin guessed the distance to be about four miles;
but they were in poor order for walking, and were
reduced to halting by the wayside continually.  Yet,
as the snail got to the top of the wall at last, so they
reached the avenue gates.  Here they agreed to part.
There was no more danger of Audrey losing herself,
and both were uneasy at leaving Effie and Cuthbert
alone so long.

During the walk they had talked over everything,
which Audrey declared was the greatest comfort
imaginable.  Edwin did not want to go up to the house
to fetch his Beauty.

"I shall come for him to-morrow," he said; "then
I can tell you how Effie is, and we shall hear how
you are getting on."

The shades of night were gathering as Edwin
turned away; but he could not lose the white line
of well-made road by which he was returning even
by starlight, yet he was afraid of encountering any
of the wild cattle, which he knew were roaming at
will among the groves and coverts which surrounded
him.  He found himself a stick, and trudged along,
whistling to keep his courage up.

It was a danger to which he was altogether
unaccustomed; for there is no four-footed creature
native to New Zealand bigger than a rat, and in the
primeval forest which surrounded his home the
absence of all animal life is its marked characteristic.
But here the many horses and bulls which had strayed
from the early colonists had multiplied in the bush
and grown formidable, not to speak of the pigs which
Captain Cook let loose on the New Zealand shore,
and which now, like the rabbits, overrun the island.
The sound of grunting in the midst of a flax-bush or
the bleat of a bell-wether was enough to startle him.

The hoar was gathering white on the grass and
sparkling like diamonds on shrivelled fronds and
gloomy evergreens, when he heard the barking of the
boundary dog, which told him he was nearing the
hut, and his weary feet jogged on at a quicker pace.

The barking grew still more furious.  A battle
was going forward.  Instead of turning off towards
the sea to find the hut, Edwin ran on to the point of
the road where it entered another sheep-run.  As it
was the public coast-road, there was no gate.  The
dog was stationed there, with a chain long enough to
command the whole breadth of the road, to keep the
sheep from straying on to their neighbour's ground,
and well he did his work.  He seemed to know in
a moment to which side the adventurous rover
belonged who dared to intrude on his beat, and sent
him home with a resolute bark and a snap of the
wool just to show how easily biting could follow.
But the cry which succeeded the onslaught of the
dog, the cry which made Edwin turn aside, was so
like the cry of a child that it shot a fear through
him Cuthbert might have been tempted to pay the
dog another visit, and having no more bones to give
him, the hungry brute had seized poor Cuth instead.

As Edwin came up he could just distinguish a
small figure on the other side of the boundary vainly
endeavouring to pass.  It must be Cuth, he argued,
because there was nobody else about; so he shouted
to him to stand still until he came up.  But instead
of obeying, the small figure darted forward once more,
and a fearful yell told Edwin the dog had seized him
at last.

He sprang towards them, and grasping the dog's
collar with both hands, exerted all his strength to
pull him off.  Strong and savage as the hairy hermit
had become from the loneliness of his life, he had all
a dog's grateful remembrance of a kindness, and
recognizing the hand which had flung him the welcome
bone earlier in the day, he suffered Edwin to choke
him off without turning on him.

"Run!" cried Edwin to the boy he had delivered;
"run beyond his reach whilst I hold him."

He had no need to repeat his exhortation.  The
shrieking boy fled like the wind.  It was not
Cuthbert; Edwin knew that by the fleetness of his
hare-like speed.  He did his best to soothe and coax the
angry dog, keeping his eye meanwhile on the
retreating figure.

As the distance between them increased, Edwin let
the dog go.  The fugitive changed his course, and
was circling round to regain the road.  Then Edwin
started at right angles, and so got between him and
the hut, where Effie and Cuthbert were probably asleep.

"They will be so frightened," thought Edwin, "if
he runs in for refuge.  For poor little Eff's sake I
must stop him."

So they came up face to face in the open ground
beyond the black shadow of the boundary, and eyed
each other in the starlight.

"Whero!" exclaimed Edwin.

"Ah, you!" cried the Maori boy, holding out both
hands.  "To meet you is good."

"Come in with me and rest," continued Edwin.
"Are you hurt?  It was madness to try to pass the
boundary dog in the dark.  He might have torn you
to pieces."

Out spoke the young savage, "I would have killed
him first."

"No, no," interposed Edwin.  "He is set there as
a sentinel to keep the sheep from straying; he only
did his duty."

"I," repeated Whero—"am I a sheep, to be made to
fear?  All the goblins in Lake Taupo should not turn
me back to-night.  I heard men saying in Tauranga
streets the sacred three had shot forth the lightning
that made all faces pale last night and laid the tall
trees low.  Are not they the men from whom I spring
who are sleeping the death-sleep in their bosom?
Last night they awakened; they are angry.  The
thunder of their voices is louder than the cannon of
the pakeha.  Why are they calling?  I know not;
but I answer I am theirs.  I leaped out of the window
of my school, and ran as the water runs to the sea.
No one could catch me, for I thought of my father
and mother; and I said in my heart, 'Will the anger
of the majestic ones fall upon the son of Hepé, or
upon those who have despoiled him?'"

Edwin drew his arm within his dusky friend's.
"It is not the dead men's bones which are buried on
Tarawera but the hidden fires which have burst from
the mountain which have done the mischief.  Our
house went down in the shock of the earthquake,
and we fled from it for our lives to the sea."

"I took the coast-road," continued Whero, "for the
coach was turned back.  Trees lay everywhere in its
path; and no man knows more than I have told you."

Edwin trembled for Whero, for he remembered
how the men had said the low whares of the natives
were completely buried.

"Wait with us," he entreated; "wait for the
daylight."

As he began to describe the strangeness of the
disaster which had overwhelmed the district, the
ready tears of the Maori race poured down in torrents
from Whero's eyes.

Edwin led him into the hut; and finding Cuthbert
and Effie fast asleep, the two lowered their voices,
and sitting side by side in the starlight, went over
again the startling story until voices grew dreamy,
and Edwin became suddenly aware that the eager
listener reclining at his elbow was lost in forgetfulness.
Then he too laid down his head and gained a
respite from his cares and fears in the deep sweet
sleep of healthy boyhood.

Effie was the first to awaken.  A solitary sunbeam
had made its way through the tiny window, and was
dancing along the opposite wall.  The rest of the
hut was in shadow.  She did not see Edwin with
Whero nestling by his side, for the long fern fronds
rose in heaps around her; but she heard a sound
from the road, and called joyously to Cuthbert,—

"Get up; there is somebody coming."

Cuth tumbled to his feet; Edwin started upright.
They were rushing to the door, when Whero lifted
a black hand and commanded silence.  His quicker
sense of hearing had already told him of men and
horses near at hand.

Effie eyed him in mute amazement.  "Look," she
whispered at last, pointing to Whero's head, "there is
a big boy-rat rustling in the leaves."

"Hush! listen!" cried her brothers.

"Is it father?" she asked, in a flutter of fear and
expectation.

The boys ran out, elate with a similar hope.
But Edwin saw in a moment there was only a party
of shepherds returning for supplies.  They scarcely
waited to listen to his eager questions.

"Can't stop," they shouted.  "But the worst is
over.  All are going back to their farms.  You will
have your own people coming to look you up before
long.  You are safest where you are for the present."

Their words were intended to reassure the boys—Edwin
was certain of that; but their faces were so
grave, they seemed to contradict the comforting
assertion that the worst was over.

"I must hear more," cried Edwin.  "I'll run after
them and ask if any one has seen father."

The tired horses were walking slowly; one or two
seemed to have fallen lame, and all were covered
with mud.

"We shall soon overtake them," thought Edwin;
but Whero outstripped him in the chase.  The shepherds
looked back.  One amongst their number halted,
and shouted the inquiry, "What now?"

"Did you reach the lake in the hills?  How is it
there?" burst forth Whero.

"Up among the natives?" answered the shepherd,
not unkindly.  "Nobody knows.  We did not get
beyond the road, and we found enough to do.  The
mud fell so thick every door and window was blocked
in no time, and many a roof fell in with the weight.
Everything around the mountain lies buried deep in mud."

The shriek, the howl in which poor Whero vented
his alarm so startled the shepherd's horse it galloped
off at a mad rate towards the mansion, just as
Edwin came up, pale and panting.  But Whero's
English was scattered.  He could only reiterate the
man's last words, "Deep in mud; buried, all buried
deep in mud," and then he ran on in Maori.

Edwin and Cuthbert looked at each other in despair.
It was impossible to understand what he was
evidently trying to explain.

"You wooden boys!" he exclaimed at last, as he
turned away in disgust, and raced off like a hare
towards the mansion.

Cuthbert was wild to follow, when a large merino
ram bounded out of a group of palm trees and knocked
him over.

"Go back to Effie," urged Edwin, "and I'll watch
by the roadside, for somebody else may pass."

But Cuthbert could not find his way alone, and
the brothers retraced their steps.  As they drew near
the hut, the loud barking of the boundary dog was
again heard.  Somebody might be coming by the
coast-road, somebody who could tell them more.

It was the boundary rider from the neighbouring
run, waiting and watching for the appearance of his
neighbour, to ascertain if any tidings had yet been
received from the lonely mountain wilds.  All knew
now some dread catastrophe had overwhelmed the
hills.  Confused rumours and vague conjectures were
flying through the district beyond the reach of the
muddy rain.  Earth-slips and fallen trees blocked
every road.  The adventurous few who had made
their way to the scene of the disaster had not yet
returned.

Far as his eye could see across the grassy sweep
not a shepherd was moving.  Feltham's sheep were
straying by hundreds in his master's run.  Then the
two boys came in sight, and arms were waved to attract
attention; and the burning anxiety on both sides found
vent in the question, "Any news from the hills?"

As Edwin poured forth the story of their flight,
another horseman was seen spurring across the open.
It was a messenger Mr. Bowen had despatched the
day before, to inquire among the shepherd hermits in
Feltham's outlying huts, who might, who must know
more than their seaside neighbours.  But the man
had ridden on from hut to hut, all alike empty and
deserted.  About nightfall, at the extreme end of the
run, he came upon a man who had been struck down
by the awful lightning, who told a rambling tale of
sudden flight before the strange storm.

"So," said the shepherd, "I rested my horse, and
determined to ride round to the central station, or go
on from farm to farm, to find out all I could; but a
trackless swamp stretched before me.  Turning aside,
I fell in with a party of Feltham's men, who had
made their way by the river-bank as far as the
government road.  They were returning for a cart
to bring off one of their number, who had been
knocked on the head by a falling tree, trying to make
his way through the bush."

"Who was it?" asked Edwin breathlessly, his
brief colloquy with the horsemen he had passed full
in his mind.  They were the same men, but not a
word as to the accident to one of the relief-party had
crossed their lips.

The significance of their silence flashed upon him.

"It is father!" he exclaimed, "and they would
not tell us."

"No, Edwin, no," interposed little Cuth, with wide-eyed
consternation.  "Why do you say it is father?"

"Why, indeed," repeated Mr. Bowen's man.  "I
tell you it was a near neighbour of the fordmaster's,
who had come across to his help before the others
got up.  For Hirpington and his people were all
blocked in by the weight of mud jamming up
windows and doors, and were almost suffocated; but
they got them out and into the boat when the others
came.  One man rowed them off to the nearest place
of refuge, and the others went on to look for the
roadmen in their solitary huts."

Every word the man let fall only deepened Edwin's
conviction.

He grasped Cuth's hand.  Was this what Whero
had tried to tell him?

The doubt, the fear, the suspense was unbearable.
Their first impulse was to run after the shepherds, to
hear all they had to tell.  But the Bowen men held
them back; and whilst they questioned Edwin more
closely, Cuthbert sat down crying on the frosted grass.
The boundary dog came up and seated itself before
him, making short barks for the bone that was no
longer to be had for the asking.  The noise he made
led the men to walk their horses nearer to the hut,
when the debris of the wreck, scattered about the
sands, met their eyes.  That a coaster should have
gone down in the terrific storm was a casualty
which the dwellers by the sea-shore were well
prepared to discover.  They kicked over the half-buried
boots and broken spars, looking for something which
might identify the unfortunate vessel, and they
brought Edwin into court once again, and questioned
him closely.  He assured them the sailors were all
safe, and when they heard how they had borrowed
his father's horse and cart to take them across to the
central station, they only blamed him for his
stupidity in not having asked the captain's name.

"Yes, it was stupid," Edwin owned, "but then I
did not know what I was doing."

The sound of their voices brought Effie to the door
of the hut, and they heard a little piping voice
behind repeating, "Bowen, please sir; his name was
Bowen."

"What! the captain's?" they cried.

"No, the schoolboy's," she persisted, shrinking
from the cold sea-breeze blowing her hair into her
eyes, and fluttering her scant blue skirt, and banging
at the door until it shut again, in spite of her utmost
efforts to keep it open.

Here was a discovery of far more importance in
the estimation of Mr. Bowen's men than all the rest.

"If that is our young master Arthur," they said,
"coming up for the holidays, we must find him, let
alone everything else.  We must be off to the central
station; and as for these children, better take them
along with us."

This was just what Edwin wanted.  After a reassuring
word to Effie anent the black boy-rat, he set
himself to work piling up the wreckage, with the
care of one about to leave the place.

He had not forgotten Hal's charge to stay where
he left them.

"But better be lost than starved," said the men;
and he agreed with them.  Even Audrey had failed
to send them food to that far-off hut.  It was clear
there was no one to bring it.

"You should have gone with the sailors," said the
boundary rider.  "You must go with us."

He wrapped the flap of his coat over Effie as
Edwin lifted her on to his knee, and his comrade
called to Cuthbert, who was hoisted up behind him;
and so they set forth, Edwin walking in the rear.

As the horses trotted onwards across the
fern-covered downs, the distance between them steadily
increased, for the boy was tired.  Once or twice he
flung himself down to rest, not much caring about
losing sight of his companions, as he knew the way.

Edwin had nearly reached the gate of the avenue,
when he saw Whero scampering over the grass on
Beauty's back.

There was a mutual shout of recognition; and
Whero turned the horse's head, exclaiming,—

"Lee!  Boy!  Lee!  Wanderer Lee! have you lost
your horse?  I went to beg bread at the station, and
he leaped over the stable-bar and followed me.  You
must give him back, as you said you would, for how
can I go to the hills without him?  I want him now."

"And so do I," answered Edwin; "I want to go
back with the shepherds to father."

"The men who spoke to us are gone.  I saw them
start," returned Whero.  "But jump up behind me,
and we will soon overtake them."

For one brief moment Edwin looked around him
doubtfully.  But Erne and Cuthbert were safe with
Audrey by this time, and he was sure Mr. Bowen,
"the old identity," their kind-hearted travelling
companion, would take good care of all three as soon as
he heard of their forlorn condition.  "His grandson
will tell him how Cuth and I pulled him through the
surf.  I had better ride back to the hills with Whero,
and see if it is safe for us to go home.  They may
have taken father there already, and then I know he
will want me."  So Edwin reasoned as he sprang up
behind the Maori boy.  "And if I don't go with
him," he added, "we may lose our horse, and then
what would father say to that?"





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`WIDESPREAD DESOLATION`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XI.


.. class:: center medium bold

   WIDESPREAD DESOLATION.

.. vspace:: 2

As the boys rode onward a sharp and bracing
wind blew in their faces.  The hoar still lay
on the grass, and the many pools at which the sheep
were accustomed to drink were coated with ice.  But
the mysterious darkness of the preceding day was
over, and the sun shone forth once more to gild a
desolated world.

Whero and Edwin were alike anxious to avoid
meeting any of Mr. Feltham's shepherds who might
have returned to their daily work, for fear they should
try to stop them.

Whero, with something of his father's skill, shot
forward with a reckless disregard for the safety of
Edwin's neck.  But the party they were pursuing
were long out of sight.

As they reached the confines of the sheep-run, an
unnatural grayness overspread the landscape.  Yet
on they went, encountering clouds of dust with every
breeze.  The blades of grass beneath the horse's hoofs,
the leaves rustling on the boughs, were all alike
loaded with it.  But the cattle were still grazing,
and despite the clouds of dust constantly rising, the
atmosphere above was clear; and the sunshine cheered
their spirits.

"We will not turn back," said Edwin.

They knew, by what the shepherds had told them,
the force of the eruption had expended itself; that
danger was over.  When the boys ascended higher
ground and gained a wider view, they could
distinguish parties of men marching up in every direction,
with their spades on their shoulders.  For now the
personal danger was diminished, the anxiety to
ascertain the fate of the unfortunate people living near
the sacred heights of Tarawera predominated.

Above the range of hills there was a dense bank
of steam, which rose like a wall of snowy white,
extending for miles.  Whero shook with terror at the
sight, but Edwin urged him on.  They had missed
the shepherds, but they could soon overtake the men
now in sight.  Yet the longer they gazed at the huge
mass of vapour, the more impenetrable it seemed.  It
was drifting slowly northwards, where it merged in
another cloud, black and restless, like smoke.  It was
but the work of the winds, stirring the vast deposit
of dust covering hill and forest.

Changed as the face of the country appeared to be,
Whero seemed able to track his way with something
of the unerring instinct of the hound.  Emboldened
by Edwin's steadier courage, on he went, the gray,
drab tint of the volcanic debris deepening around
them at every step, until it lay nine inches deep on
the ground, covering up all trace of vegetation.  The
poor cattle wandering in the fields were here
absolutely without food, and the blue waters of the
liquid rivulets were changed to a muddy brown, thick
and repulsive.  Every footfall of the horse enveloped
his riders in so dense a cloud that eyes were stinging
and voices choking, until they began to exchange this
dry deposit for the treacherous, deadly mud which
had preceded it.

This soon became so thick and sticky poor Beauty
could scarcely drag his legs out again, and their pace
grew slower and slower.  The time was going fast;
they had scarcely gained a mile in an hour.  They
dare not turn aside to view the ruins of Edwin's home.
As they went deeper and deeper into the bush, the
blue mud lay fifteen inches thick on all around.  The
unrivalled beauty of the forest was gone.  The boys
could see nothing but a mass of dirt-laden tree
trunks, bending and falling beneath the weight of
their burden.  Every leaf was stripped off, and every
branch was broken short.  It was a scene of
desolation so intense Whero set up a wild wail of
lamentation.  All was taken from the Maori when the wealth
of the bush was gone.

They gained the road; the mud was two feet thick
at least, and Beauty sank knee-deep in the sulphurous,
steaming slime.  How they got him out again they
hardly knew.  They backed him amongst the trees,
seeking the higher ground.  Fresh mud-holes had
opened in unexpected places, and old ones had enlarged
to boiling pools, and wide areas of smouldering ashes
marked the site of the many fires the lightning had
kindled.

Could the boys have extricated themselves just
then, they might have been tempted to turn back in
sheer dismay.  They were forced from the line which
Whero had hitherto pursued with the directness
which marks the flight of the crow.  The trees were
quivering with an earthquake shock.  The hill was
trembling visibly beneath their feet.  Guided by a
break in the trees, they made their way to the open.
Once more the bank of cloud was visible, drifting
slowly to the north; but Whero's eyes were fastened
on the distance, where he knew the lofty Tarawera
reared its threefold crest.

Had the mighty chieftains of renown arisen from
their graves and built a wall of luminous vapour
around their sleeping-place?  He quailed in abject
terror at the sight of the clouds, like ramparts rising
into the air for thousands of feet, and veined with
wavy lines that glowed and shimmered with the
reflection of the flames they held enshrined.

"If the arrows of their lightnings burst forth upon
us," shrieked Whero, "how shall such as we escape?
Better seek sleep in the cold waters of the river than
fall before the torture of their presence in the boiling
mud and scorching flame."

Edwin, too, was staggered by the strangeness of
the sight.  It was the sense of unprecedented peril,
the presence of dangers which no man could fathom,
which overwhelmed him.  But he had enough clear-sighted
common sense to perceive the first thing to be
guarded against was the frantic terror of the wilful
boy who was guiding him; for Whero, in his
excitement, was urging Beauty to a breakneck speed.  But
a change awaited them in the open glade, for there the
sun and wind had dried the surface of the mud, and
the clouds of dust settling down upon it had formed
a hard crust.

Edwin breathed more freely as Whero grew calmer.
The horse seemed to step along with ease at first; but
his weight was too great.  The crust gave way
beneath him, and they were soon all floundering in a
quagmire.  Edwin was flung backwards on a portion
of the broken crust, which, like a floating island, was
drifting him across the fissure.  Whero clung round
the horse's neck, clutching wildly at his mane.  Beauty,
with the intelligence of a fording-horse, pawed through
the mud in quest of a firmer foothold, and found it
on the trunk of a buried tree.

On this vantage-ground, being lightened of half his
load, he was preparing for a spring.  At the first
movement Whero went over his head, and Beauty,
finding himself his own master, changed his mind.
Under any other circumstances it would have been
fun to Edwin to see him feeling his way along
his unseen bridge until he reached the roots of the
tree, which, with the many tons of earth clinging in
them, rose at least ten feet into the air, a solitary
hillock around which the mud was consolidating.
Here he took his stand.  The boys could see him
scraping away the earth and nibbling at the young
green shoots of budding fern already forcing their
way to the upper air.

Edwin tried to propel his floating island towards
the point where Whero was standing, like a heron,
on one leg, trying to scrape the mud from the other.
He edged about this way and that, until at last the
boys were near enough to clasp hands.  When he
felt the sinewy gripe of his dusky friend, Edwin took
the meditated leap, and broke into the mud by
Whero's side.  He went down upon his hands and
knees; but Whero grasped the collar of his jacket, and
kept him from sinking.  The crust in this place was
nearly a foot thick, and when Edwin regained his
equilibrium the two stepped lightly over it, walking
like cats, holding each other's hands, and balancing
themselves as if they were treading on ice, until they
reached a precipitous crag, on which it was impossible
for the mud to rest.  Whero began to climb the steep
ascent, reaching down a hand to drag up Edwin after
him.  They gained a ledge several feet above the
lower ground, and here they paused to recover
themselves and look around for Beauty.  It was a pain, a
grief to both the boys to abandon him to his fate.
But they dared not shout his name or attract his
attention, for fear he should attempt to cross the
treacherous waste which lay between them.

To dash the tears from their eyes, to speak as if
they "would not care" when their hearts felt bursting,
was useless; and yet they did it—risking their own
necks in a mad desire to rush off where they could no
longer see him, and then returning for a last despairing
glance, until Whero had to own he had lost his way.

Another vast column of steam hung in mid air, and
when it lifted they could distinguish the gangs of
men hard at work, marking the site of more than one
annihilated village.  They watched them from afar
digging away the mud in hopes of finding some of the
inhabitants alive beneath it.  A mill-sail turning in
the wind just showed itself above the blue-gray mass,
and warned them that the depth of the deposit was
increasing steadily as they drew nearer and nearer to
the sacred mountains.  That moving sail told Whero
where he was.  With one hand shading his eyes he
scanned the country round.

"The pakeha seeks out the pakeha, but no man
turns to the Maori pah!" he exclaimed, stretching his
arms towards the wide waste of hateful blue, and
pointing to the foul remains of the crystal lake—the
lake by which he had been born.  But where was the
ancient whare? where was his home?

Edwin thought only of crossing to the nearest
group of men, throwing back the mud, right and left,
with a desperate energy.  He raised his voice and
tried to give the "coo" for help, in the fond hope it
might reach their ears.  Whero joined in the outcry,
and they stood still, shouting.  But the hollow echo
was their sole reply.

They had wandered wide from the ford, for they
were approaching the lake from the opposite side.

They sat down on the rocky ledge, and looked at
each other in silence.  A call from above startled
them.  It was a shrill but far-off voice that was not
human.

Whero, with all a Maori's belief in evil spirits,
shook with terror, and his howling shrieks filled the
air and drowned the distant sound.

"Oh, hush!" entreated Edwin.  "Shut up! do,
and let us listen."

They heard it plainly once again—the long-drawn
Maori word "Hoké" (Return, return), followed, in
quicker accents, by Whero's name.  He looked up
terror-stricken, surveying the rocky steep above their
heads, and gasped out, almost fainting,—

"You know not where you are.  This hill is tapu,
and he who breaks tapu is sure to die."

"Bosh!" retorted Edwin.  "If you would only
speak English I should know what you mean."

His arms went round the poor boy, who seemed
ready to die, as many a Maori has died before, of
pure fright at the thought of breaking tapu—that is,
touching anything the chief has made sacred.  But
Edwin did not understand his dread.

"Don't be such a coward," he expostulated; "I'll
stand by you."

"Hoké! hoké!" rang out the bird-like voice.
"Whero, hoké!"

The lofty summit of the hill gave back the cry.

"Go up," urged Edwin.  "Some of your people
may have taken refuge here.  Whatever you mean
by tapu, it can't scare me.  You daren't go! then let
me try."

There was a rift in the scarped side of the hill,
where human hands had cut a foothold here and
there, making the ascent possible.  Whero crept along
the edge and swung himself over.  Edwin crawled
after him, and climbed up with less difficulty than he
expected.  "Hoké" was piped above their heads, and
Whero's courage failed him once again.  He sank
upon a stone, with every nerve quivering.  The
English boy climbed on, and found himself at last upon
a bit of table-land which from its height seemed to
have escaped the general devastation; for the ground
was still covered with the dried remains of summer
vegetation.  He passed between the tree-like ferns
until he came upon a spot, bare and dry, without a
sign of a scrap of undergrowth of any kind or at any
time.  It might have been about three-quarters of an
acre, and was completely arched over by the
inter-woven boughs of four or five gigantic trees, which
even the storm of mud could not penetrate.  Edwin
gazed at their majestic trunks, full sixty feet in
circumference, ranged around him like the columns of
one of nature's temples, with a kind of awe.

The ground on which he stood was hard and dusty,
and yet he knew, by the fern and the creeper through
which he had reached it, this unusual clearance was
not the work of the eruption.  It looked as if it
might have been thus barren for ages.

The roots of the trees had grown out of the ground,
and were twisted and coiled over and over like a
group of mighty serpents transfixed and fossilized by
ancient sorcery.  Among them lay the human relics
of a barbarous age.  The very stones on which he
trod had once been fashioned by the hand of man.
There were axe and spear heads, knives and chisels,
embedded in the fibrous coils; and were they human
skulls and bones which lay there whitening by their
side?  Edwin recoiled in horror.  A bird flew down
from the leafy dome, and alighted near him, renewing
its wailing cry, "Hoké, hoké."  Edwin saw by the
crimson feathers of its breast it was a species of
macaw—an escaped pet from some of the buried
homes around him.

He called it a little nervously at first, as if it had
dyed its plumage in the blood of the murdered
captives whose bones lay white at his feet.  The bird
swooped round, beating the air with its outspread
wings, and darting forward as if it had half a mind
to perch upon his outstretched hand.

When were Edwin's pockets ever empty?  He was
feeling in them now for a few dry crumbs wherewith
to tempt the wailing bird.

It fluttered nearer at the welcome sight, for grain
or insects were nowhere to be found in that place of
dearth.  It came at last, and nestled, as it had
evidently been taught to nestle by its unknown master,
close against Edwin's cheek.  He grasped it by the
wings, and gently smoothed its ruffled feathers.

"Whero," he shouted, running back with it to the
brow of the hill, "Whero, it is a bird."

The sound of his own voice seemed to break the
spell of horror which had fallen over him, and he
rushed away from serpent root and blighted bough
with which nature herself had written on the hateful
spot, "Accursed."

He no longer wondered that the Maori boy refused
to go with him.  The slightest suspicion of impatience
and contempt had vanished from his tone when he
spoke again.

"Look at it, Whero."

But Whero looked not at the bird, but at his friend.

"Did you go far?" he asked.

"Only to the top," answered Edwin.

"Not to the top," persisted Whero, lowering his
voice and whispering hoarsely.  "There is a spot up
there, a fatal spot, where the grass never grows and
the air breathes death.  Ask me not for more.  Come away."

He seized Edwin's arm and drew him backwards.
The desolate bird shook itself free, and flew to him
with a cry of joy.

"It is my kaka," he exclaimed, "my own dear
redbreast, calling out, 'Return.'"

"Are you satisfied, Whero?" asked Edwin, in tones
of heartfelt sympathy.  "Have we searched far
enough?  Shall we go back and try to make our
way to the ford or across to the diggers?"

"Not yet," answered Whero; "I would see the spot
where the great hot stone used to be."

"It is buried," Edwin went on, "too deep in the
mud for us to find, I'm afraid."

Whero flung himself on the ground, exclaiming
wildly, "All lost! all gone! why don't you tangi over
me?"

"I would, if it would do you any good; but I
don't know how," said Edwin, bluntly.  "We are not
sure yet, Whero; your people may have rushed away
in the night as we did.  We will hope to the last."

In his despair Whero had let the kaka fly, and
Edwin watched it wheeling over the space between
them and the lake, until it settled down in what
appeared to him to be a hole in the all-pervading mud.

"He has found something," cried Edwin, hurrying
down the steep descent in a wave of excitement.
Whero shrieked after him to stop him; so once again
the boys rested awhile, and ate up the remainder of
the bread in Whero's pockets.  It was Edwin's last
resource to revive the wild boy's failing courage, and
it partially succeeded.

"Edwin," he said, "am I alone in the world—the
last of the proud race who owned the fastness in this
steep hill-top and the hot stone by yonder lake?
Have I nothing left to me but this awful place where
my grim forefathers held their victory-feast?  Will
you come and live with me there?"

"In that ogre's castle!" exclaimed Edwin, with a
shudder.  "A moment ago you dare not follow me
to its threshold, and now—"

"I have been thinking," interrupted Whero, "I
must not slight so strange an omen as the kaka's
call.  Are the mighty dead using his voice to call
me back (for I should have fled the place); to remind
me what I have now become—a chief of the hills,
who can make and unmake tapu as he pleases?  Let
us go up and swear to be true to each other for ever
and ever and ever, as my forefathers used to swear
on the eve of battle."

"I will stand by you," said Edwin, earnestly; "on
the honour of an Englishman I will.  I'll go down
to the lake with you.  Better see what the kaka has
found than climb the hill again.  Come."

He put his arm round Whero and began the
dangerous descent.  A fallen tree bridged their path.
The tremor of an earthquake was beginning.  They
flung themselves at once on their faces, for fear they
should be rolled over down the treacherous steep.
As Edwin lay resting his arms against the fallen
tree, he scanned once more the break in the muddy
crust round which the kaka was still wheeling.

What did he see, or what did he fancy he could
see at such a distance?  Was it a blackened fragment
of pumice-stone the bird was hovering over with its
wailing cry, or was it the quaint old carving on the
pointed roof of Nga-Hepé's whare?  Whero's eye
was fastened on the spot.  Could he too see it?  They
were afraid of losing their foothold, as the tree, like
everything else, was covered with the sticky slime,
and crawled along the trunk one after the other,
Whero leading the way.  It landed them on the top
of the mud-heap, and they walked across the dried
crust, as they had been able to do on the other side.

The stillness of the desert was around them.
Little life of any kind seemed to have escaped the
widespread destruction.  A lonely gull had flown up
with the morning breeze, and was pursuing the dead
fish across the lake, as they floated entangled in the
drift of the wind-torn foliage which strewed its surface.

On they walked, until Whero was satisfied that the
dead level they were crossing must cover the site of
the Rota Pah.  Even the strong wall which defended
it was buried.  Yet it was a wall strong enough and
high enough to resist the attack of English assailants.

The wintry breezes sweeping over the lake had
dried the mud more thoroughly on this side of the
hill.  The crust beneath their feet was thicker and
firmer.

The boys ran lightly across the intervening space.
As Whero drew near to the hole, the bird alighted
on his shoulder, and putting its beak to his ear,
exchanged its painful cries for a soft, low, warbling
note.

Edwin was sure now they saw the ridge of the
high-peaked roof of Nga-Hepé's whare.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`EDWIN'S DISCOVERY`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XII.


.. class:: center medium bold

   EDWIN'S DISCOVERY.

.. vspace:: 2

Edwin rubbed off the mud from the boss at the
point of the gable, and gazed upon the hideous
face, which was neither bird's nor man's, but the same,
the very same, which had attracted his attention when
he went with Nga-Hepé to his home.  Edwin looked
up.  The words upon his lips seemed to die away in
pity for the Maori boy.  At last he whispered huskily,
"Whero, there is something here."

"My home! my home!" was the passionate response,
as Whero flung himself across the ridge and hugged
the wooden face as if it were a living thing.

Edwin was thinking of all Mr. Bowen's men had
said: how the doors and windows of the ford-house
had been blocked by the mud with such rapidity there
was not time for Mr. Hirpington and his people to
get away.  He recalled all he had ever heard or read
of the frightful colliery accidents when the miners
had been entombed for days, and of cottages buried
beneath an avalanche of snow.  A bitter and
overwhelming feeling of self-reproach rose in his heart.
"Oh, why did we linger by the way and follow the
bird?  We ought to have hurried here at once.  O
Whero, I did not realize, I did not half understand.
Help me," Edwin went on, for Whero had begun to
raise his howling dirge—"help me to make a hole
through the roof, for fear there should be anybody
left inside."

"Have I come to the hot stone of my fathers to
find it a place of graves?" groaned Whero, pausing in
his wail.

"Mr. Hirpington got away in his boat; your
father may have taken to his canoe," urged Edwin,
clinging to hope to cheer his companion.

A bound, and Whero was up among the leafless
boughs of the grand old trees which had sheltered his
home.

Were the canoes gone?  His eye roved along the
reedy swamp for each familiar mooring-place, but all
was changed.  Mud-banks and shoals surrounded the
murky pool, and his landmarks were gone.  Yet more
than one canoe was embedded in the new-made morass,
and he cried out in despair.

Meanwhile Edwin was tugging at the bulrush
thatch with all his might.  As the hole increased with
his efforts, he caught the echo of a feeble sigh.  He
shouted to Whero, and tore away at the rushes with
frantic desperation.  A knock made answer.  The
wintry day was darkening to its close, and Edwin
felt that the task was beyond him.  He could not
unroof the well-built whare, with no fork to help him
and single-handed.

"We must get across the bush somehow, and fetch
the men we saw at work on the other side of the hill."

But nothing which Edwin could urge could induce
Whero to leave the spot.  He sat on the ridge of the
roof with the fidelity of a dog, howling and wailing,
only pausing to bury his head in the thatch to listen
to the faint and feeble sounds within.  Edwin watched
him breathlessly for a moment or two.  They had let
in the air through the hole he had made; but the
brief New Zealand twilight would soon be over, and
what more could they do in the darkness of night?
He sprang to his feet.  "I'm off, Whero," he shouted.
"Trust me, I'll never rest until I get you better help
than mine."

He ran across the mud.  It was growing harder and
harder in the keen frosty air.  He knew the wind was
blowing from the lake, so that if he were careful to
turn his back to the breeze, he could not lose his way.

Edwin had almost reached the hill, when he heard
a voice "cooing" in the distance.  It was not Whero's.
But the swift transition with which night comes on in
New Zealand shrouded him in sudden darkness; and
whilst he waited for the rising of the stars, he heard
the shouts drawing nearer, and gave the answering
"coo" with all his might.  He could distinguish the
echo of a horse's hoofs on the hardening ground.
There was no doubt about it now, the rider was coming
fast.  He shouted with renewed energy; and then the
Southern Cross shone out in all its brilliancy, and the
horseman perceived the small dark figure waving both
arms in the air, and galloped towards him.

In another moment Edwin was grasping hands with
his old friend the coachman.

"What! you, my lad, up here?" exclaimed Ottley;
and as Edwin answered, the sight of the prancing
horse that Ottley was riding shot a pain through his
heart.  It was so like his own beloved Beauty,
abandoned on his little islet in that sea of mud.

The tears came rushing into Edwin's eyes, until he
could see no more.  He tried to answer.  The horse
had turned its head to listen with quick, impatient
movements, until it fairly rubbed its nose against
Edwin's shoulder.

His arms went round its arching neck with a cry
of delight.  It was his own, his own, own Beauty.

"Yes," said Ottley, "I knew him again.  I
supposed he had strayed, for I came upon him standing
shivering against such shelter as the roots of an
upturned tree could afford him.  He was not difficult
to catch, and he has brought me on.  I got my coach
along some miles beyond Cambridge, and found the
way completely blocked, so I have left it there, and
come to give what help I could.  I can spare the
time it would have taken me to reach the end of my
route.  I have been working with a party of diggers
at Te Wairoa.  Then I determined to come across and
see how it fared with my old friend at the ford, and
now I find you wandering alone.  Come, get up
behind me.  It is not the first time you and I have
crossed these wilds together."

"Oh no," answered Edwin; "and I want you
worse than even then.  You must come with me at
once to the help of the Maori chief.  We have found
him buried alive, with his whole family, beneath this
awful mud—but I think not yet quite dead.  I feel
as if God had sent you here to save them."

Then Edwin poured out his story, and explained
how he had encountered Whero, and how they had
come on together to find their fathers.

Whilst he was yet speaking Ottley alighted.
"Take your horse, lad," he said, "and ride as fast as
you can; the mud will bear you now.  As soon as
you get to the brow of that hill, you will see the
camp-fire of the diggers in the distance.  Make that
your guide.  You will find them by that in the
night when you could not have found your way in
the daylight and the dust.  Trust to Beauty to avoid
the boiling jets; they are opening everywhere.  You
can give this message from me to the first party of
diggers you come to.  Tell them I want help badly,
by the lake.  Be a brave lad, and remember that
more lives than we can reckon are depending on your
speed."

Then Ottley took out his match-box, and sharing
its contents with Edwin, charged him, if he happened
to lose his way or meet with any obstacle he could
not pass, to choose a dry tree and set it on fire.  "The
blaze will be seen for miles through the leafless forest,
and will be sure to bring you help," he added, as he
put the boy on the horse and set off at a swinging
pace towards the buried whare, over which the kaka
was still hovering.

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!"





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`FEEDING THE HUNGRY`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XIII.


.. class:: center medium bold

   FEEDING THE HUNGRY.

.. vspace:: 2

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-Hepé 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-Hepé'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-Hepé'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-Hepé'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 Hepé 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-Hepé 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-Hepé 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.

They rode on in silence until they felt themselves
beyond the reach of the excited crowd.  Both were
looking very grave when at last they reached the
tent where Mr. Lee was lying.  The lowering skies
betokened a change of weather.

"Rain," said Ottley, looking upwards; "but rain
may free us from this plague of dust."

Hal, who had heard their steps approaching, came
out to meet them.  Whilst he was speaking to Ottley,
Edwin slipped off the horse and ran into the tent.
He found his father lying on the ground, apparently
asleep.  He knelt down beside him and listened to
his heavy breathing.  The dreamy eyes soon opened
and fastened on his face.

"Don't you know me, father?" asked Edwin, taking
the hand which hung down nervelessly in both of his.

"Where are the little ones?" asked Mr. Lee.

"Safe by this time with Mr. Bowen's grandson,
father," answered Edwin.  But the reply was hardly
spoken when the dreamy eyelids closed, and Mr. Lee
was fast asleep again.

Edwin looked out of the door of the tent, where
the men were still talking.

"If it had not been for those surveying fellows,"
Hal was saying, "who hurried up from the south
with their camp, what should I have done?  They
lent me this tent and gave me some bread."

"Where are they?" asked Edwin, glancing round.
"I want to thank them all."

"Why, lad," exclaimed Hal, "they are miles away
from here now.  They say the mud has fallen from
Taheka to Wairoa.  Not your little bit of a place,
but a big village.  We've lots of Wairoas; it is a
regular Maori name."

"Yes," added Ottley, "they have gone on; for the
mud has fallen heavy for ten miles round the
mountain—some declare it is a hundred feet deep at Te
Ariki—and there may be other lives to save even now."

"Ah, but you have done a bad day's work, I fear,"
persisted the old rabbiter.  "You have brought back
to life a dangerous neighbour; which may make it
hardly safe for us to stay where we are.  His people
will follow the horse's tracks, and come and eat up
all my little hoard; and how can an old man like me
defend himself?  They would soon knock me over,
and what would become of poor Lee?  He will sleep
himself right if we can let him lie still where he is;
but if these Maoris come clamouring round us, it will
be all over with him."

Edwin grew so white as he overheard this, Ottley
urged him to go back to his father and rest whilst
they lit a fire and prepared the tea.

He gave Beauty his feed of hay, and gathering
up the remainder he took it in with him, to try to
make his father a better bed than the old rug on
which he was lying.

It would be a bad day's work indeed if it were to
end as Hal predicted.  He trembled as he slipped the
hay beneath his father's head, wondering to find him
sleeping undisturbed in the midst of such calamities
as these.  "If he could only speak to me!" he groaned.

He had found at last one quiet Sunday hour, but
how could he have knelt down to pray that night if
he had refused to help Whero?  His fears were for
his father, but he laid them down.  Had he to live
this day over again to-morrow he would do the same.
His heart was at rest once more, and he fell asleep.

He was wakened by Hal and Ottley coming inside
the tent.  It was raining steadily.  There was no
such thing as keeping a fire alight in the open.  The
tea had been hastily brewed.  It was none the better
for that; but such as it was, they were thankful for
it.  They roused up Edwin to have his share.  It
was so dark now he could scarcely see the hand which
held the cup.  Hal spread the one or two remaining
wraps he had, and prepared for the night.  They all
lay down for a few hours' sleep.  Edwin was the
nearest to his father.

The two men were soon snoring, but Edwin was
broad awake.  Mr. Lee moved uneasily, and threw
aside the blanket which covered him.  Edwin bent
over him in a moment.

"Is there anything I can do for you, father?" he
said.

Mr. Lee was feeling about in the blanket.  "Where
is my belt?" he asked.

Edwin did not say a word to rouse the other
sleepers; but although it was perfectly dark, he soon
satisfied himself the belt was gone.

It was a wash-leather belt, in which Mr. Lee had
quilted his money for safety.  Edwin knew it well.
He realized in a moment what a loss it would be to
his father if this were missing.  Hal had set Mr. Lee's
leg with splints of bark; whilst he was doing this he
might have taken off the belt.  Perhaps it would be
found in a corner of the tent when it was light.
Edwin felt he must mind what he said about it to
Hal, who was taking such care of his father.  He
saw that more clearly than anything else.

No; he would only tell Ottley, and with this
decision he too fell asleep.

He was so tired out, so worn, so weary, that he
slept long and heavily.  When he roused it was broad
daylight, and Ottley, whose time was up, had departed.
Hal had made a fire, and was preparing a breakfast
of tea.  He agreed to save the bovril Edwin had
brought for his father alone.

They made a hole in the floor of the tent, not deep
enough to break the crust of the mud, and lined it
with bark.  Here they kept the little jar, for fear
any of the Maoris should see it, if they came across
to beg for food.

Whilst the two were drinking their tea and watching
the lowering clouds, which betokened more rain,
the other rabbiter whom Ottley had surprised in the
ford-house strolled out from among the leafless trees
and invited himself to a share.  Edwin and Hal,
who knew he needed it as much as they did, felt it
would indeed be selfish to refuse him a breakfast.

As they sat round the fire Hal took counsel with
his mate, and talked over the difficulties of their
position.

Ottley had promised to try to send them help to
remove Mr. Lee to a safer place.  But Hal, who was
expecting one of those torrents of rain which mark a
New Zealand winter, feared they might be washed
away before that help arrived.

Lawford—as he called his mate—was of the same
opinion, and offered, if Edwin would accompany him,
to go across to the ford-house and see if the
Hirpingtons had returned.

This seemed the most hopeful thought of all, and
Edwin brightened as he ran off to catch Beauty.

He had left his father comfortably pillowed in the
hay, which he had made to serve a double purpose,
but he was now obliged to pull a bit away for the
horse's breakfast.

As he started with Lawford, Hal called after them
to be sure to wrench off a shutter or a loose bit of
board.  They must bring back something on which
poor Mr. Lee could be laid, to move him.

Beauty trotted off briskly.  After a while Lawford
looked over his shoulder at Edwin, who was riding
behind him, and said shortly, "Now we are safe, I
have something to tell you."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`RAIN AND FLOOD`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XIV.


.. class:: center medium bold

   RAIN AND FLOOD.

.. vspace:: 2

Edwin felt a cold shiver run over him as
Lawford made this announcement.

"Something to tell me!" he exclaimed.  "Oh,
please speak out!"

"Do you see those spades?" replied Lawford,
halting beside a tree, against which two spades were
leaning.  "Whero has sent them to you.  He wants
you to show me where he buried that bag of treasure.
I am to dig it up and take it to Nga-Hepé.  He
means to use it now to buy food for the people about
him.  You know the place: it is between the two
white pines by the roadside.  As soon as Nga-Hepé
has got his money, he will row down the river in his
canoe and bring it back with a load of bacon and
flour, and whatever he can get in the nearest township."

This seemed so natural to Edwin he never doubted
it was true.  There were the spades, just like the two
he had seen in the whare.

"Oh yes," he answered, "I can find the place.  I
saw the trees only yesterday."

"Nga-Hepé sent you a charge," added Lawford,
"to mind and keep a still tongue; for if it gets air
whilst he's gone for the food, there will be such a
crowd waiting for the return of the canoe, it would
be eaten up at a single meal, and his own children
would be starving again."

"I shall not speak," retorted Edwin.  "Nga-Hepé
may safely trust me."

They reached the road at last, and made their way
along it as before, until they came to the two tall
tapering trunks—not quite so easily identified now
they had lost their foliage.

"This is the spot!" cried Edwin, slipping off the
horse, and receiving a descent of mud upon his
shoulders as he struck the dirt-laden tree.

Lawford gave him the spades he was carrying, and
got down.  They tied Beauty at a safe distance, and
set to work.  It was comparatively easy digging
through the crust, but when they reached the soft
mud beneath it, as soon as they cleared a hole it filled
again.

Their task seemed endless.  "I don't believe we
can get at the money," said Edwin, in despair.  "I
must go on and see if Mr. Hirpington has returned,
for I want to get back to father."

"All right," answered Lawford.  "Leave me at the
work.  A boy like you soon tires.  Take your horse
and ride down to the ford; but mind you do not say
anything about me."

"You need not fear that," repeated Edwin, as he
extricated himself from the slime-pit they had opened,
and mounted Beauty.  It was not very far to the ford,
but he found it as he had left it—desolate and deserted.
No one had been near it since yesterday, when he
visited it with Ottley.  The good old forder neighed a
welcome, and came trotting up from the river-bank
to greet him.  He pulled out more hay to feed both
horses, and whilst they were eating he examined the
house.

The river was swollen with last night's rain.  It
had risen to the top of the boating-stairs.  Once more
the house was standing in a muddy swamp, from
which the tall fuchsia trees looked down disconsolate
on the buried garden.  It was past anybody's power
to get at the store-room window.  In short, the river
had taken possession, and would effectually keep out
all other intruders.

Edwin chose himself a seat among the ruins, and
turned out his pockets in quest of a little bit of
pipe-clay which once found a lodging amongst their
heterogeneous contents.  He wrote with the remaining
corner, which he was happy enough to find had not
yet crumbled to dust, "Lee, senior, waiting by lake,
badly hurt, wants food and help."

He had fixed upon the shutter of the hay-loft
window for his tablet, and made his letters bold and
big enough to strike the eye at a considerable distance.
He tried to make them look as if some man had
written them, thinking they would command more
attention.  Then he hunted about for the piece of
loose board Hal had charged them to bring back.

Edwin wrenched it off from the front of the
hayloft, and discovered a heap of mangel-wurzel in the
corner.  He snatched up one and began to eat it, as
if he were a sheep, and then wondered if he had done
right.  But he felt sure Ottley would say yes.

He balanced the board on his head, but found it
impossible to mount Beauty, and equally difficult to
make him follow a master with head-gear of such
an extraordinary size.  So he had to drive Beauty
on before him, and when he reached the white pines
Lawford was gone.

"He ought to have waited for me," thought Edwin,
indignantly.  "How can I get across the bush with
this board?  The men care nothing about me; they
drive me along or they leave me behind to follow as
I can, just as it happens.  It is too bad, a great deal
too bad!"

Beauty heard the despairing tone, and turning
softly round, tilted the board backwards in spite of
Edwin's efforts to stop him.

There was no such thing as getting it into position
again.  All Edwin could do was to mark the spot and
leave it lying on the ground.  Then he jumped on
Beauty and trotted off to the tent, for the rain which
Hal had predicted was beginning fast.  The sodden
canvas flapped heavily in the storm-wind.  The
tent-poles were loosened in the softened mud, and seemed
ready to fall with every gust, as Edwin rode up
disheartened and weary, expecting to find Lawford had
arrived before him.  No such thing.  Hal was worn
out with waiting, and was very cross.

It is only the few who can stand through such days
of repeated disaster with patience and temper
unexhausted.  There has been some schooling in adversity
before men attain to that.  Edwin was taking his
lesson early in life, but he had not learned it yet.

Hal would have it Edwin had lost himself, and
called him a young fool for not sticking close to his
companion, who was no doubt looking for him.

He started off in high dudgeon to "coo" for Lawford,
and bring on the board Edwin had left by the way.

Father and son were alone.  The rain pouring
through the tent seemed to rouse Mr. Lee to
consciousness.

"I am hurt, Edwin," he said; "yet not so much
as they think.  But is there not any place of shelter
near we can crawl into?  This rain will do me more
harm than the fall of the tree.  If this state of
things continues, we shall be washed away into the mud."

Edwin's heart was aching sorely when Hal returned
with the board.  Mr. Lee looked up with eyes which
told them plainly the clouded understanding was
regaining its power.

The old man saw it with pleasure, He knew even
better than Mr. Lee that the steady rain was changing
the mud to swamp.  They must lose no time in
getting away, at least to firmer ground.

He was looking about him for the nearest hill.
He had made his plan; but he wanted Lawford's help
to carry it out.

"He will come back soon," said Edwin confidently,
feeling pretty sure Lawford had gone across to the
lake to give Nga-Hepé his bag.

Hal was more puzzled than ever at his mate's
disappearance, and again he wanted to know why the
two had parted company.  Edwin was so
downhearted about his father, and so badgered by Hal's
questionings and upbraidings, he knew not what to
say or do.

Hal wrapped Mr. Lee in the blanket, and with
Edwin's assistance laid him on the board.  It was a
little less wet than the sodden ground.  He bound
him to it with the cord which had tied up Beauty's hay.

"There," he said, as he pulled the last knot tight,
"we can lift you now without upsetting my splints.
They are but a bungling affair, master; but bad is
the best with us."

Try as Edwin would he was not strong enough to
lift the board from the ground.  The old man saw it
too, and pushed him aside impatiently.

"See what you have brought on us all," he said,
or rather muttered.

"I could not help it," repeated Edwin bitterly; "but
I don't mind anything you say to me, Hal, for you
have stuck by father and cared for him, when he
would have died but for you.  Don't despair; I'll go
and look for Lawford."

"You!" returned Hal contemptuously; "you'll lose
yourself."

But Edwin, who thought he could guess where
Lawford was to be found, could not be turned from
his purpose.

"Can't I cross the bush once more, for father's
sake," he asked, "whilst I have got my horse?"
He called up Beauty and told him to go home.
Edwin found the whare by the lake deserted.  After
his abrupt departure with Ottley, Nga-Hepé had
roused himself to assist his father-in-law in making
an equal distribution of the food; and then they
gathered the men around the fire and held a council.

With two such leaders as Nga-Hepé and Kakiki,
they reached the wise decision to seek a safer place
beyond the anger of the gods, and build a temporary
kainga, or unwalled village, where food was to be
obtained, where the fern still curled above the ground,
and the water gushed pure from the spring.  The
men of the pah yielded as they listened to the
eloquent words of the aged chief; and though they
passed the night in speechifying until the malcontents
were overawed, the morning found them hard at
work digging out their canoes.

As Edwin approached the lake he saw the little
fleet cautiously steering its way through the
mud-shoals and boulders towards the river.

The wind was moaning through the trees, and the
unroofed whare was filling with the rains.

While Edwin surveyed the desolate scene, he
perceived a small canoe coming swiftly towards his side
of the lake.  He watched it run aground amongst the
bent and broken reeds, swaying hither and thither in
the stormy wind.  Suddenly he observed a small,
slight figure wading knee-deep through the sticky
slime.  It was coming towards him.

A bird flew off from its shoulder, and the
never-to-be-forgotten sound of "Hoké" rang through the air.

"Whero, Whero!" shouted Edwin joyfully; and
turning Beauty's head he went to meet him.

But Whero waved him back imperiously; for he
knew the horse could find no foothold in the
quagmire he was crossing.  He was leaping now like a
frog, as Edwin averred; but there are no frogs in
New Zealand, so Whero could not understand the
allusion as Edwin held out his hand to help him on.
Then the kaka, shaking the water from his dripping
wings, flew towards Edwin and settled on his wrist
with a joyous cry of recognition.

"Take him," gasped Whero; "keep him as you
have kept my Beauty.  The ungrateful pigs were
to kill him—to kill and eat my precious redbreast;
but he soared into the air at my call, and they
could not catch him."

Edwin's boyish sympathies were all ablaze for his
outraged friend.  "Is that their Maori gratitude," he
exclaimed, "when it was your kaka which guided
me to the spot?"

"When I told them so," sobbed Whero, "they
laughed, and said, 'We will stick his feathers in our
hair by way of remembrance.'  They shall not have
him or his feathers.  They shall eat me first.  I will
take him back to the hill which no man cares to
climb.  I will live with dead men's bones and despise
their tapu; but no man shall eat my kaka."

During the outpouring of Whero's wrath, Edwin
had small chance of getting an answer to his anxious
question.  "Are not those your people rowing across
the lake?  Is Lawford with them?  Did he bring
the bag to your father all right?"

Whero looked at him incredulously.  Edwin waved
his hand, and the Maori boy leaped up for once behind
him.  He took the kaka from Edwin's wrist and
hugged it fondly whilst he listened to his explanations
about Lawford.

"It was I," interposed Whero, "who was staying
behind to dig up the bag by the white pines.  Did
my father think I would not go when I ran off to
call away my kaka?  Where could he meet this
pakeha and I not know, that he should trust him to
look for his hoard?  as if any one beside me or my
mother could find it.  Kito!" (lies.)

But the pelting rain cut short his wonder, as
Edwin urged everything else must give way to the
pressing necessity of finding some better shelter for
Mr. Lee.  It was useless to look for Lawford any
longer.

"You will help me, Whero?" entreated Edwin
earnestly, as they turned the horse's head towards the
small brown tent.  It was lying flat, blown down by
the wind in their absence.  Hal had folded up the
canvas, and was pacing up and down in a very dismal
fashion.

"Father," said Edwin, springing to the ground,
"I can't find Lawford; but this Maori boy was going
to a sheltered place high up in the hills.  Will you let
us carry you there?"

"Anywhere, anywhere, out of this pond," replied Mr. Lee.

"Have at it then!" cried Whero, seizing hold of
the board; but Hal called out to them to stay a bit.
By his direction they lifted Mr. Lee on his board and
laid it along the stout canvas.  Hal tied up the ends
with the tent ropes, so that they could carry Mr. Lee
between them, slung, as it were, in a hammock.  Hal
supported his head, and the two boys his feet.

It was a slow progression.  Whero led them round
to another part of the hill, where an ancient fissure in
its rugged side offered a more gradual ascent.  It was
a stairway of nature's making, between two walls of
rock.  Stones were lying about the foot, looking as if
they might have been hurled from above on the head
of some reckless invader in the old days of tribal
violence.

Edwin had well named it an ogre's castle.  It was
a mountain fastness in every sense, abandoned and
decayed.  As they gained the summit, Edwin could
see how the hand of man had added to its natural
strength.  Piles of stones still guarded the stairway
from above, narrowing it until two could scarcely
walk abreast, and they lay there still, a ready heap of
ammunition, piled by the warrior hands sleeping in
Tarawera.

Whero sent his kaka on before him.  "See," he
exclaimed to Edwin, "the bird flies fearless over the
blighted ground, and you came back to me unharmed.
I will conquer terror by your side, and take possession
of my own.  Who should live upon the hill of Hepé
but his heir!  Am I not lord and first-born?  Count
off the moons quickly when I shall carry the
greenstone club, and make the name of Hepé famous among
the tribes, as my mother said.  This shall be my
home, and my kaka shall live in it."

They were trampling through the dry brown fern
on the hill-top, and here Whero would willingly have
bivouacked.  But Hal, who knew nothing of the
traditionary horrors which clung to the spot, pushed on
to the shelter within the colonnade.  No tent was
needed here.  They laid their helpless burden on the
ground and stretched their cramped arms.  Whero's
tall talk brought an odd twinkle of amusement into
the corner of Hal's gray eye as he glanced around him
humorously.  "It is my lord baron, as we say in
England, then," he answered, with a nod to Whero:
"but it looks like my barren lord up here."  Whero
did not understand the old man's little joke, and
Edwin busied himself with his father.

Whero descended the hill again and fetched up
Beauty, who was as expert a climber as his former
owner, and neighed with delight when he found
himself once more amid the rustling fern.  Dry and
withered as Edwin had thought it, to Beauty it was
associated with all the joys of early days, when he
trotted a graceful foal by his mother's side.  Like
Whero, he was in his native element.

The proud boy rolled a big stone across the end of
the path by which they had climbed up, and then feeling
himself secure, began to execute a kind of war-dance.

"Stop your antics," said Hal, cowering against the
gigantic trunk which was sheltering Mr. Lee from the
keen winds, "and tell us what that means."  He
pointed to a huge white thing towering high above
his head, with open beak and outstretched claw—a
giant, wingless bird, its dry bones rattling with every
gust.

"It is a skeleton," said Edwin, walking nearer to
it to take off the creepy feeling it awakened.

"It is a moa," said Whero, continuing his dance—"the
big old bird which used to build among these
hills until my forefathers ate him up.  They had
little to eat but the fern, the shark, and the moa,
until the pakeha came with his pigs and his sheep.
There may be one alive in the heights of Mount
Cook, but we often find their skeletons in desolate
places."  Then Whero went up close to the quivering
bones, and cried out with exultation when he
discovered the hole in its breast through which the spear
of the Hepé had transfixed this ancient denizen of
his fortress.

"It is an unked place," muttered Hal, "but dry
to the feet."

He lit his pipe, and settled himself on the roots of
the tree for a smoke and a sleep.  He had been
existing for so many days in the midst of the stifling
clouds of volcanic dust and the choking vapours from
the ground, through which chloride of iron gas was
constantly escaping for a space of fifty-six miles, that
the purer air to which they had ascended seemed like
life, and robbed the place of its habitual gloom.

Even Whero, with the Maori's reverential horror of
a dead man's bones, coiled himself to sleep in the
rustling fern by Beauty's side, his dream of future
greatness undisturbed by the rattling bones of the
moa, and the still more startling debris which
whitened amidst the gnarled and twisted roots.

But it was not so with Edwin.  He sat beside his
father, feeding him with the undiluted bovril—for
water failed them on the rocky height—and
wondering how long the slender store would last.  He
refused himself the smallest taste, and bore his hunger
without complaint, hiding the little jar with scrupulous
care, for fear Whero should find it and be tempted
to eat up the remainder of its contents.  So he kept
his silent vigil.  The storm-clouds cleared, and the
grandeur of the view upon which he gazed banished
every other thought.  He could look down upon the
veil of mist which had hidden the sacred mountains,
and Tarawera rose before him in all its grandeur.
He saw the awful rent which had opened in the side
of the central peak, and from which huge columns of
smoke and steam were fitfully ascending.  He watched
the leaping tongues of flame dart up like rockets to
the midnight sky, once more ablaze with starshine,
and a feeling to which he could give no expression
seemed to lift him beyond the present,—"Man does
not live by bread alone."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`WHO HAS BEEN HERE?`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XV.


.. class:: center medium bold

   WHO HAS BEEN HERE?

.. vspace:: 2

"Edwin," said Mr. Lee, when he saw his son
shivering beside him in the gray of the
wintry morning, "what is the matter with you?
Have you had enough to eat?"

"Not quite.  Well, you see, father, we have to do
as we can," smiled Edwin, in reply.

"Certainly; but where on earth have we got to?"
resumed the sick man, as he glanced upwards at the
interlacing boughs.

"We are high up in the hills, father, in one of the
old Maori fastnesses, where the mud and the flood
cannot reach us," answered Edwin.

"And the children?" asked Mr. Lee.

"Are all safe by the sea," was the quick reply.

Mr. Lee's ejaculations of thankfulness were an
unspeakable comfort to Edwin.

"Did not I hear the splash of oars last night?"
asked his father.

"You might when Whero came.  He guided us
here," said Edwin.

"Then," resumed his father, "try to persuade this
Maori to row you in his canoe down the river until
you come to an English farm.  The colonists are all
so neighbourly and kind, they will sell or lend or
give you what we want most.  Make the Maori bring
you back.  You must pay him well; these Maoris will
do nothing without good pay.  Remember that; but
there is plenty in the belt."  Mr. Lee ceased speaking.
He was almost lost again, and Edwin dare not remind
him that the belt was gone.  But Edwin knew if
Whero would do it at all, he would not want to be paid.

"With this leg," sighed Mr. Lee slowly and dreamily,
"I—am—a—fixture."

Sleep was stealing over him, and Edwin did not
venture to reply.

A sympathetic drowsiness was visiting him also,
but he was roused out of it by seeing Hal busily
engaged in trying to capture the kaka.

"It is a good, fat bird," whispered the old man;
"they are first-rate eating in a pie.  We can cook
him as we did the duck I found; put him in the
boiling mud as the natives do!"

Up sprang Edwin to the rescue.  "No, Hal, no;
you must not touch that bird!"

He caught the old man's arm, and scared the kaka
off.  The frightened bird soared upwards, and
concealed itself in the overarching boughs.

Whero was awakened by its screams, and got up,
shaking the dry moss from his tangled shock of hair,
and laughing.

Edwin called off attention from the kaka by
detailing his father's plan.

The breakfastless trio were of one mind.  It must
be tried, as it offered the surest hope of relief.  The
river was so much safer than the road.  Ottley might
never have it in his power to send the promised help.
Some danger might have overwhelmed him also.  What
was the use of waiting for the growing of the grass, if
a readier way presented itself?  Hal spread out the
canvas of the tent to dry, and talked of putting it up
in the new location.  Legs and arms were wonderfully
stiff from keeping on wet clothes.  But the
most pressing want was water.  Dry ground and
pure air were essential, but thirst was intolerable.
They took the cup by turns and went down to a
spring which Whero pointed out.  Beauty had found
for himself a little pond, which nature had scooped
out, and the recent rains had filled with greenish
water which he did not despise.

Whilst Hal was away, Edwin intimated to Whero
that it was not very safe to leave his kaka with him;
for he feared the bird would be killed and eaten as
soon as they were gone, although he did not say so to
his Maori friend.

Whero's eyes were ablaze with rage in a moment.
"Let him touch it!" he snorted rather than hissed.
"I'll meet him.  If it's here on the hill, I'll hurl him
over that precipice.  If—if—"  Edwin's eye was
fastened on the boy with a steady gaze.  Whero
raised his clinched hand, as if to strike.  "Tell him,"
he went on—"tell him in our country here the mud
is ever boiling to destroy the Maori's foes.  I'll push
him down the first jet we pass."  He looked around
him proudly, and kicked away the skull beneath his
foot, as if to remind his listener how in that very
spot the threats in which he had been indulging
found plenty of precedent.

Edwin exerted all his self-command.  He would
not suffer one angry or one fearful word to pass his
lips, although both anger and fear were rising in his
heart.  But the effort to keep himself as cool and
quiet as he could was rewarded.  Whero saw that he
was not afraid; and the uncontrollable passion of the
young savage expended itself in vain denunciations.

Edwin knew how the Maoris among themselves
despise an outburst of passion, and he tried to shame
Whero, saying, "Is that the way your warriors talk
at their councils?  Ours are grave, and reason with
each other, until they find out the wisest course to
take.  That is what I want to do as soon as we have
caught the kaka."

The catching of the macaw proved a safety-valve;
and Whero went down to the lake to get the canoe
ready, with the bird on his wrist.

Edwin ran back to beg Hal to return to his father,
as he and Whero were hurrying off to the lake.  He
had saved a dangerous quarrel, but it left him very
grave.  He was more and more afraid of what Whero
might do in a moment of rage.  "Oh, I am excessively
glad, I am thankful," he thought, "that I was
not forced to leave him alone with Effie and Cuthbert!"  It
was well that Whero was rowing, for the exertion
seemed to calm him.  Edwin escaped from the difficulty
of renewing their conversation by beginning to
sing, and Whero, with all the Maori love of music,
was easily lured to listen as "Merry may the keel
row" echoed from bank to bank, and the splash of
his paddle timed itself to the words of the song.

Edwin assured him he was singing to keep the
kaka quiet, which had nestled on his folded arms,
and was looking up in his face with evident enjoyment.
As they paddled on the old ford-horse stepped
out into the water to hear him, so they stopped the
canoe and went ashore to pull him out his hay.  He
followed them for nearly half-a-mile, and they lost
sight of him at last as they rounded the bend in the
river.  He was fording his way across the huge bed
of shingle, over which the yellow, rattling, foaming
torrent wandered at will.  The tiny canoe shot forward,
borne along without an effort by the force of the
stream.  With difficulty they turned its head to
zigzag round a mighty boulder, hurled from its mountain
home by the recent convulsions.

Even now as the river came tearing down from the
heights above, it was bringing with it tons upon tons of
silt and shingle and gravel.  The roar of these stones,
as they rolled over each other and crashed and dashed
in the bed of the flood, was louder than the angry
surges on the tempestuous shore when Edwin saw the
coaster going down.  The swift eddies and
undertows thus created made rowing doubly dangerous,
and called forth Whero's utmost skill.

But the signs of desolation on the river-banks were
growing fainter.  Between the blackened tracts where
the lightning had fired the fern broken and storm-bent
trees still lifted their leafless boughs, and shook
the blue dust which weighed them down into the eyes
of the travellers.

Here and there a few wild mountain sheep, which
had strayed through the broken fences of the run,
were feeding up-wind to keep scent of danger.  But
other sign of life there was none, until they sighted
an English-built boat painfully toiling along against
the force of the current.  They hailed it with a shout,
and Edwin's heart leaped with joy as he distinguished
Mr. Hirpington's well-known tones in the heartiness
of the reply.  "Well met, boys.  Come with us."

They were soon alongside, comparing notes and
answering inquiries.  Dunter, who plied the other oar,
nodded significantly to Edwin.  He had encountered
Ottley, and received his warning as to the depredations
likely to ensue if the ford-house were left to
itself much longer.  He had started off to find the
governor.

The good old forder was still scraping amongst
the shingle, and when he saw his master in the
boat, he came plunging through the water to meet
him with such vehemence he almost caused an upset.
But the stairs were close at hand, and as Mr. Hirpington
often declared, he and his old horse had long
ago turned amphibious.  They came out of the water
side by side, shaking themselves like Newfoundland
dogs.  It was marvellous to Mr. Hirpington to
discover that his old favourite had taken no harm.

"He is a knowing old brute," said Dunter.  But
when they saw the writing on the shutter, they knew
where he had found a friend.  The pipe-clay was
smeared by the rain, but the little that was legible
"gave me a prick," said Mr. Hirpington, "I cannot
well stand."

A great deal of the mud had been washed on to
Ottley's tarpaulin, which had been pushed aside by
the fury of the storm, as Mr. Hirpington was inclined
to think.  But there were footprints on the bank of
mud jamming up doors and windows—recent footprints,
impressed upon it since the storm.  Dunter
could trace them over the broken roof.  They were
not Edwin's.  Dunter pointed to the impression just
left by his boot as the boy climbed up to them.  That
was conclusive.

"If it were any poor fellow in search of food under
circumstances like these, I would not say a word,"
remarked Mr. Hirpington.

Dunter found a firmer footing for himself, and
getting hold of the edge of the sheet of iron, he forced
it up, and with his master's help dislodged a half-ton
weight of mud, which went down into the river with
a mighty splash.  To escape from the shower-bath,
which deluged both them and the roof, the three
jumped down into the great farm kitchen.  There all
was slime, and a sulphurous stench vitiated the atmosphere.

"We can't breathe here," said Mr. Hirpington, seizing
Edwin's arm and mounting him on the dining-table.

The muddy slush into which they had plunged was
almost level with its top.  The door into the bedroom
was wrenched off, and lodged against it, forming a
kind of bridge over the mud.  But there was one
thing which the earthquake, the mud, and the storm
could never have effected.  They could not have filled
the sacks lying on the other end of the long tables.
That could only have been done by human hands.

They were all three on the table now.  Mr. Hirpington
untied the nearest sack, and pushed his arm
inside.

"Some of our good Christchurch blankets and my
best coat," he muttered.  "I have no need to make
them in a worse state with my muddy hands.  Leave
them where they are for the present," he continued,
turning to Dunter, who began to empty out the
contents of the other sacks.

Mr. Hirpington looked about for his gun.  It was
in its old place, lying across the boar's tusks, fixed
like pegs against the opposite wall.  It was
double-barrelled, and he knew he had left it loaded for the
night as usual.

"You must get that down, Dunter," he said, "and
mount guard here, whilst I take young Lee back to
his father.  That must be the first concern.  When I
return we must set to work in earnest—bail out this
slush, mend the roof over the bedroom to the river,
where it is least damaged, and live in it whilst we
clear the rest.  Light and air are to be had there still,
for the windows on that side are clear.  More's the
pity we did not stay there.  But when that awful
explosion came, my wife and I rushed into the kitchen,
and so did most of the men.  I was tugging at the
outer door, which would not open, and 'cooing' with
all my might, when the crash came, and I knew no
more until I found myself in the boat."

"I was a prisoner in my little den," put in Dunter;
"and I kept up the 'coo' till Mr. Lee came, for I
could not open door or window though I heard your
groans."

"Yes, Lee must be our first care.  We owe our
lives to him alone; understand that, all of you.  He
had us out before anybody else arrived," Mr. Hirpington
went on, as he heaved up the fallen door and
made a bridge with it from the table to the back of
the substantial sofa, over which his gun was lying.
From such a mount he could reach it easily.  Was
there anything else they required?  He looked around
him.  Dunter had got possession of a boat-hook, and
was fishing among the kettles and saucepans under
the dresser.  The bacon, which had been drying on
the rack laid across the beams of the unceiled roof,
had all gone down into the mud; but the solid beams
themselves had not given way, only the ties were
dislodged and broken, with the iron covering.  All the
crockery on the shelves of course was smashed.  A
flying dish had struck Mrs. Hirpington on the head
and laid her senseless before the rain of mud began.
But her husband had more to do now than to recount
the how and the why of their disaster.

He was hastily gathering together such things
within reach as might be most needed by the sufferer
on the hills.  A kettle and a pan and a big cooking-spoon,
which Dunter had fished out, were tied up in
the Christchurch blanket dislodged from the sack, and
slung across Mr. Hirpington's shoulder.  Dunter made
his way into the bedroom, and pulled out a couple of
pillows.  Here, he asserted, some one must have been
before him; for muddy footsteps had left their mark
on the top of the chest of drawers and across the
bed-quilt, and no mud had entered there ere the
Hirpingtons fled.  Yet muddy fingers had left their
impress high up on wardrobe-doors and on
window-curtains, which had been drawn back to
admit the light.  Over this room the roof had not given
way.  The inference was clear—some one had entered it.

Mr. Hirpington glanced up from the bundle he was
tying, and spoke aside to Edwin: "You knew the man
Ottley surprised in the house?"

"Yes," answered Edwin; "he was one of the
rabbiters.  I thought he was looking for food, as we
were.  Mr. Ottley did not say anything to me about
his suspicions.  Somebody else may have got in since
then, Mr. Hirpington."

"Certainly, certainly," was the answer, and the
three emerged again into daylight.

As they stood upon the roof shaking and scraping
the mud from each other, Edwin looked round for
Whero.

"Whoever filled these sacks," observed Mr. Hirpington,
when he was alone with Dunter, "means to come
back and fetch them.  Be on the watch, for I must
leave you here alone."

Dunter was no stranger to the Maori boy, and
invited him to share in the good things he was
unloading from the boat, thinking to secure himself a
companion.  Whilst he was talking of pork-pies and
cheese, Edwin suggested the loan of a spade and a pail.

"A' right!" exclaimed Whero, with a nod of
intelligence; "I'll have both."

"Ay, take all," laughed Edwin, as he ran down the
boating-stairs after Mr. Hirpington, who was
impatient to be off.  Whero followed his friend to the
water's edge to rub noses ere they parted.  The
grimaces with which Edwin received this final token
of affection left Dunter shaking with laughter.

"I go to dig by the white pines," said Whero.

"But you will come back to the hill of Hepé.  We
shall have food enough for us all," returned Edwin,
pointing to the boat in which Mr. Hirpington was
already seated.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`LOSS AND SUSPICION`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XVI.


.. class:: center medium bold

   LOSS AND SUSPICION.

.. vspace:: 2

The great hole which Lawford had made in the
mud was not yet filled up.  He had walled
the sides with broken branches, damming up the mud
behind him as he dug his way to the roots of the
white pines.

Of course the mud was slowly oozing through these
defences, and might soon swallow them up.  But
Whero felt he was just in time.  He dipped out a
pail or two from the bottom, and felt about for the
original hole in which he had hidden the bag.  His
foot went into the hole unawares.  He was not long
in satisfying himself that the treasure was gone.  It
was too heavy to float away.  However great the
depth of mud might be above, it should still be in
the hole where he had hidden it.  He had covered it
over with bark.  The bark was there, but the bag
was gone.

He went back to the ford.  Dunter was at work
dipping out the slime from the farm-house kitchen.
The boy did not wait to speak to him, but pushed off
his canoe and paddled away down the river to find
his mother.  Dunter had promised to take care of his
kaka during his absence.  Well, if that were
prolonged, he would take care of it all the same, so
Whero reasoned, as he was carried along by the rapid
current.

He was watching for the first sign of the Maori
encampment, which he knew he should find beyond
the vast tract which had been desolated by the rain
of mud.  The canoe shot onward, until the first leaf
became visible on the evergreens, and the fish were
once more leaping in the water.  The terraced banks
of the river were broken here and there with deep
gulches and sunken canyons.  It was in one of these
retreats that he was expecting to find the Maori
tents.

The river was rushing deep and swift as before, but
its margin was now studded with reeds and ti trees.
The crimson heads of the great water-hens were
poking out of their midst to stare at him, and flocks
of ducks rose noisily from their reedy beds.

Whero began to sing one of the wild and plaintive
native melodies.  But his voice was almost drowned by
the roar of the whirling stones, and his passage was
continually impeded by the masses of drift-wood—great
arms of trees, and uprooted trunks—striking against
the boulders and threatening him with an upset.

Yet he still sang on, until a low, sweet echo
answered him from the bank, and he saw his mother
gathering fern by the water's edge.

The canoe was quickly run aground, and he leaped
ashore to join her.  Then he saw that his grandfather
Kakiki Mahane was sitting on a stone not far off.
Whero walked up a little ashamed of his behaviour;
but for him Marileha had no reproaches, for he was
the bitter-sweet which changed her joy to pain and
her pain to joy continually.

She hailed his return, for her heart was aching for
her baby, which could not survive their terrible
entombment.  She pointed to the bend in the ravine,
where one or two small whares had been hastily built.
Two uprights in the ground, with a pole across, had
been walled with mats, roughly and quickly woven
from flax-leaf and bulrush.  Every Maori had been
hard at work, and work could get them all they
wanted here, except the hot stone and the geyser-bath.

With her own hands Marileha had cooked them
what she called a good square dinner.

But the ideal life of the Maori is one of perfect
laziness, and as a Maori lady Marileha had enjoyed
this from her birth.  Her old father was trying to
comfort her.  She should go back with him to her
own people.  She should not stay where the fish had
to be caught, and the wild duck snared, and the wild
pig hunted, and then brought to her to kindle a fire
to cook them, when he was a rich man, who could
live like his kinsmen at Hawke's Bay, hire a grand
house of the pakeha, and pay white servants to do
everything for them.

The prospect was an alluring one, but Marileha did
not believe anything would induce Nga-Hepé to
abandon his native hills even for a season.

"Have I not sat in the councils of the pakeha?"
argued Kakiki.  "Do I not see our people giving
place to theirs?  The very rat they have brought
over seas drives away our kiore [the native rat], and
we see him no more.  Have I not ever said, Let your
young lord and first-born go amongst them, that he
may learn their secret and hold his own in manhood
against them?"

"I have learned it," put in Whero: "it is 'work.'  Was
it for this, mother, you sent a pakeha to dig up
the bag we buried by the white pines?"

Marileha hushed her son as she glanced nervously
around, for none of her Maori companions must know
of the existence of that bag.

"Foolish boy," she said softly, "what pakeha had
we to send?  The bag is safe where we hid it; no one
but you or I could find it."

"Then it is stolen," exclaimed Whero, "for the bag
is gone."

They questioned him closely.  How had he
discovered that the bag was gone?  As they walked
away to find Nga-Hepé, the old patriarch laid his
hand on his daughter's arm, remarking in a low aside.
which was not intended for Whero's ear, as he did
not wish to excite his indignation,—

"It is the farmer's son who has had it; no one
else knew of it.  Our own people cannot help in this
matter; we must go to the pakeha chiefs."

In the meantime, whilst Whero was disclosing the
loss of the buried treasure, Edwin was marching over
the waste by Mr. Hirpington's side.  The heavy load
they had to carry when they left the boat made them
very slow; but on they toiled to the foot of the hill,
when Mr. Hirpington's ready "coo" brought Hal to
their assistance.

He looked very white and trembling—a mere
ghost of his former self.  Mr. Hirpington could
hardly recognize him.  He was down in heart as
well, for his pipe, his sole remaining solace, had
burned out just half-an-hour before he heard the
welcome "coo" at the foot of the hill.

For a moment the two men stood regarding each
other as men regard the survivals of a dread catastrophe.

"Lord bless you, sir," said Hal.  "I never thought
to see you again, looking so hale and hearty."

"Don't talk about looks, Hal.  Why, you are but
a walking skeleton!" exclaimed Mr. Hirpington.
"But cheer up," he added,—"the worst is over; we
shall pull ourselves together now.  Lend a hand with
this basket up the steep."

The climb before them was something formidable
to the genial speaker.

Edwin was already lost to view beneath the
overhanging wall of rock which shadowed the cleft.
They had trodden down a pathway through the fern;
but the ascent was blocked by Beauty, who seemed
resolute to upset the load on Edwin's head, as he had
upset the board in the bush.  In vain did Edwin
apostrophize him, and thunder out a succession of
"whoas" and "backs," and "Stand you still, you
stupid, or you will roll me over."  It was all of no
use.  He was obliged to shunt his burden on to the
heap of stones; and Beauty, with a neigh of delight,
came a little closer, so that he too might rub his nose
against Edwin's cheek.

"Don't you mean to let me pass, you silly old
fellow?  Well, then, I won't turn baker's boy any
more; and what I want to carry I'll carry on my
back, as you do.  There!"

But Edwin at last seized Beauty by the forelock,
and forcing him to one side, squeezed by.

"Edwin!" called his father, and a feeble hand was
lifted to beckon him nearer, "what are you bringing?"

"Pillows, father, pillows," he cried, as he
stumbled over the twisted roots, half blinded by the
sombre gloom beneath those giant trees where his
father was lying.  Edwin slipped out of his sandwich
with exceeding celerity.  A pillow was under the
poor aching head in another minute, and a second
propping the bruised shoulders, and Edwin stood by
his father, smiling with the over-brimming joy of a
grand success.

Then he denuded himself of the blanket, which
he had been wearing like a Highlander's plaid, and
wrapped it over the poor unfortunate, cramping in
the bleak mountain air with cold and hunger.

"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-Hepé himself emerged from the bush and seized the
horse by the forelock.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`EDWIN IN DANGER`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XVII.


.. class:: center medium bold

   EDWIN IN DANGER.

.. vspace:: 2

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

Nga-Hepé'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-Hepé, 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-Hepé 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-Hepé 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-Hepé.  "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-Hepé 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-Hepé, 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-Hepé, 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-Hepé, 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-Hepé 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-Hepé
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-Hepé'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.

"Shut up," said the captain, "and show us where
he lies."

They would have set to work on the broken boughs
and twisted them into a stretcher; but there was
nothing small enough for the purpose left above
ground.  They must turn the tent into a palanquin
once again, and manage as Hal had done before them.

One and all agreed if the Maoris had been using
threatening language to the suffering man's boy, they
could not go their ways and leave him behind in the
Maoris' country.  "No, no," was passed from lip to
lip, and they took their way to the hill.

Mr. Hirpington was himself again, and his geniality
soon melted the frost amongst his new friends.

"So you have carried him blankets and food?" they
said; and the heartiness of the "yes" with which he
responded made them think a little better of him.

The steep was climbed.  Mr. Lee heard the steady
tramp approaching, and waked up Hal.

"Humph!" remarked the foremost man, as he
caught sight of Hal.  "I thought you said you brought
them food."

"Are you sure you did not eat it all by the way?"
asked another of Mr. Hirpington.

"Look at that poor scarecrow!" cried a third, as
they scaled the hill and drew together as if loath to
enter the gloom of the shadow flung by those tremendous
trees.  They gazed upwards at the giant branches,
and closed ranks.  More than one hand was pointing
to the whitened skeleton.

"Do you see that?" and a general movement showed
the inclination to draw back, one man slowly edging
his way behind another.  It left the captain in the
forefront.  Mr. Lee lifted a feeble hand.

"Oh, it is all right; there he is!" exclaimed the
man of the sea, less easily daunted by the eerie
qualms which seemed to rob his comrades of their
manhood.

"We've come to fetch you home, old boy," he added,
bending over Mr. Lee and asking for his sons.  "Have
you not two?"

"Yes, I've a brace of them," said the injured man,
"Edwin, where is Edwin?"

"Edwin and Cuthbert," repeated the captain.  "I
have something to tell you about them.  They are
just two of the boldest and bravest little chaps I ever
met with.  If my mates were here they would tell
you the same.  But they have followed the fall of
mud, and gone across the hills by Taupo.  I was too
footsore for the march, and so kept company with
these surveying fellows."

The said fellows had rallied, and were grouped
round Mr. Hirpington, who was pointing out the route
they must take to reach the valley farm.

Two of the men started to carry their baggage to
Mr. Hirpington's boat, intending to row to the ford
and wait there for their companions.  The canvas
was taken down from the trees.  Mr. Lee was bound
to his board once more and laid within the ample folds,
and slid rather than carried gently down the steep
descent.  The puzzle remained how one old man and
two boys ever got him to the top alive.  The party
was large enough to divide and take turns at the
carrying, and the walk was long enough and slow
enough to give the captain plenty of opportunity to
learn from Mr. Hirpington all he wanted to know
about Mr. Lee and his boys.  He gave him in return
a picture of the deserted coast.  "Every man," he said,
"was off to the hills when my little craft went down
beneath the earthquake wave.  It was these young
lads' forethought kept the beacon alight when the
night overran the day.  They saw us battling with
the waves, and backed their cart into the sea to pick
us up.  Mere boys, they had to tie themselves to the
cart, sir.  Think of that."

Mr. Hirpington was thinking, and it made him
look very grave.  What had he been doing in the
midst of the widespread calamity?  Not once had
he asked himself poor Audrey's question, but he asked
it now as the captain went on: "A shipwrecked
sailor, begging his way to the nearest port, has not
much in his power to help another.  But I will find
out a man who both can and will.  I mean old Bowen.
He is one of our wealthiest sheep-owners, and he
stands indebted to these two lads on the same count
as I do, for his grandson was with me."

"His run is miles away from here," said
Mr. Hirpington.  "You cannot walk so far.  Look out
for some of Feltham's shepherds riding home; they
would give you a lift behind them."

The party halted at the ford, where Mr. Hirpington
found several of his own roadmen waiting for him.
Nga-Hepé had faithfully delivered his message.

"Ah!" said Mr. Hirpington, "I knew he would,
and I am going to keep my part of the bargain too.
We are always friendly."  He turned to Hal, and
explained how he had sent to his mates to meet him
at the ford.  "Until they come," he added, "rest and
eat, and recover yourself."

Since the arrival of the boat, Dunter had been
getting ready, for he foresaw an increasing demand for
breakfast, and his resources were very restricted.  But
he got out the portable oven, lit his fires, not so much
in the yard, correctly speaking, as over it.
"Breakfasting the coach" had given every one at the ford
good practice in the art of providing.  When the
walking-party arrived they found hot rolls and
steaming coffee awaiting them without stint.  It brought
the sunshine into many a rugged face as they voted
him the best fellow in the world.

They circled round the fire to enjoy them.  Nobody
went down into the house but Hal, who resigned the
care of Mr. Lee somewhat loathly.  "I should have
liked to have seen you in your own house before we
parted," he muttered.

"No, no," said Mr. Lee; "you have done too much
already.  You will never be the man again that you
have been, I fear."

The hearty hand-clasp, the look into each other's
faces, was not quickly forgotten by the bystanders.

The air was full of meetings and partings.
Mr. Hirpington was in the midst of his men.  He was
bound by his post under government to make the
state of the roads his first care.

"When will the coach be able to run again?" was
the question they were all debating, as a government
inspector was on his way to report on the state of
the hills; for few as yet could understand the nature
of the unparalleled and unprecedented disaster which
had overwhelmed them.





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.. _`WHERO TO THE RESCUE`:

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   CHAPTER XVIII.


.. class:: center medium bold

   WHERO TO THE RESCUE.

.. vspace:: 2

The busy sounds of trampling feet, the many
voices breaking the silence of the past days,
roused Edwin effectually, and then he discovered that
the door of the room in which he had slept resisted
his most strenuous efforts to open it.

He called to Dunter to release him.  No reply.
A louder shout, accompanied by a sturdy kick at the
immovable door, gave notice of his growing impatience.
The kaka, which had been watching his determined
efforts with exceeding interest, set up its cry of "Hoké,
hoké!"

"We are caged, my bird," said Edwin; "both of us
caged completely."

His eye wandered round in search of any outlet
in vain.  All his experiences since the night of the
eruption had taught him to look to himself, and he
turned to the window.  It was securely shuttered
and apparently barred.

"How strange!" he thought, as a sudden shock of
earthquake made the iron walls around him rattle
and vibrate, as if they too were groaning in
sympathetic fear.

The kaka flew to him for protection, and strove to
hide its head.  Another tremor all around sent it
cowering to the floor.  Edwin stooped to pick it up,
and saw that the thin sheet of iron which formed the
partition between that room and the next had started
forward.  He found the knife which Dunter had left
him, and widened the crack.  He could slip his hand
through it now.  The walls were already twisted
with the shocks they had sustained.  He got hold of
the iron with both hands, and exerting all his strength
bent it up from the floor.  His head went through.
Another vigorous tug, another inch was gained; his
shoulders followed, and he wriggled through at last
in first-rate worm fashion.

"It is something to be thin," thought Edwin, as he
shook himself into order on the other side.  He was
in another bedroom, exactly similar to the one he
had left.  Both were designed for the reception of
"the coach;" but door and window were securely
fastened, as in the other room.  The sounds which
had awakened him must have been the noise
accompanying some departure, for he thought he could
distinguish the splash of oars in the water, and words
of leave-taking.  But the voices were strange voices,
which he had never heard before, and then all was
profoundly still.

It dawned on Edwin now that perhaps he had not
been shut in by accident, but that something had
occurred.  He was getting very near the truth, for
he recalled Nga-Hepé's threats, and wondered whether
friend or foe had made him a prisoner.

Well, then, was it wise to keep making such a row
to get out?  He began to see the matter in a different
light.  He lay down on the bed in the second room,
determined to listen and watch; but in his worn-out
condition sleep overcame him a second time.

The kaka missed his society, and followed to perch
on his pillow.  He was awakened at last by its
scream.  The window was open, and the bird was
fluttering in and out in a playful endeavour to elude
a hand put through to catch it.  Edwin was springing
upright, when his recent experiences reminded
him of the need of caution.  But the movement
had been heard, and a voice, which he knew to be
Whero's, said softly, "Edwin, my brother, are you
awake?"

"Awake? yes!  What on earth is the matter?"
retorted Edwin.

"Hush!" answered Whero, looking in and laying
a finger on his own lips.  "Come close to the window."

Edwin obeyed as noiselessly as he could.  Whero
held out his hand to help him on to the sill.

"Escape," he whispered; "it is for your life."

His hands were as cold as ice, and his teeth were
set.  Edwin hesitated; but the look on Whero's face
as he entreated him not to linger frightened him,
already wrought up to a most unnatural state of
suspicion by the tormenting feeling of being shut in
against his will.

Any way, he was not going to lose a chance of
getting out.  It was too unbearable to be caged like
a bird.  He took Whero's hand and scrambled up.
The Maori boy looked carefully around.  All was
dark and still.  Again he laid his finger on his lips.

"Trust in me, my brother," he murmured, pointing
to his canoe, which was waiting in the shadow of the
rushes.

"Where are we going?" asked Edwin under his breath.

"To safety," answered Whero.  "Wait until we
are out of hearing, and I will tell you all."

He grasped Edwin's hand, and led him down the
bank to the shingly bed of the river.

"Stop a minute," interposed Edwin, not quite sure
that it was wise to trust himself altogether to the
guidance of the young Maori.  "I wish I could catch
sight of Dunter.  I want a word with him, and then
I'll go."

"No, no!" reiterated Whero, dragging him on as
he whispered, "No one here knows your danger.  It
is my father who is coming to take your life; but I
will save you.  Come!"

Edwin lay down in the bottom of the canoe as
Whero desired, and was quickly covered over with
rushes by the dusky hands of his youthful deliverer.
A low call brought the kaka to Whero's shoulder, and
keeping his canoe well in the shadows, he rowed
swiftly down stream.

.. _`ANOTHER FLIGHT.`:

.. figure:: images/img-272.jpg
   :align: center
   :alt: ANOTHER FLIGHT.

   ANOTHER FLIGHT.

The brilliant starshine enabled him to steer clear
of the floating dangers—the driftwood and the
stones—which impeded their course continually.

"Are you hungry?" asked Whero, bending low to
his companion.  But Edwin answered, "No."

"Then listen," continued the excited boy.  "My
father has found this Lawford, the rabbiter you told
me about.  He was with one of the biggest gangs of
pakehas, going back from the hills, every man with
his spade.  Had my father raised his club, it would
have been quickly beaten out of his hand among so
many.  He knew that, and the pakehas talked fair.
But this Lawford did not say as you say.  He made
my father believe it was you who asked him to go
with you to the roadside, and dig between the white
pines, to find a bag you had dropped in the mud;
and so he dug down until you found it and took it
away.  You then went alone to the ruins at the ford,
and he thinks you hid it in the hayloft.  It was
before the fordmaster and his people had returned.
My father wanted these pakehas to come with him,
and take it from you; but they all declared that
was against the law of the pakehas.  They would
go their ways and tell their chief, who would send
his soldiers for you.  It was but a bag of talk.
My father has been watching round the ford, waiting
for them, yet they have not come."

"But, Whero," interposed Edwin, "Nga-Hepé cannot
be sure that I was at the ford, for it was at the
valley farm that he met me and took the horse."

"Does my father sleep on the track of an enemy?"
asked Whero.  "Has he no one to help him?  My
grandfather was following in the bush when he took
the horse from you.  The one went after Lawford,
the other stayed to watch your steps.  My
grandfather saw you enter the ford; he saw the master
leave it alone.  A Maori eye has been upon the place
ever since.  They know you have not come out of
the hole where you went in.  Nothing has been done.
What were the fordmaster's promises? what were
Lawford's?  A bag of talk.  My father feels himself
the dupe of the pakeha.  A geyser is boiling in his
veins.  If you meet him you fall by his club.  He
will wait until the day breaks; he will wait no longer.
At nightfall the old man, my grandfather, rowed back
to the little kainga our people have made on the
bank of the river."

"A kainga?" interrupted Edwin, breathlessly.
"What is a kainga?"

"That is our name for a little village without a
wall," explained Whero, hurrying on.  "He came.
He called the men together.  They have gone up
with clubs and spears.  They will come upon the
ford-house with the dawn, and force their way in to
find the bag.  The master cannot resist so many.
O Edwin, my brother, I said I saved my kaka when
they would have killed it; shall I not save my friend?
I wanted to go with the men, that I might tell my
father again how you have stood by me.  And should
I not stand by you?  But my mother, Marileha, held
me back.  My grandfather kept on saying, 'I knew
from the first it was the farmer's son who had robbed
you.  Was it he who helped us out of the mud?  I
saw him not.  It was Ottley, the good coachman.
Have we not all eyes?'  'Go not with them,' said my
mother.  'What is talk?  Your father will make you
the same answer.  Do they know the young pakeha
as we do?'  So I listened to my mother, and we
made our plan together.  I knew our men could not
conceal themselves in the water; they must all be
hidden in the bush.  I filled my canoe with rushes.
I rowed after them up the river, gliding along in the
shadows.  I climbed up the bank, under the row of
little windows at the back of the ford-house, and
listened.  I heard my kaka scream, and I guessed it
was with you.  I was sure you would take care of
it.  I could see the windows were all cracked and
broken with the earthquakes.  The shocks come still
so often I knew I had only to wait, and when I felt
the ground tremble under my feet I smashed the
window.  Nobody noticed the noise when everything
around us was rocking and shaking.  You know the
rest.  We have an hour before us yet.  I am rowing
for the coast as hard as I can.  Once on board a
steamer no Maori can touch you.  I have plenty
of money to pay for our passage.  My grandfather
came to see me when I was at school, and gave me a
lot to persuade me to stay.  He was taking his money
to the Auckland bank, for fear another tana should
come.  Then we can go and live among the pakehas."

"But where shall we go?" asked Edwin, struck
with the ability with which Whero had laid his
plan, and the ease with which he was carrying it out.
"I only wish I could have spoken to Dunter or
Mr. Hirpington before we came away; for what will they
think of me?"

"Think!" repeated Whero; "let them think.  Could
I betray my father to them?  Our hearts are true to
each other.  We have given love for love.  Would they
believe it?  No.  Would they have let you come away
with me, Nga-Hepé's son?  No.  One word, my brother,
and you would have been lost.  A steamer will take
us to school.  They told me at Tauranga there was a
school in every great town on the island, so it does not
matter where it lands us; the farther off the better."

Marileha was watching for them on the bank.
Whero waved his arms in signal of success, and shot
swiftly past in the cold gray light of the coming day.

The eastern sky was streaked with red when the
first farm-house was sighted.  Should they stop and
beg for bread?  Whero was growing exhausted with
continued exertion.  He lifted his paddle from the
water, and Edwin sat upright; then caution whispered
to them both, "Not yet! wait a little longer."  So
they glided on beneath the very window of the room
where Mrs. Hirpington was sleeping.  One half-hour
later she might have seen them pass.

The ever-broadening river was rolling now between
long wooded banks.  Enormous willows dipped their
weeping boughs into the stream, and a bridge became
visible in the distance as the morning sun shone out.
The white walls of many a settler's home glistened
through the light gauzy haze which hung above the
frosted ground.  Whero's aching arms had scarcely
another lift left in them, when they perceived a little
river-steamer with its line of coal-barges in tow.

Should they hail it and ask to be taken on board?
No; it was going the wrong way.  But Edwin
ventured, now that the hills were growing shadowy in
the dim distance, to sit upright and take his turn with
the paddle, whilst Whero rested.

How many miles had they come? how many
farther had they yet to go?

They watched the settlements on either side of the
river with hungry eyes, until they found themselves
near a range of farm-buildings which looked as if
they might belong to some well-to-do colonist, and
were in easy hail of the river-bank.  They ran the
canoe aground, and walked up to the house to beg for
the bread so freely given to all comers through the
length and breadth of New Zealand.

Invigorated by the hearty meal willingly bestowed
upon a Maori boy on his way to school, they returned
to the canoe; but the effort to reach the coast was
beyond their utmost endeavour.  Edwin felt they
were now out of the reach of all pursuit, and might
safely go ashore and rest, for Whero was ready to fall
asleep in the canoe.

They were looking about for a landing-place, when,
to his utter amazement, Edwin heard Cuthbert shouting
to him from the deck of one of the little steamers
plying up and down the river.

"By all that is marvellous," exclaimed Edwin, "if
that isn't my old Cuth!"

He turned to his companion, too far under the
influence of the dustman to quite understand what
was taking place around him.

Cuthbert's shout of "Stop, Edwin, stop!" was
repeated by a deep, manly voice.  The motion of the
steamer ceased.  Edwin brought the canoe alongside.

"Where are you bound for?" asked his old
acquaintance the captain of the coaster.

"Come on board," shouted Cuthbert.

The captain repeated his inquiry.

Whero opened his sleepy eyes, and answered, "Christchurch."

"I am a Christchurch boy," cried another voice
from the deck of the steamer.  "But the Christchurch
schools are all closed for the winter holidays."

There were hurried questions exchanged between
the brothers after father and Effie.  But the
answers were interrupted by the appearance of Mr. Bowen.

"Pay your rower," he shouted to Edwin, "and join
our party.  I am taking your little brother and sister
home, for I am going to the hills to make inquiries
into the state of distress."

Before Edwin could reply, Whero, with a look at
the old identity as if he defied the whole world to
interfere with him, was whispering to Edwin,—

"These men are fooling us.  They will not take us
to Christchurch.  They are going the wrong way."

Edwin was as much alarmed as Whero at the
thought of going back; but he knew Mr. Bowen had
no authority to detain him against his will.

"Our errand admits of no delay," he answered, as
he resigned the paddle to Whero.

The canoe shot forward.

"Good-bye! good-bye!" cried Edwin.

Sailors and passengers were exclaiming at their
reckless speed, for Whero was rowing with all his
might.  The number of the boats and barges increased
as they drew nearer the coast.

"Lie down again amongst the rushes," entreated
Whero, "or we may meet some other pakeha who
will know your English face."

Their voyage was almost at its end.  They were
in sight of the goal.

Black, trailing lines of smoke, from the coasting-steamers
at the mouth of the river, flecked the clear
brilliancy of the azure sky.

Edwin was as much afraid as Whero of another
chance encounter.  Audrey might turn up to stop him.
Some one might be sending her home by water, who
could say?  Another of the shipwrecked sailors might
be watching for a coaster to take him on board.  So
he lay down in the bottom of the canoe as if he were
asleep, and Whero pulled the rushes over him.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`MET AT LAST`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XIX.


.. class:: center medium bold

   MET AT LAST.

.. vspace:: 2

The boys were recovering their equanimity, when
the stiff sea-breeze blowing in their faces
scattered the rushes and sent them sailing down the
stream.

Whero drew his canoe to the bank as they came to
a quiet nook where rushes were growing abundantly,
that he might gather more.

Whero was out of his latitude, in a *terra
incognita*, where he knew not how to supply the want of
a dinner.  How could he stop to discover the haunts
of the wild ducks to look for their eggs?  How could
he reach the cabbage in the top of those tall and
graceful ti trees, which shook their waving fronds in
the wintry breezes?  Ah! if it had been summer,
even here he would not have longed in vain.  His
bundle of rushes was under his arm, when he noticed
a hollow willow growing low to the river-side.  A
swarm of bees in the recent summer had made it
their home, and their store of winter honeycomb had
filled the trunk.  Swarms of bees gone wild had
become so frequent near the English settlements, wild
honey was often found in large quantities.  But to
Whero it was a rare treat.  He was far too hungry
to be able to pass it by.  He scrambled up the bank,
and finding the bees were dead or torpid with the
cold, he began to break off great pieces of the comb,
and lay them on his rushes to carry away.

As he was thus engaged a man came through the
clustering ti trees and asked him to give him a bit.

Whero was ready enough to share his spoils with
the stranger, for there was plenty.  As he turned to
offer the piece he had just broken off, he saw he was
an ill-looking man, with his hat slouched over his
eyes, carrying a roll of pelts and a swag at the end
of a stick, which had evidently torn a hole through
the shoulder of the wretched old coat the man was
wearing.

"Much craft on the river here?" asked the man.
"Any barges passing that would take a fellow down
to the coast?"

"I am a stranger here," answered Whero; "I do
not know."  As he spoke, his quick eye detected the
stains of the hateful blue volcanic mud on the man's
dirty clothes.

"I'll be off," he thought.  "Who are you?  You
are from the hills, whoever you are."

He gave him another great piece of the honeycomb,
for fear he should follow him to ask for more.

"That is so old," objected the man; "look how
dark it is.  Give me a better bit."

But he took it notwithstanding, and tried to put it
in his ragged pocket.  The holes were so large it fell
through.

"There is plenty more in the tree," said Whero.
"Why do you not go and help yourself?"  He took
up his rushes and walked quickly to the canoe.

Edwin was making a screen for his face with the
few remaining rushes.  Whero saw that he was
looking eagerly through them, not at the honeycomb he
was bringing, but at the man on the bank.

"Do you know him?" asked Whero.

"Yes, yes; it is Lawford," answered Edwin, under
his breath.  "Look, he has got his rabbit-skins and
his swag.  How careful he is over it!  He has set his
foot on it whilst he gets the honey."

The canoe was completely hidden by the tall tufts
of bulrush growing between it and the willow, so they
could watch unseen.  The man was enjoying the
honeycomb immensely.  He was choosing out the best
pieces.  Whero gave Edwin the kaka, lest it should
betray them.

"You are sure it is Lawford?" asked Whero.

"Yes, quite," replied Edwin, beginning to eat.

The best of the honeycomb was higher up in the
hollow trunk, where the rain could not wash out its
sweetness.  As Lawford was stretching up his arm to
get at it, the sweet-brier, now so plentiful in New
Zealand, that was growing about its roots caught the
ragged old coat.  They heard the rent; something fell
out of the pocket on the other side.

He picked it up hastily, shaking off the dirt into
which it had fallen.  "It is my father's belt!"
exclaimed Edwin.  Whero was over the side of the
canoe in a moment, and crawling through the bed of
rushes with the noiseless swiftness of a wild animal
watching its prey.

He saw Lawford unpack what New Zealanders call
a swag—that is, a piece of oil-cloth provided with
straps, which takes the place of knapsack or
portmanteau amongst travellers of Lawford's description.
If a man has not even got a swag, he is reckoned a
sundowner in colonial eyes.  Swags are always to be
bought at the smallest stores.  No difficulty about that.
As Whero drew nearer, he saw the swag was a new
one.  Everything else about the man looked worn out.

Lawford was unpacking it on the ground, throwing
suspicious glances over his shoulder as he did so; but
his recent companion seemed to have vanished.  He
stood up and looked all round him, but there was no
one to be seen.

He took out a small bundle packed up in flax-leaves,
which he began slowly to unwind.

Did not Whero know the bag which his own
mother had woven?  Could anything produce those
tell-tale stains but the hateful mud from which it
had been dug up?

Lawford wrapped the belt round the bag, and
bound the flax-leaves over both as before.  When he
began to strap up the swag, Whero crept back to the
canoe.  His eyes were ablaze with passion.

"Pull off your coat," he whispered, "and leave it
in the rushes.  Take mine, or he will know you."

Edwin eagerly complied.

"Sleep deep; lie on your face!" whispered Whero,
covering him over with the rushes he had brought.
Then, before Edwin had the least idea of what he
was purposing, Whero pushed out his canoe into the
middle of the river, and paddled quickly to a handy
landing-place a little farther on.  He ran up the
bank shouting to Lawford, "If you want a boat to
go down river to meet a coaster, I'll row you in my
canoe.  But you will have to pay me."

"You would not work without that if you are a
Maori, I know," retorted the other, taking out a
well-worn purse.

"Come along," shouted Whero; "that's a' right."  The
unsuspecting Lawford took his seat in the canoe,
and gave Edwin an unwary kick.

"Who have you got here?" he asked.

"A chum asleep," answered Whero, indifferently, as
he stroked his kaka.

Edwin was feeling anything but indifferent.  He
knew not how to lie still.  "If we are not dead
unlucky," he thought, "we shall get all back—Nga-Hépé's
bag, and father's belt too.  We must mind we
do not betray ourselves.  If we can manage to go on
board the same steamer, when we are right out to sea
I'll tell the captain all; and we will give Lawford in
charge as he lands."  Such was Edwin's plan; but he
could not be sure that Whero's was the same.  He
dare not exchange a look or sign; "for," he said to
himself, "if Lawford catches sight of me, it is all
over."

They passed another little steamer going up the
river, with its coal-barge in tow.

Edwin felt as if Audrey's sedate face would be
looking down upon him from its deck, but he was
wrong.

"Nothing is certain but the unforeseen," he sighed;
but he remembered his part, and the sigh became a
snore, which he carefully repeated at intervals, for
Lawford's benefit.

He little thought how soon his words would be
fulfilled.  The steamer was some way ahead, and
Whero was making towards it steadily.  The barge
behind them was lessening in the distance, when the
Maori boy fixed his fingers like a vice in the strap of
Lawford's swag, and upset his canoe.

Whero knew that Edwin could swim well, and
that Lawford was unused to the water.  Whero had
detected that by the awkward way in which he
stepped into the canoe.

The two struggled in the water for the possession
of the swag.  At last the man relinquished his hold,
and Whero swam to shore triumphantly, leaving him
to drown.

"He shall not drown!" cried Edwin, hastening
towards him with vigorous strokes; but before he
could reach the spot, Lawford had sunk.  Edwin
swam round and round, watching for him to rise.

It was a moment of anguish so intense he thought
life, reason, all within him, would give way before
the dreadful question, "What have I been?  An
accomplice in this man's death—all unknowing,
it is true; but that cannot save him.  Oh! it does
matter," he groaned, "what kind of fellows a boy is
forced to take for his chums."

The drowning man rose to the surface.  Edwin
grasped him by the coat.  For a little while they
floated with the current, until Lawford's weight
began to drag Edwin down.

"Better die with him than live to know I have
killed him," thought Edwin.  One hurried upward
glance into the azure sky brought back the
remembrance of One who is ever present, ever near, and
strong to save us to the uttermost.  This upheld him.
A tree came floating by; he caught at its branches.
Lawford had just sense enough to follow his example
and cling for dear life to the spreading arms.

A bargee, unloading his freight of coal upon the
bank, perceived their danger, and swam out with
a rope.  He threw it to Lawford, but he missed it.
A second was flung from the barge, and the noose at
the end of it caught among the branches flapping up
and down in the water.  Men's lives were at stake,
but as the value of the drift-wood would well repay
its capture, they hauled it in with the bold young
swimmer clinging to its boughs; for the first of the
watermen who came to their help had seized Lawford,
who relinquished his hold on the tree to snatch at
the rope he brought him.

The two men swam to the barge.  Edwin was
drawn in to shore.  He scrambled up the bank and
looked around him for Lawford.

He saw the rabbiter half lying on the deck of the
barge, panting with rage and fear, and shouted to
him, "Safe!  all safe!"

But Lawford answered with a bitter imprecation
on the son of the cannibal, who had purposely flung
him over, tossed him like a bone to the hungry sharks.

"Ask yourself why," retorted Edwin.  "And what
might not I have done to you, if I had never heard
such words as, 'Neither do I condemn thee: go, and
sin no more'?"

"Come," interposed the waterman to Lawford,
"shut up.  Such language as this is wonderfully
unbecoming from the mouths of fellows scarce snatched
back from a watery grave, and we don't care to hear
it.  Say what you will to the young 'un, he made
a bold fight with the tide to save you.  Let him
alone."

"Where were you bound for?" said the bargee
aside to Edwin, as the boy poured out his gratitude
for their timely assistance.

"I wanted to take a passage on board the steamer
for Christchurch, and a Maori boy was rowing me
down to meet it.  This man was in the same canoe,
and had robbed the boy who was rowing us.  In the
struggle between them the canoe was upset."

"Go on with him, then," advised the bargee, "and
give him in charge when he lands."

"No," answered Edwin resolutely, "for the boy
recovered his own.  But this man is a bad one, and I
would rather stay where I am than be in his company
another hour."

"Run off, then," returned the bargee kindly; "run
until you are dry, and you will take no harm.  As for
this fellow, we will ship him off to the South Island,
if that is where he wants to go."

Edwin wrung the bargee's horny hand, and followed
his counsel with all speed.  Lawford's jeering laugh
was ringing in his ears.

"He thinks I am running away from him; if he
fancies I am afraid, he makes a mistake, that is all,"
reflected Edwin, racing onward.

But where was Whero?  A run of half-a-mile
brought Edwin back to the river-brink again, but
nearer to the spot where the canoe was upset.  Whero
had recovered it, and was looking about for his friend.
Edwin could see his tiny "dug-out" zigzagging round
the boulders, and still rushing seawards, as he paused
to reconnoitre a leafless bush on the water's edge,
which seemed to bear a fancied resemblance to the
figure of a crouching boy.  Edwin pulled off his jacket
and waved it high in the air.  He threw up his arms.
He shouted.  He did everything he could think of to
attract Whero's attention.  But his back was towards
him.  All his signals seemed in vain, but not quite;
for the kaka was swinging high up among the
top-most branches of an enormous willow near the scene
of the upset.  From such an elevation it espied Edwin,
and recognizing Whero's jacket, which he was waving
flag-like over his head, it swooped down upon him
with an angry scream, and seizing the jacket by the
sleeve, tugged at it with all its might.  If Whero
could not distinguish the shout of his friend from the
rush of the water, the doleful "Hoké" of his bird could
not be mistaken, and Edwin soon saw him rowing
swiftly towards them.

"What for?" demanded Whero; "what for go
bother about a thief?  What is he good for?  Throw
him over, and have done with him."

"Ah!" retorted Edwin, "but we never should have
done with him.  The life we had let him lose would
have lain like a terrible weight on us, growing heavier
and heavier as we too drew nearer to the grave.  For
Christ himself refuses to lift the murderer's load.
But you do not know; you are not to blame, as I
should have been."

The overmastering feelings which prompted Edwin
to say this shot from his eyes and quivered in his
voice, and Whero, swayed by a force he could not
understand, reaching him only by words, yielded to
the influence of the light thus vibrating from soul to
soul.

"Yes," he said, reflectively, "there is something
greater than killing, and I want the greatest things."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`JUST IN TIME`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XX.


.. class:: center medium bold

   JUST IN TIME.

.. vspace:: 2

"What an ass Lawford must have been not to
put on father's belt!  If he had, we could
not have got it away from him," said Edwin, as the
two seated themselves on the sunny bank and unpacked
the swag.  Whero took out the precious bag, slung it
round his own neck, and concealed it under his shirt.
Edwin claimed his father's belt, and as he shook off
the mud and dirt which had accumulated upon it
during its sojourn in Lawford's pocket, he saw why
the man had been unable to wear it.  In his haste to
get it off Mr. Lee whilst he lay unconscious, he had
not waited to unbuckle it, for fear Hal should see him.
He had taken out his pocket-knife and ripped it
open.  This helped to get it into his possession, and
helped him to lose it too.  The apparent gain was
nothing but the earnest-money of the self-sought
calamity which drove him a beggar from the
gangway of the San Francisco mail before many months
were over.

As the boys weighed the weight of coin in their
hands, they nodded significantly at each other.  No
wonder it wore Lawford's old pockets into holes
before the end of his journey.  Reluctant as he must
have been, he was forced to buy his swag at one or
other of the would-be townships, with their fine names,
which dot the lower reaches of the bush road.  They
turned the poor unlucky bit of oil-cloth over and over
with contempt and loathing, and finally kicked it into
the river.  Edwin folded his father's belt together,
and once more resuming his own jacket—to the great
satisfaction of the kaka—he changed the belt into a
breastplate, and buttoned his jacket tightly over it.

To get back to the ford as quickly as they could
was now their chief desire.  It was aggravating—it
was enough to make a fellow feel mad all over—to
think that Effie and Cuthbert and the Bowens had
passed them just that little bit too soon.  Edwin grew
loud in his regrets.  Audrey would have called it
crying over spilt milk.  He could do nothing but
think of Audrey and her philosophical proverbs.  To
practise the patience which was their outcome was
a little more difficult.  To sit down where they were
and wait for the next steamer up stream to help them
on their way was tantalizing indeed, when nobody
could tell what might be taking place at the ford at
that very moment.

But they had not long to wait, for the sight of a
Maori boy, a Hau-Hau from the King country, in the
heart of the hills, had a special attraction for every
New Zealander coming from the coast.  All were
breathless for the particulars of the dire eruption,
which had overwhelmed their sunny vales, and
changed their glassy lakes to Stygian pools.

Not a sailor who could pull a rope, not a passenger
lounging on its tiny deck, would willingly forego the
chance of hearing something definite and detailed.
The steamer stopped, and the man at the wheel asked
eagerly for news, any more news from the doomed
hills, looming gaunt and gray in the dim distance.

No sooner did they touch the deck than the two
boys found themselves the centre of an earnest
questioning group, athirst for the latest intelligence.  It
was a grave responsibility for both of them.  They
chose to remain on deck, keeping as near to the
master of the vessel as they could without attracting
attention.  For each one knew that he was carrying
his father's hoard, and their recent experiences made
them regard the rough appearance of most of the men
around them with mistrust.

It was a secret belief with both the boys that they
were safer alone in their canoe; but Whero's strength
was expended.  He leaned on Edwin's arm for
support, and was only restrained from falling into one
of his cat-like dozes by the fear that another thievish
hand might steal away his treasure while he slept.
They could not return as they came; rest and food
must be had.

A coil of rope provided the one, and the steward
promised the other.  But before the boys were
permitted to taste the dinner so freely offered, Edwin had
to describe afresh the strange and startling phenomena
appearing on that night of terror, which rumour with
her double tongue could scarcely magnify.  He
described them as only an eye-witness, with the horror
of the night still over him, could describe them; and
the men stood round him spell-bound.  All the while
his words were painting the vivid scenes, his thoughts
were debating the very practical question, "Ought I,
or ought I not, to spend some of father's money,
now I have got it back, and buy more meat and flour
and cheese to carry home?"  He thought of the
widespread dearth, and he knew that the little store
he had found unhurt at the valley farm might all be
gone on his return, and yet he was afraid to venture
with the wealth of gold he had about him into
doubtful places.  No, he dare not risk it again.  They
must trust for to-morrow's bread.

When they quitted the steamer the short wintry
day had long passed its noon, and the wind blew cold
around them as they returned to the open boat.
Edwin was rowing now; for when they drew nearer
to the hills, both he and Whero agreed that he must
lie down again beneath the rushes.  The kaka had
hidden its head under its wing when the exchange was
made.  The weary Maori boy could scarcely make his
way against roaring wind and rushing water.  They
were long in getting as far as the ravine where the
tiny kainga nestled.

Whero moored his canoe in a little cleft of the
rock, where it was concealed from view, and landed
alone.  Edwin's heart beat fast when he heard light
steps advancing to the water's edge.  His hand was
cold as the ice congealing on the duck-weed as a
dusky face peered round the ledge of rock and smiled.
It was Marileha.

"Good food make Ingarangi boy anew," she said,
putting into Edwin's hand a steaming kumara, or
purple-coloured Maori potato.  Whilst he was eating
it Whero brought round a larger "dug-out," used now
by his father.  It was piled with savoury-smelling
roasted pig, newly-baked cakes of dirty-looking Maori
wheat, with roasted wekas or wingless moor-hens
hanging in pairs across a stick.  Like a wise woman,
Marileha had spent the day in providing the savoury
meat much loved by one she wanted to propitiate.

"They have not yet come back," said Whero,
beckoning to Edwin to join him in the larger canoe,
where he could be more easily concealed beneath the
mats on which the provisions were laid.

"We are going to take them their supper," added
Whero.  "When the men are eating I can get my
father to hear me; then I put this bag in his hands
and tell him all.  Then, and not till then, will it be
safe for you to be seen."

"The Ingarangi boy lies safely here," whispered
Marileha, smiling, happy in her womanly device for
keeping the peace.  "My skirt shall cover him.  I
leave not the canoe.  You, Whero, shall take from
my hand and carry to your father the supper we
bring to himself and his people."

Edwin guessed what Marileha's anticipation might
embrace when he found his pillow was a bundle of
carefully-prepared flax fibres, enveloping little bunches
of chips—the splints and bandages of the bush.
Edwin had a vision of broken heads and gaping
spear-thrusts, and a ride in an ambulance after the battle.
What had taken place that day?

But the question was shortly answered.  They
were not bound for the lake, or the ruins of the
Rota Pah, but the nearer wreck of the ford-house.

His visions grew in breadth and in detail; smoke
and fire were darkening their background when the
canoe stopped at the familiar boating-stairs.  What
did he see?  A party of dusky-browed and brawny-armed
fellows hard at work clearing away the last
remains of the overturned stables.

Mr. Hirpington, giving away pipes and tobacco with
a lavish hand, was walking in and out among them,
praising the thoroughness of their work, and
exhorting them to continue.

"Pull them down," he was repeating.  "We will
not leave so much as a stick or a stone standing.  If
the bag is there we will have it.  We must find it."

The emphasis on the "will" and the "must" called
forth the ever-ready smiles of the Maori race.  Mother
and son were radiant.

With a basket of cakes in his hand and a joint of
roast-pig on a mat on his head, Whero marched up
the landing-stairs, and went in amongst his countrymen
as they threw down their tools and declared
their work was done.

He was talking fast and furiously in his native
tongue, with many outbursts of laughter at the
expense of his auditors.  But neither Edwin nor
Mr. Hirpington could understand what he was saying,
until he flung the bag at his father's feet with a shout
of derision—the fifth commandment being unknown
in Maori-land.

Nga-Hepé took up the bag and changed it from
hand to hand.

Kakiki Mahane leaned forward and felt its
contents.  "Stones and dirt," he remarked, choosing
English words to increase the impression.

"Sell it to me, then," put in Mr. Hirpington.
"What shall I give you for it? three good horses?"

He held out his hand to receive the bag of many
adventures, and then the cunning old chief could be
the first to bid Nga-Hepé open it and see.  But the
remembrance of the tana was too vivid in his
son-in-law's mind for him to wish to display his secreted
treasure before the greedy eyes of his tribe.  He was
walking off to deposit it in Marileha's lap, when
Mr. Hirpington intercepted him, saying in a tone of firm
control and good-natured patience, in the happy
proportion which gave him his influence over his
unmanageable neighbours: "Come now, that is not fair.
Untie the bag, and let us see if it has come back to
you all right or not.  You have pulled down my
stables to find it; who is to build them up again?"

"Give us four horses for the loss of time," said
one of the Maoris.

"Agreed, if you will give me five for the mischief
you have done me," he answered readily.

"You can't get over him," said Nga-Hepé.  "It is
of no use talking."

Kneeling down on the landing-stairs, he opened his
treasure on his wife's now greasy silk, displaying
sharks' teeth, gold, bank-notes, greenstone, kauri
gum—every precious thing of which New Zealand could
boast.  They began to count after their native
manner.

Mr. Hirpington stepped aside to Kakiki.  "You
took my advice and Ottley's: you carried your money
to the Auckland bank.  Make Nga-Hepé do the same."

"Before another moon is past I will," the old chief
answered, grasping the hand of his trusty counsellor,
who replied,—

"It may not be lost and found a second time."

"True, it may not," said the old gray-beard, "if, as
he meant to do, he has killed the finder."

Mr. Hirpington started and turned pale.

"He has not killed the finder," said Marileha, rising
with the dignity of a princess; and taking Edwin
by the hand, she led him up to Mr. Hirpington.  The
"Thank God" which trembled on his lips was deep
as low.  But aloud he shouted, "Dunter, Dunter! here
is your bird flown back to his cage.  Chain him,
collar him, keep him this time, if you brick him in."

Dunter's hand was on the boy's shoulder in a
moment.  Edwin held out his to Nga-Hepé, who
took the curling feathers from his own head-dress
to stick them in Edwin's hair.  The boy was stroking
the kaka's crimson breast.  He lifted up his face
and shot back the smile of triumph in Whero's eyes,
as Dunter hauled him away, exclaiming, "Now I've
got you, see if I don't keep you!"





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE VALLEY FARM`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XXI.


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE VALLEY FARM.

.. vspace:: 2

Edwin laughed a merry laugh as Mr. Hirpington
and his man led him away between them.  A
ladder had been found in the pulling down of the
stables.  It greatly assisted the descent into the
"dungeonized" kitchen, as Edwin called it.  But
within, everything was as dirty and comfortless as before.

"They laugh who win," he whispered, undoing a
single button of his jacket, and displaying a corner of
the wash-leather belt.  "Where is father?" he asked,
looking eagerly along the row of open doors, and
singling out his recent cage as the most comfortable
of the little dormitories.  A glance told him it was
not without an inhabitant.  But it was Hal's voice
which answered from the midst of the blankets, in
tones of intense self-congratulation, "I'm in bed, lad.
Think o' that.  Really abed."

"And mind you keep there," retorted Edwin, looking
back to Mr. Hirpington for a guiding word, as he
repeated impatiently, "Where's father?  Has he seen
the captain?"

"Father," echoed Mr. Hirpington, "is safe, safe at
home; and we will follow him there as soon as I get
rid of these troublesome guests."

"Sit down, boy, if you do not mind the mud and
cold.  Sit down and eat," said Dunter kindly.  He
opened the kitchen cupboard, and pointed to some
biscuits and cheese which he had reserved for their
own supper.  "It is all they have left us," he sighed.
"We have fed them a whole day just to keep the
Queen's peace.  We thought they would eat us up
when they marched down on us, clamouring for you
and the bag you had stolen from Nga-Hepé and
hidden in our hayloft.  But master is up to 'em.
'Well,' says he, 'if the bag has ever been in my
hay-loft, it is there still; and if it is there, we'll find it.
Pull the loft down.  Clear out every stick and stone
that is left of my stables, an' welcome.'  You see, it
must all be cleared down before we could begin to
build up again," added Dunter, confidentially.

"It was a happy thought," said Mr. Hirpington,
rubbing his hands, "and it took.  I ran myself to
set the example, and knocked over the shaky
door-post, and then the work of demolition went forward
with a will.  Nothing like a good spell of hard work
to cool a man down.  Of course they did not find
the bag.  But Nga-Hepé's neighbours have found so
many old nails and hooks and hinges they have stuck
to their task; they are at it yet, but the dusk will
disperse them.  Their excuse is gone.  Still," he went
on, "'all is well that ends well.'  You might have
found the place a smouldering ash-heap.  We know
their Maori ways when they mean to dislodge an
English settler.  They come as they came last night,
set fire to his house, pull up his fences, and plough
up his fields.  The mud preserved me from anything
of that sort beginning unawares.  Nothing would
burn.  We have picked up more than one charred
stick, so they had a try at it; and as for the fences,
they are all buried.  When the coast is clear you
and I must prepare for a starlight walk through the
bush to your father's farm."

"Will they molest father?" asked Edwin anxiously.

"No, no," answered both in a breath.  "Your
father's farm is on the other side of the river, not
on Hau-Hau ground.  It belonged to another tribe,
the Arewas, who are 'friendless,' as we say.  We told
you your father was safe if we could but get him
home.  And so am I," continued Mr. Hirpington, "for
I can always manage my neighbours and appreciate
them too; for they are men at heart, and we like
each other.  And there is a vein of honour in
Nga-Hepé and his son according to their light which you
may safely trust, yet they are not civilized Englishmen."

"But Whero will be—" Edwin began; but his bright
anticipations for the future of his Maori friend were
cut short by a strange, unearthly sound—a wild,
monotonous chant which suddenly filled the air.  As
the dusk fell around them, the Maoris still sitting
over Marileha'a supper had begun to sing to drive
away the fairies, which they imagine are in every
dancing leaf and twittering bird.  Then, one by one,
the canoes which had brought them there began to
fill, and as the swarthy faces disappeared, silence and
loneliness crept over the dismantled ford.

Nga-Hepé proved his friend's assertions true, for
Beauty was honourably returned.  They found him
tied by the bridle to the only post on the premises
which had been left standing.  Perhaps it had been
spared for the purpose.  The gun was loaded, such
wraps as Dunter could get together were all put on,
and Edwin and Mr. Hirpington started.  The first step
was not a pleasant one—a plunge into the icy river
and a scramble up the opposite bank, from which even
Beauty seemed to shrink.  But the gallop over the
frosty ground which succeeded took off the comfortless
chill and dried their draggled coats.  Mr. Hirpington
got down and walked by Beauty's head, as they felt
the gradual descent beginning, and heard the splash
of the rivulet against the stones, and saw the bright
lights from Edwin's home gleam through the evening
shadows.  A scant half-hour that almost seemed a
year in its reluctance to slip away, a few more
paces, and Beauty drew up at the gateless enclosure.
A bar thrown across kept them outside.  A gleeful
shout, a thunderous rain of blows upon the bar, and
the impatient stamping of Beauty's feet brought
Cuthbert and Arthur Bowen almost tumbling over
one another to receive them.  The welcome sound of
the hammer, the stir and movement all about the
place, told Edwin that the good work of restoration
had already begun.  The bar went down with a
thud.  It was Cuthbert, in his over-joy at seeing his
brother, who had banged it to the ground.  The noise
brought out the captain.

"It is a short journey to Christchurch," exclaimed
Cuthbert.  "How many miles?"

"I'm in no mood for arithmetic," retorted Edwin,
bounding up the remnant of a path beside the
captain, with Cuthbert grasping him by the other hand.
Arthur Bowen took Beauty by the bridle.

"I'll see after him," said Mr. Hirpington.

But young Bowen responded gaily, "Think me too
fresh from Greek and Latin to supper a horse, do you?
I'll shoe him too if occasion requires it, like a
true-born New Zealander."

"Brimful of self-help," retorted Mr. Hirpington;
"and, after all, it is the best help.—  Well, well," he
added, as he paused in the doorway, "to take the
measure of our recuperative power would puzzle a
stranger.  You beat me hollow."

He had walked into the sometime workshop; but all
the debris of the recent carpentering had been pushed
aside and heaped into a distant corner, while an iron
chimney, with a wooden framework to support it, had
been erected in another.

"In simply no time," as Mr. Hirpington declared
in his astonishment.

To which the old identity, Mr. Bowen, retorted
from the other room, asking if two men with a hammer
to hand and a day before them were to be expected
to do nothing but look at each other.

Mr. Lee was reposing on a comfortable bed by the
blazing fire, with Effie standing beside him, holding
the tin mug from which he was taking an occasional
sip of tea; everything in the shape of earthenware
having gone to smash in the earthquake.  The kitten
was purring on the corner of his pillow, stretching
out an affectionate paw towards his undefended eyes.

"I am reaping the fruit of your good deeds," smiled
the sick man.  "Is not this luxury?"

With a leap and a bound Edwin was at the foot
of the bed, holding up the recovered belt before his
father's astonished eyes.

Audrey peeped out from the door of the store-room.
With a piece of pumice-stone to serve her for a
scrubbing-brush, she was endeavouring to reduce its
shelves to cleanliness and order.

"You here!" exclaimed Edwin, delighted to find
themselves all at home once more; "ready for the
four-handed reel which we will dance to-night if it
does not make father's head ache," he declared,
escaping from Effie's embracing arms to Audrey's probing
questions about that journey to Christchurch.

"Since you must have dropped from the skies
yourself to have reached home at all, it need excite
no wonder," he said.

"Me!" she replied demurely.  "Why, I arrived at
my father's door, like a correct young lady, long
enough before any of you wanderers and vagabonds
thought of returning.  Our good friend the oyster-captain,
as Cuth will call him, sent me a message by
one of Mr. Feltham's shepherds that my father wanted
me to nurse him, and I hastened to obey.  Mrs. Feltham
lent me her own habit, and I rode home with
my groom, behind me, in grand style for an honest
charwoman just released from washing teacups and
beating eggs.  My wages taken in kind loaded the
panniers of my steed, and I felt like a bee or an ant
returning to the hive with its store of honey."

"That is my best medicine," murmured Mr. Lee, as
the merry laugh with which Audrey's words were
greeted rang through the house.

Mr. Lee was slowly counting his remaining coin.
He looked at Audrey.  Without another word she
led her brothers away, Effie following as a matter of
course, and left him with his friend.

"Come and look round," whispered Audrey to Edwin.

"And help," he answered.  "It does not square with
my ideas to let strangers put a prop against the falling
roof and I stand idle."

"Conceited boy!" cried Audrey, "to match your
skill against our oyster-captain's."

She ran lightly down the veranda steps and pointed
to the bluff sailor, hammering at a sheet of iron he had
brought from the ruins of the stable to patch the
tumble-down walls of the house.

With the rough-and-ready skill of a ship-carpenter
he had set himself to the task the moment he arrived.

"No, no thanks, my boys," he said, as Edwin and
Cuthbert looked up at the strong framework of beam
and cross-bar which he had erected in so brief a space,
and burst into exclamations of wonder and delight.

"It was the one thing we could not do; it was
beyond us all," added Edwin.  "It is true, the poles
lay ready on the ground and the nails were rusting
on the workshop floor, but the skill that could splice
a beam or shore up a rafter was not ours.  There
was nobody about us who could do it."

"I saw what was wanting when I helped to bring
your father home, and it set my compass, so I came
back to do it.  A Jack-of-all-trades like me I knew
could make the old place ship-shape in a couple of
days, and when the old gentleman and his grandson
saw what I was after, their coats were off in a moment,
and they have worked beside me with a will all day,"
replied the captain.

Finding Mr. Lee awake, Mr. Bowen had taken the
opportunity to join the quiet council over ways and
means which he was holding with his friend.

"Now just look on me as a neighbour, for what is
fifty miles in New Zealand? and remember I do not
want anybody to tell me this disaster leaves you both
in an awkward strait.  If there is one thing we
have learned in our far-off corner in the Southern
Ocean, it is to practise our duty to our neighbour.
Dr. Hector bears me out in thinking that after such
an eruption as this there will probably be peace in
the hills again, perhaps for hundreds of years.  No
one remembers such an outbreak of subterranean
force, no one ever heard of such an one before, and
all we can do is to help each other.  If a loan will
be of use to you to tide over it, just tell me the figure,
and I'll write it down.  No counting, Mr. Lee, if you
please; I tell you the debtor account is all on my side.
Those little lads—"

The thud of the captain's hammer drowned his voice.

"The same feeling," he added, "which lends its
ring to that hammer points my pen, and you must
just remember, while you are lying here, how we all
envy you your quartette."

They could hear the merry laughter from the group
in the veranda, where Audrey was singing,—

   |  "What lads ere did our lads will do;
   |  Were I a lad, I would follow him too."
   |

Effie gravely expostulated with her sister.  "I
really do think, Audrey, we ought to say now what
our lads have done."

"Ah! but I fear they have something more to do,"
cried Edwin, suddenly catching his little sister round
the waist, not in play but in panic fear, as he heard
the trampling as of many horses crossing the bush.
He whirled her into the house and pushed Audrey
after her, as the captain ceased nailing to listen.

Arthur Bowen was by Edwin's side as he spoke.
With one impulse the bar was lifted to its place, and
the trio retreated to the veranda.  A long train of
pack-horses came winding down the valley.

Which was coming—friend or foe?

The boys stood very close to each other, ready to
bolt in-doors at a moment's warning.  Edwin was at
once the bravest and the most apprehensive.

"You had better go to father and leave us two to
watch," he said to his brother.

"But old Cuth won't go," muttered the little fellow,
squaring his shoulders and planting his foot firmly on
the ground as he took his stand between them.

"Holloa! ho! oh!" shouted a cheery voice they all
knew well.

"It is Ottley! it is Ottley!" was echoed from side
to side.

Down went the bar once more.  Out ran the trio,
leaping, jumping, chasing each other over the uneven
ground, strewed with the broken arms from the fallen
giants of the neighbouring forest.  They raced each
other across the valley in the exuberance of their
boyish spirits, let loose by the momentary relief from
the pressure and the fetters which had been crushing
them to earth.

"Until the coach can run again," said Ottley, as
they came up to him laughing and panting, "I have
started a pack-horse team to carry up supplies.  The
roadmen are rebuilding their huts, and as I came
along they warned me one and all to avoid the ford
to-night.  They were anticipating a bit of warm work
up there with their Maori neighbours, and were
holding themselves ready to answer the fordmaster's
signal at any moment.  They told me of a crossing
lower down the stream.  The fords were sure to shift
their places after such a time as we have had.  I
found myself so near the valley farm, I turned aside
to water my horses at the rivulet, and rest for the
night."

"Come along," cried Edwin; "father will be glad
to see you.  But there has been no scrimmage at the
ford; trust Mr. Hirpington for that."

Ottley paused to release his weary team, and let
them slake their thirst with the so-called water at
their feet, which really was not all sulphur and sludge.

"I am not sure," he said compassionately, as he
brought up the tired horses one after another, "that
the poor animals have not had a worse time of it than
we men; for their food and drink are gone, and it
grieved me to see them dying by the wayside as I
came."

The boys helped him to measure out the corn and
hobble them for the night in the shelter of the
valley.

Then Ottley looked around to ascertain the state of
Mr. Lee's new fields.  Three men were lingering by
the site of the charcoal fires.

"There are the rabbiters," said Cuthbert, "just as
usual!"

"Nonsense," returned his brother; "the gang is
dispersed."

"Well, there they are," he persisted; and he was
right.

They marched on steadily, as if they were taking
their nightly round, but instead of the familiar traps,
each one carried a young pig in his arms.

Pig-driving, as Pat does it at Ballyshannon fair,
is a joke to pig-carrying when the pig is a wild one,
born and reared in the bush.  On they came with
their living burdens, after a fashion which called forth
the loudest merriment on the part of the watchers.

"Is Farmer Lee about again?" they asked, as they
came up with the pack-horse train.

Ottley shook his head and pointed to the laughing
boys beside him, saying, "These are his sons."

"No matter," they replied, with a dejected air.  "We
cannot get our gang together.  Hal is down, and
Lawford missing.  We've been hunting a pig or two over
Feltham's run, and we've brought 'em up to Farmer
Lee.  They are good 'uns, and they will make him
three fat hogs by-and-by, if he likes to keep 'em.
We have heard something of what that Lawford has
been after, and we are uncommon mad about it, for
fear the farmer should think we had any hand in it."

"He knows you had not," returned Edwin.  "It
is all found out.  But I do not think Lawford will
show his face here any more.  I am sure my father
will be pleased with such a present, and thank you
all heartily."  As he spoke he held out his hand, and
received a true old Yorkshire gripe.

"There are three of us," he went on, glancing at
Arthur and Cuthbert; "but can we get such gifties
home?"

"And what will you do with them when they are
there?" asked Arthur; "unless, like Paddy, you house
them in the corner of the cabin."

Ottley, always good at need, came to the help, and
proposed to lend his empty corn-bags for the transit.

Back they went in triumph, each with a sack on his
back and a struggling pig fighting his way out of it.

The kicking and the squealing, the biting and the
squalling, the screams and the laughs, broke up the
conference within doors, and augmented the party at
the supper, which Audrey and Effie were preparing
from the contents of the panniers.

"The pack-horse train a realized fact!" exclaimed
Mr. Bowen.—"Come, Arthur; that means for us the
rest of our journey made easy.  We must be ready
for a start at any hour."

"If your time is to be my time," interposed Ottley,
who was entering at the moment, "we shall all wait
for the morning."

"Wait for the morning," repeated the captain, as he
lit his pipe.  "There is a bigger world of wisdom in
that bit of advice than you think for.  It is what we
have all got to do at times, as we sailors soon find out."

A light tread beneath the window caught Edwin's
ear.  Surely he knew that step.  It was—it must be
Whero's.

He was out on the veranda in a moment.  There
was his Maori friend wandering round the house in
the brilliant starshine, stroking his kaka.

"I cannot live upon my hill alone," said Whero.
"I have followed you, but I should cry hoké to you
in vain.  I will take my bird and go back to
Tuaranga—it will be safe among my Maori school-fellows—until
hunger shall have passed away from the hills."

Edwin's arm went round him as he cried out gleefully,
"Ottley, Ottley, here are two more passengers
for the pack-horse train!"

.. vspace:: 4

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   THE END.

.. vspace:: 4

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   ENTIRELY NEW AND CHEAPER EDITION OF

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The Coral Island.  A Tale of the Pacific.

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Hudson Bay; or, Everyday Life in the Wilds of North America,
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Maury's Physical Geography of the Sea.  With Charts, Diagrams,
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Journal of a Voyage Round the World of H.M.S. "Beagle."
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Temple's Trial.

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   \T. NELSON AND SONS, London, Edinburgh, and New York.

.. vspace:: 6

.. pgfooter::