For some minutes the aged chief sat silent, looking out far away over the sea, where the white-winged taniwhas7 of the Pakeha pass through Raukawa, to gain the great ocean of Kiwa. His thoughts were as far away as the blue Isle of Rangitoto, marked vaguely in the horizon. What thing was he pursuing over the dim trail of the past? Of a truth he seemed to see those who were not present, to hear those who did not speak. Would he begin his story at the time when those fierce old history-makers of yore—the Waitahi and the Ngaitahu—dwelt in the valley of the “Pensive Water,” and held their land against the fierce invaders coming down from the land of Tara? No, he turned towards us, and the words from his breast were of things long, long before the Waitahi fought their frays upon the sounding shore.
He spoke in a hushed voice; for our ears alone were the secret things he was about to unfold.
“O men of the great land beyond the mountains and the sea, why should I tell to you those things which none but our priesthood of ancient night have known? It is because I have heard the voices of the Great Tohungas of the Earth speaking to me in sleep, and I have had no rest. Therefore I will obey the words that have come to me in the whistling winds of heaven, and reveal a secret of the ancient tohungas of my race. Yet in doing this I know full well that, by the occult law of the ages, I shall incur my death.
“Know then, O children of another world, that the blood of the Great River of Heaven has run through the veins of an unbroken hereditary priesthood from the further shore of Time to this day that we see beneath the shining sun. Men who do not know speak of Te Kahui Tipua; a band of man-eating demons, they say, who dwelt here in Aopawa. Sons! these are no demons, but the powerful priesthood of which I speak to you, extending back into the far night of the world. The Rangitane and the Ngaitahu have nursed our priests in their wahine’s laps; the Ngatimamoe also, and before them the Waitahi, skilled in spells—all these came and passed away like the leaves of the kohutukutu,8 but the father blood of the ancient Kahui Tipua is of the Great River of Heaven flowing down the ages from times when this land of the Maori was without a shore from the rising to the setting sun.
“What the west wind has whispered in the branches of the Kahikatea, what his friend has spoken with his tongue about the woman, and my own word to you about a lost child, are the head, the back, and the tail of one story. Hearken to me then, O men from over the sea, while I show to you a hidden thing which has never been shown to a pakeha before, nor revealed to any but our own priesthood. Then, when Te Makawawa has trodden the Highway of Tane, and you see his eye set as a star in the sky, you will tell this sacred thing to your brethren of the other side, for it is a word of power to the Maori and Pakeha alike. But know that whoever reveals this hidden thing to the outside world must die.
“Not three days’ journey towards the setting sun is a high plain rolling like a yellow sea beneath a great mountain wall. On that sacred plain waves now the golden toi-toi, and it is desolate; but there was a time when a great city stood there in which dwelt a mighty race of long ago. And within that mountain wall is the vast temple of Ruatapu, cut out of the ancient rock by the giant tohungas of old. This, O children of the sun that rose to-day, was long before the wharekura9 of our lesser tohungas, many ages before the Maori set sail from Hawaiki to find these shores. In that temple of the ages are strange things preserved from the wreck of the ancient world—things which one day you shall see, but I now shorten my words to tell of a sacred stone under the protection of the Good Tohungas of the Brow of Ruatapu, and yet again of another, an accursed stone, the plaything of the Vile Tohungas of the Pit.
“In that far time, when this land of the Maori was but a small part of a vast land now eaten by the sea, the people who dwelt in the city of the high plain were powerful giants, and they were ruled by a priesthood of tohungas, among whom two kinds of magic were practised: the Good and the Vile. The Good Tohungas derived their spells, like Tawhaki, from the heavens above, where the Great Spider sits weaving his web around him, and they dwelt in the forehead of the mountain wall. The Vile Tohungas obtained their spells, like Tangaroa, from the depths of the sea, and from the gloom of Porawa; they inhabited the foundations of the mountain. But although both dwelt in the same temple, there was a deadly hatred between them, and, when they met in battle, fierce lightnings were seen to issue from the rocks.
“I am not now the hereditary priest of that temple, but many moons ago, before the snows fell on my hair, I was called by the Great Tohungas, whose eyes look down from the northern sky, to enter the mountain and take the place of my father, who was growing old. My father, worn with doing the will of the tohungas in the temple, came out to die, and I took his place, even as I, after many years, have come out to die, while my son, Ngaraki the Fierce, has taken my place. When I entered the mountain by a path any brave man might find and follow, and further, when I ascended to the upper part of the mountain, by a way that no man could find unless he were guided as I was, I found there the sacred white stone, before which it was the work of the priest to sing the magic karakia, which have been handed down from the time of the ancient city. For the tradition given to me by my father, O Pakehas, told that in this stone stood the form of a woman, beauteous as the dawn; and the prophecy attached to her was that one day the stone which enclosed her would be broken, and she would stand free.
“Sons of Kiwa, hear the sacred story of the woman of the ancient city, and listen well, that my words do not pass by like the empty wind, for, in revealing this for the good of my race and yours, I give myself over to the Woman of Death and Darkness—such is the law by which I, a sometime priest of the mountain temple, will abide. In the times of which the rocks of that temple alone keep a record, the bright goddess Hia, or, as we call her, Hinauri, the Daughter of the Dawn, came down from the skies to restore the divine magic which the Vile Tohungas had almost driven from the world. She became queen of the city on the plain, and tried to rule the people by the love-magic she brought with her. But she failed: the people were being led down to death by the vile brethren of Huo, or, as we know her, Hine-nui-te-Po, the Daughter of the Darkness. They would not look upon the dazzling beauty of Hia’s face, nor would they hear her words. E tama! none can sin against the Great Spider and live. Lo! Mariki, the Woman of Pestilence, slid down a silky thread of the vast web and breathed death on the city. Tu-of-the-Whirlwind came also and smote the great land.
“But the Tohungas of the Brow of Ruatapu had been taught in dreams when the great fire of Io throbbed through them and lighted their heads. They foresaw the destruction of the city, and took the Queen Hinauri to a white cave in the forehead of the mountain, where she showed them the last strange wonder of her magic. Standing on the floor of the cave, with her giant priests around her, she gazed through the opening towards the western sky above the hills. A ray of golden light pierced the air and shone into the place. It fell upon her face and form. It lingered in her eyes and on her dark flowing hair. The priests fell back dazzled by her glory. Then she raised her arms towards the western sky and spoke strange words: ‘Lo! in the distance it is shown to me—the land of my people as it will be in the far future. I see them living in happiness, ruled by my love-magic. Ages will pass away before that time will be, but behold, I will leave my body here waiting and watching for that future when my people shall come back; and, at the dawn of that bright age, I too will return as a sign to the world. And you, my priests, will watch my sacred body till that day. Then, when I return, Huo, the false image of myself, which will be fashioned in this temple below, shall be hurled down upon the heads of the Vile Tohungas, her worshippers.’
“She ceased, and the golden ray seemed to be fading from her, while she stood as if listening to some mellow music from the sunlit slopes of the far-off future land of peace and love. A light leapt into her eyes, and a smile broke over her face. Lo! even while she stood there leaning forward, with her arms outstretched as if to some lovely vision of the dawn, the sun ray faded quite away, and left her spellbound, immovable—a radiant statue of expectancy.
“Then, as the Tohungas chanted their mystic song they saw that her spirit had fled, leaving her body standing like stone. Like stone, I said, O Kahikatea; but her spirit had not taken away the smile from her lips nor the joy from her eyes. The lovelight would still dwell there, and her arms would still remain outstretched in longing until the ages should have rolled by—in constant yearning until some distant day should bring her people back to repeat their history with a happier close. O Pakehas, it was a thing to see: Hinauri the Radiant One, who rivals the dawn in her beauty, stood there waiting, waiting, waiting till the far future of the world should come with Ihi Ihi, the sun ray, to call her back to life.
“O Sons of the Shining Sea, hear how my tale runs on. Summer and winter came and went for hundreds of years, while in the cave high up in the silence of the mountains stood for ever the Daughter of the Dawn, holding out her arms to the unborn future of the South. Far below upon the plain lay the City of the Southern Cross, deserted, silent, and crumbling to ruin. A pestilence had fallen upon the land, slaying the people as one man, and now through the silent streets wandered the dragons of the desert. By night the moonlight glinted upon the palaces and domes, showing here gigantic columns, and there a patch of open square, while sometimes from the shadowy streets arose a ghostly murmur, as of a phantom race that is dead and gone, whose spirits linger by night around the desolation of their former homes. But the Bright One’s gaze was fixed, not upon the city below, but on the limits of future time.
“How can I show you the wonder of Hinauri’s waiting for the dawn? O Pakehas, on calm moonlight nights the children of the misty moonbeam looked in at the opening of the cave and wondered to see her standing there, a figure of beauty, all shining with moisture, in the clear, pale ray. The drops that drip so slowly in limestone caves had begun to deposit their treasures upon her form. Her robes shone with a thousand crystalline gems. Her hair rippled down like wavy stalactites laden with sparkling clusters of precious stones. They had gathered like the dust of diamonds upon her arms, and neck, and brow, while from the roof of the cave the ever-dripping, crystal-laden water had tried to place a crown upon her stately head.
“O men of a later day, how can I picture to you the wonder of Hinauri in that high solitude? The spirits of the wind would pause in their wanderings round the mountain sides to look in at the silent inhabitant of the cave. Then they would sigh along upon their way down the ridges to whisper among the shadows of the deserted city. And on dark nights, when the anger of Tawhirimatea smote the feet of Tane-holding-up-the-Sky, that storm-god loved to linger at the opening of the cave and watch her mysterious beauty, as Taki’s lightning lit the place; and, while he watched, his fierce heart would melt, and his wild breath soften into sighs of love.
“On and on sped the years. Ages rolled over this land, and the City of the Southern Cross crumbled to dust. Other ages came and went, and the sea lapped about the crags beneath the opening of the cave and rolled its huge billows over the buried city. And lo! as the moons, gliding by on the floor of the crystal heaven, chased each other for ever across the sky, the sea sank back, and there, where once had surged the hurrying throng of a mighty people, stood the gigantic moa in the dense fern, and on the rocks crept the three-eyed lizards of old time. But in the mountain cave the ancient spell had endured. Hear the tale of the Great Tohungas, who watched one by one in the temple. Slowly, through the ages, the limestone covered the form of the goddess, but not to hide her from the eyes of the matakite. The expectant look upon her face had deepened, and her whole body seemed ready to spring to life at a word. To the eyes of the seer her face shone glorious from within a crystal stone, but some who saw less clearly passed down the word that her features were chased as if with the dust of stars, through which the pink in her cheeks and lips showed like rata through a glistening mist. But to me, when my father took me to the cave, there was naught but a large block of pure white marble, roughly hewn, such as the mighty fingers of the ages fashion from the limestone. Yet I could see, though my sight was dim, that within the dull, hard stone stood the wondrous form of Hinauri, waiting to be released from her age-long prison. My father said that the time was near when Hinauri should return, and the Great Tohungas had told him in dreams that it was by the ‘magic of a woman’ that her spirit should come back into her body. He then instructed me in the ways and duties of the temple, showing me many things which I cannot speak of now.
“But I said my words to you were also of the accursed stone. When the spirit of the Bright One had fled, the Good Tohungas withdrew into the sky, leaving one of their number to protect the sacred stone. Even the name of this mighty one has come down to us as surely as his blood runs in my veins. ‘Zun10 the Terrible’ he was called, and it was he who concealed once and for ever the secret of the sacred stone. The Vile Tohungas of the Pit were searching for Hinauri to destroy her, but Zun tricked them. He cast himself down into the foundations of the temple and dwelt among them to learn their vile magic. Then, when he had mastered their secrets, he fashioned a false image of Hinauri as a great spar, and bound it down to the rock with a round stone. The Vile Tohungas, believing that this spar, stranded on the shores of Time, contained the sacredness of Hinauri, cursed it for ever, so that woman should never rise to the skies, but remain bound down to do their will. Zun the Terrible then drew a phantom spirit from the spar and delivered it over to them, saying it was Hinauri, the Daughter of the Dawn. The Vile Ones took it and bound it to the moon-face, where for all time they have paid it a sneering worship of disdain. Thus did Zun the Terrible give them the false for the true, and tricked them with their own magic. Then he turned his back upon these Vile Ones and set himself to climb up out of the darkness into which he had fallen. But, O my sons! the Vile Ones still live upon the earth. The giant sorcerers of old stand for ever on the floor of the mighty abyss in the temple, waiting the day when they shall return. Their red fire was removed by one of their slaves, whom Zun drove from the temple into the north, and we say it is burning even now, though we know not where.
“So the sacred stone in the white cave has been preserved to this day, and to this day the magic of the sun ray may be seen. It is true it now strikes into the cave at certain times of the year through a crevice in some outstanding crags, but, O children of a later sun, it is a ray of the same light that shone there ages since, and bore Hinauri’s spirit away. E tama! there is a prophecy that one day, when this ray of Ihi Ihi is upon the sacred stone, her ancient spirit will return upon it, and she will live. Already is the stone that bound her broken away; already she stands free, as she stood long, long ago, with her arms outstretched to the future, and the dawn of a new age upon her radiant face. This, O Kahikatea, is the truth which lies behind your dream. This, O Pakehas, was the legend given me by my father, who had received it from his father in like fashion as it had been told by father to son from the beginning of the world.
“Now, Friend of the Forest Tree, I will answer your words to me about the woman Miriami Kerei.
“Many moons of fasting and singing of karakias passed over my head before the Great Tohungas
began to speak to me in dreams. One night the spirit of my father stood before me and told me that the woman upon whom the tohungas had set their true mark was travelling southwards with her husband, inland, towards Hokitika. She was the woman by whose magic the age-long fetters of Hinauri should be broken; therefore he bade me find her and take her to the white cave, where she must dwell as sacred as Hinauri’s self until the object of her coming was accomplished. Therefore, I summoned the warriors of my tribe and sent them to guard all the mountain ways to the south of the ‘Pensive Water,’ and to take the man and the woman without injury and bring them to me at the boundary of the Great Tapu, which enclosed the plain and the sacred mountain.
“At the end of half a moon they returned with the pakeha and his wife. She was a comely wahine, with eyes like those of a Maori chieftainess, but they held more of the ‘magic of a woman.’ O Pakehas, have you looked into a dark lake among the mountains and seen the star Tawera shining there all alone? Like that was the light of Miriami’s eyes; like that was the spirit far within them. I do not remember the pakeha’s name, but I remember learning by the signs he made to me, that he had journeyed from Hokitika to Wakatu to meet his wife, who had come in a great canoe from the land beyond the sea, and that now they were on their way back to Hokitika. I was sorry, and my heart went out to the pakeha, but the word of the tohungas was to be obeyed. I could not let him go his way, lest he should bring a great army against the mountain for revenge, so I ordered the tongueless men of the temple to bear both man and woman to the mountain, for there I meant to deal with the man according to the customs of our ancient magic. By a secret entrance at the back of the mountain, which no man might find—the ‘way of the lizard’—then by the secret ‘way of the fish with wings,’ which no man can travel without guidance, I had them taken to the white cave, where I showed them the stone and explained as much of the ancient story as I could by signs. The woman understood me, for a clear light came in her eyes as she gazed at the stone. At that moment the sun ray, coming through a rift in the crags outside, fell through the opening like a shaft of gold, and shone upon the white fetters of the Bright One. Then I saw that the Tohungas’ real mark was on the woman, for her eyes became fixed. She held out her arms to the stone with a cry, and the pakeha caught her as she fell. I knew now that she was matakite,11 and had seen Hinauri within the stone.
“When she came out of darkness she spoke to the pakeha with many words, and I judged her meaning to be this: that she would stay in the cave and release Hinauri from the stone, and he would stay with her; but when they made me understand this I replied by signs that the man must go, but the woman must stay. He grew angry, and showed me with his hands that he would go and call the pakehas together and bring them with guns against the mountain, and take the woman away by force.
“At this I ordered the tongueless men to bind the pakeha again. Then I signed to the woman that he should be taken down and set free, and that if she would watch from the opening of the cave she should see him go. This quieted her, and I conducted the pakeha down through the secret ways; but before setting him free I tatooed upon his breast one of the magic signs of the temple—the sign of silence and forgetting, and rubbed into it an ointment which has power to make a man forget the events of his life while the tohunga lives who cast the spell over him. There is another ointment, O Kahikatea, which will cause a man to forget only the events of a single moon, or at least to recall them dimly as dreams. But it was necessary that the pakeha should forget everything, and he went forth from the mountain as one in a trance, from which at sunset he would awake in his right mind, but as a man who can speak the words that he always spoke, and do the things which he always did, yet can remember neither his own name nor the face of his friend. This, O men of to-day, is a word of the ancient magic for which our lower tohungas seek in vain.
“Then I did many things for the comfort of the woman Miriami—that is the name by which she bade me call her, O Wanaki. I placed mats within a recess of the white cave and brought her food and water and firewood, and in it all I made her understand that she was tapu12, and she grew to trust me. At her bidding I procured through my tribe some sharp instruments for her with which to break the bonds of the Radiant One, and also some books, that she might learn to speak the Maori tongue. When this was done she showed me the ‘magic of the woman’ by which Hinauri should return. She would break and cut the stone away from the divine form within, so that it should stand free.
“When I knew this I fell at her feet and worshipped her. For many moons she laboured, and though I heard the chipping of the tools upon the stone—the breaking of Hinauri’s fetters—I set not my foot within the cave. Eight moons passed away, and the ninth was growing old, when one day she waited for me outside the entrance to her abode, on the white steps that lead down into the lower parts of the temple.
“ ‘O Te Makawawa,’ she said, ‘the work is finished. Hinauri, the Bright One, stands free, but she does not yet live. Nevertheless, Chief and Tohunga, there will be another life in this cave before many days.’
“ ‘Blessed be the child that is born under the smile of Hineteiwaiwa,’ I said. ‘I will go to my tribe and bring back a woman to be with you.’
“I brought the woman, and Miriami’s child was born before another moon had set out to find the Sacred Isle in the West. Then was I summoned to the cave to see the magic the woman had wrought upon the stone. Hinauri stood free. She stood as thou didst see her in thy dream, O Kahikatea—a thing to wonder at and worship. E Koro! the magic of the woman was not of earth. It was the Chisel of Tonga—and more than that, though I know not what more.
“Then for two summers and winters I toiled in the temple, cursing the Vile Tohungas in the abyss at the full moon, as my father and all my father’s fathers had done before me, and singing the ancient karakias in the white cave at sunset. But the spirit of Hinauri returned not. Yet from that time forward certain men with the fire of the Vile Tohungas in their eyes found entrance to the temple. My thought is that they had heard a threatening voice teaching them strange things. Perchance the ages had told them how they had been tricked, and they came to learn the secret of our greater magic, and to destroy the Bright One. But, O Sons of Kiwa, I took their heads, baked them, and hung them in the abyss.
“But hear me, O Friend of the Forest Tree. These are my words to you, and this is the thing which keeps me from rest. When the little girl—Keritahi Kerei was her name—was able to run about and speak her own tongue and mine, I used to lead her and Miriami down to a place where the river hemmed them in against the mountain wall. Here the sun shone upon the moss, and flowers grew, and here the little one would play. One day I was cutting wood on the bank lower down, when I heard a scream, and, looking up, I saw Miriami standing on the bank waving her arms. I hastened to the place, and she pointed to the water, where I saw, rising to the surface, the little body of the child. O my brethren of the pale skin, I saw her white face, and in her hand she held some mountain lilies, in reaching for which she had fallen over the bank. The current swept her under, and though I plunged in at once, it was some time before I could find her among the twisting folds of the water. When at last I laid the little body at Miriami’s feet, its spirit had fled beyond Wai Ora Tane.13
“Have you seen the grief of a mother weeping for her child, O Pakehas? I hope I may never see it again. I sat down and covered my head, and my own tears flowed like rain. But not for long. Miriami dashed her tears away and tried to bring the little one’s spirit back from Reinga. I knew that a spirit sometimes halts and lingers on the hither bank of Wai Ora Tane; therefore I worked with her on the little body, trying to charm the spirit back, and, as we worked, I sang an incantation, while her tears fell on the child’s pale face.
“But Keritahi’s spirit had passed beyond the waters, from whose further bank none may return by the way they went. The sun was sinking when we ceased our efforts, and then Miriami sank down in despair. By the ancient rites of the temple no dead body must remain within its inner tapu. I told Miriami that I would bury it at once somewhere in the outer tapu across the stream. She pleaded with me to let her come, but I would not; I had sworn to my father’s spirit that she should not go beyond the inner tapu. ‘Then,’ she said, ‘bury the body of my child beneath the shade of the great rimu in the valley, where the tui sits and sings in the twilight, that when I listen from the mouth of the cave I may mingle my grief with his singing.’
“I promised this. When she had taken a last farewell of her little one, she sank on the ground numbed with grief, and I crossed the river with Keritahi’s body in my arms. As I was hurrying towards the rimu in the valley, I said in my heart, ‘It is the will of the tohungas—the child stood in the way of Hinauri. The attention was divided. Now the child is dead, Hinauri will delay no longer. It is best: the tohungas have spoken——’
“The tongue in my heart stopped, and I stood still, looking down at the child. Was it a tremor passing through the little body, or was it my dream? Who could come back after so long a stay in Reinga?
“I hurried on again into the shades of the valley, and came to a sudden stop a second time, for the body was trembling visibly in my arms. There was no longer any doubt. The little lips parted. The child drew a breath and sighed. Then the eyes opened and closed again. She was returning from the arms of the Great Woman of Darkness.
“My first thought was to turn back and restore the child to her mother, but when I had taken some steps I hesitated. Another thought held me, and I stood still. Miriami would conquer her grief; the worst of it was over. The tohungas had spoken, and I saw their meaning. The child was to live, but not, O Pakehas, not with its mother, not within the tapu of Hinauri. Yes, it was plain. My heart bled for Miriami, but there was something more important: Hinauri was first.
“Keritahi opened her eyes and looked up at me. Her little lips moved, and I heard the only part of my name that she could say: ‘Wawa.’ Then the eyes closed again, and my breast melted. How could I play this trick upon the woman whose magic had done so much? Miriami’s soft eyes came up before my mind, and my body shook like the kahikaha’s leaf. But I must do it. It was for Hinauri. ‘Besides,’ I said, ‘the child must have the spirit of a great witch—none but a witch could come back out of the Land of Silence. Yes, the Great Ones have spoken—she is a witch, and that is why my karakias have been powerless.’
“Need I tell you, O my sons, how I coaxed the child to sleep on a stone that I had warmed with fire—then how I dug a grave beneath the rimu and buried a large stone there—and afterwards how I went back to Miriami with a lie in my throat and took her again into the mountain, where in the white cave she remained alone with her grief? But I will tell you, O Friend of the Forest Tree, what I did with the child, for that word is for you, to guide you in the search.
“I went back to her lying on the warm stone. I bent over her and listening for her breathing. It was regular and deep.
“ ‘She is a witch,’ I said, ‘she will live.’
“When she awoke I took her to my tribe, though on the way I sat down many times to cover my head, for, with her arms round my neck, she asked me questions that I could not answer. I gave her to a young chief of my tribe, and said to him, ‘Take a band of warriors and journey on towards the south, and when you come to a pakeha’s house leave the child there in safety without any word, so that the one into whose care the child falls knows neither whence it comes nor who brings it.’
“They went forth, and the child was under my word of protection.
“O Friend of the Forest Tree, within two moons they returned, and the young chief spoke a strange thing in my ear. ‘We have ended the work you set us to do, O Te Makawawa, and lo! a moon ago we came to a hut on the bank of a river southwards, and within sat a pakeha asleep by a fire. With my own hand I unfastened the door and set the child inside. Then I closed the door with a loud noise, and looked in at the window. The man awoke, and when I looked upon his face I saw that it was the face of him we captured with the woman many moons ago. That is truth, O chief.’
“Then I, having heard this, returned to the temple and sought rest, saying to myself: ‘It is not such a bad deed you have done, Te Makawawa—you have stolen a child from its mother and have restored it to its father.’ But no rest came to me, neither did the tohungas speak to me again in dreams. In the many years that followed I grew weary of life, for Hinauri came not, and I felt the displeasure of the tohungas heavy upon me. I still kept the woman a sacred prisoner, and she lived in peace, for was she not matakite,14 and a lover of solitude?
“At length my son Ngaraki, the Fierce One, arrived at the age when he should take up the duties of the ancient temple, and I came forth to die. But lo! I cannot go hence until I have undone the wrong that I did, until I have restored the child to her mother. Make haste, O Friend, and find the little maiden in the south. The sun lingers over the hills, but cannot set—my eyes grow dim, and I see your faces in a mist—my head is bowed to the ground, but my spirit cannot pass hence till this is done. O Sons of the Shining Sea, my words to you are ended.”
The aged chief covered his head with his flaxen robe and bowed himself to the earth. A solemn silence fell upon us, so astonished were we at this, his strange story.
If there were not so much to tell before I lay down my pen, I might describe the feast which Te Makawawa and his chiefs prepared for us that evening, or give the substance of the wild, poetical songs that were sung in our honour, and of the speeches that were delivered—all bristling with allusions to ancient tradition. But the matter, though interesting, does not concern this history directly. Suffice it to say, then, that I had, from the first, developed a slightly sceptical attitude towards the old chief’s story. This was accentuated by the fact that, after the feast of which I have spoken, one of the songs sung by a young chief contained a chance allusion to Hinauri, giving in a few words the skeleton of a popular legend which differed almost entirely from Te Makawawa’s tradition of the same person. Even if this discrepancy could be explained by saying that a popular legend is often fabricated around the central name of some more ancient tradition, it still remained to deal with the extraordinary parts of Te Makawawa’s story, which were not easy of belief without some kind of verification. Therefore I had many a grave doubt.
On the following day, when we took our departure, the aged chief sent with us a Maori named Tiki, who had been with the party which had taken the child, fifteen years before, and left her at the hut of the Man-who-had-forgotten. This Maori was to be my servant, to aid me in finding Keritahi Kerei, or, as we should pronounce it, Crystal Grey. He was to obey me in all things, and not to leave me under any conditions until the child—now, of course, if living, a girl seventeen or eighteen years of age—was found and brought to Te Makawawa.
When we three, Kahikatea, Tiki, and myself, were leaving the pa, the old chief gave us a solemn and sad farewell. Sitting at the doorway of his house, he said: “Depart, O Kahikatea, Dreamer of dreams! Take not again the ‘way of the spider’ lest you become even as he who has forgotten his name and the face of his friend. Depart, O seeker of the child whose mother awaits you, and forget not my words. Go, my friends, to whom I have shown the secret of the ages. Go! while I remain here watching the kohutukutu’s yellow leaf that will not fall, watching the western sun that cannot set.”
So we left the pa of Te Makawawa, our hearts full of the strange tale we had heard. When we reached the bank of the river we sat down on a log and looked at one another.
“Do you believe the old chief’s tale?” I asked Kahikatea.
“It accounted for my dream,” he replied; “but, do you know, I have never been able to decide whether I dreamed that about the stone woman in the cave, or whether it was an actual experience I went through. All I can be certain of is, that on the floor of my hut, two years ago, I awoke from what I took to be a kind of syncope due to failure of the heart’s action. I went out and shook myself together, and recalled a hazy memory of those things I related to the old chief. Of course, I dismissed the matter as a dream, though that pure white woman’s face I could not, cannot, and do not wish to, dismiss, for I admit to you candidly that I would risk my life to see it again: it has a fine meaning. I say I explained it as a dream, but what perplexed me some time later was, that in my record of the month from full moon to full moon I discovered a gap of three days. Then another thing which puzzled me was that I had a great many bruises that I could not account for, one in particular: a painful sore on my back—by Jove!”
He started up in an excited manner and threw off his coat. Then in another moment his shirt followed, and he stood stripped to the waist.
“Look!” he cried, turning his back to me; “just between the shoulder blades—is there any kind of mark?”
It was my turn to express surprise now, for there, in the spot he had indicated, was a peculiar tatooed sign—a square in a circle, with a small cross in the centre.
I described it to him, and when I had finished he turned round and faced me.
“The sign of forgetting,” he said.
“The ‘sign of forgetting,’ ” I repeated, and my scepticism suffered a shock.
“I thought,” he mused slowly, as he proceeded to dress himself again, “I thought I could not have spent three whole days in that syncope. If I went to that mountain temple and was branded with this mark, which made my adventure seem like a dream, why should not they have branded Grey in such a way—say by rubbing in a different drug—as to make him forget his own name and the face of his friend?”
“And yet—and yet—” I said with some hesitation, “the whole of Te Makawawa’s tale is so remarkable that I cannot say I feel justified in setting out to look for that child without some more certain proof. It is quite possible the old chief has invented the story of the child so as to get us out of the way. The search may lead me to the other side of the world, whereas the Table Land and the mountain are not three days’ journey from here. I believe most firmly that Miriam Grey is there if she is living, but I’m inclined to think that, if there was a child, it died, or was drowned, and that old Te Makawawa invented the rest of the story to throw us off the track. What do you think? Is not our best plan to go and spy out the mountain first?”
“It may be so,” he replied meditatively. “Personally my interest is neither in the child nor in the woman, but in the existence of that ancient temple of a forgotten race, with its white goddess who rivals the dawn, gazing out into the sky with a prayer on her face, and her arms held up to the daybreak of the golden age. It is a grand symbol and, as I said before, I would risk my life to verify it; for even the face of that marble woman appeals to me as no woman’s face has ever done before. I see it in my mind, not as stone, but as that of a living woman whose eyes are full of a holy light. I will go with you to the mountain wall, and, notwithstanding the old chief’s warning, I will search for the ‘way of the spider.’ ”
“Agreed,” I said, “and I will look for the ‘way of the fish,’ whatever that may be, and take my chance of the fierce Ngaraki.”
With our minds made up we decided that it would be better not to inform Tiki of our purpose until, in our route southwards, we came to a point where we could branch off towards the Table Land. We took this precaution lest he should find an opportunity of hurrying back in the night or sending a chance messenger to Te Makawawa telling him of our purpose, in which case I felt convinced we should be followed by a band of his warriors. Having questioned Tiki, I found that the way by which I was to seek the child lay through Karamea, to the west of the Great Tapu Land. It would be an easy matter then to change our minds on the journey, and direct our course towards the forbidden region which we knew must be the place we wanted.
Of our progress on foot towards Karamea little need be said, except that it was fraught with all the difficulties of the virgin bush. Kahikatea had a fowling-piece, and I had my rifle, so that we had no difficulty in procuring wild duck, with here a pig and there a pukako or a kakariki. We gathered our larder up as we went along, for we found the bush-clad hills and gullies most plentifully stocked.
On the evening of the third day we saw a high range of snow-capped mountains far away on our left, and questioned Tiki about them.
“That is the Great Tapu Land,” he said, lowering his voice.
After a conversation over the camp fire in our own tongue, we decided that the time had come to change our course. Accordingly, in the morning we informed the Maori that the curiosity of the white man was great: we wished to see this forbidden country. He looked scared at this; but, when we told him he must accompany us, his legs trembled under him, and I verily believe that if they had been any use to him at the moment, he would have fled for his life.
“Taniwha lives there,” he said, “it is tapu. The Maori must not go there; it is the place of evil spirits.”
“Why is it tapu?” I asked.
He shook his head. “When the ariki make a place tapu it is because it is dangerous to go there.”
I was determined to see how much he knew, so I continued to question him.
“How long has it been tapu?” I asked.
“From the times of Wiwa and Wawa, when men had wings,” he replied. “Do not venture on it, O Pakehas. The ariki who have been there to appease the evil spirits have come back and told us of the terrible monsters that inhabit the land, and of the evil spirits that are on the watch for anyone who sets foot there.”
“What kind of spirits are they?”
“Listen, O Rangatira! Some men of Ngatimamoe once lost their way and crossed the high level land beneath those peaks, when they came to a great wall of rock, out of which a stream ran forth into a deep pool. Here they stood and watched the bubbles coming up, when they saw something rising out of the depths. It came to the surface and spouted the water from its mouth. Then they fled, for they knew that only taniwha rise out of the depths in that way. It was the evil spirit of the mountain, and they who had seen it were doomed.”
“What happened to them?” I asked.
“They all died before another moon had passed,” he replied triumphantly.
“And are you afraid because of a silly story like that?” I said, well knowing the superstitious dread the Maori has of the demon taniwha, even if it only comes in the shape of a small green lizard. But he was not to be shaken in his belief.
“Ah,” he replied gravely. “I have heard that the Pakeha is afraid of nothing, because he believes in nothing. But the Maori knows these things are true: the whole place is bewitched with devils, Pakeha; do not go near it.”
Kahikatea, who had been sitting on a log cutting tobacco with his bush knife, now restored the weapon to its sheath on his hip, and remarked, as he charged his pipe: “The fact of this tremendous tapu being laid on the whole place shows very clearly that there is a secret to be kept by those mountains—a secret known only to the tohungas who imposed the tapu. And these wild tales I imagine to be a piece of priestcraft to add additional protection to the secret.”
Then, rising and standing over the Maori, he went on in his forcible way: “Look here, Tiki! We’re going, and you’ll have to come with us. Te Makawawa, the ariki, has been many a time to this Great Tapu to appease the taniwha; remember that. And his words to you were, ‘Do not leave the Pakeha Wanaki until the child is found.’ Now, if you run away in the night while we sleep, I shall tell Te Makawawa, and he will turn the whole brood of taniwha loose on you, and they will tear you to pieces, so that the name of Tiki will be forgotten in the land.”
This idea was too much for the Maori, and he gave in.
“O Kahikatea,” he said, “I will go with you, but remember my word: he who goes into the Great Tapu returns not—all that returns is a cry from the dark.”
So the matter ended, and, after a substantial breakfast, we started, heading towards the east, where the peaks of the great mountain chain showed against the sky. But it was like dragging a load of stones, getting Tiki along against that heavy tapu. Whenever he could get me alone he improved the opportunity by telling me some of his terrible tales of taniwha, in the hope of getting me to prevail upon Kahikatea to turn back from the haunted mountain. But, interesting as his tales were, he only succeeded in making his own hair stand on end, for though I may be a lover of Maori lore, I cannot lay claim to an overwhelming fear of the taniwha.
But we found there was some foundation for Tiki’s spouting monster. It happened in this way. In the afternoon we travelled along the bank of a mountain stream, that ran down from the Great Tapu beyond. It was a small body of water in a deep rocky bed. We followed it up for several hours, and by sunset reached what we took to be its source—a deep pool, some twenty yards across, at the foot of a tremendous rocky cliff, on the face of which grew rare ferns, with here and there the crimson or white rata vine. The quiet overflow of this pool swept down beneath high banks, whose flowers and ferns were now flushed and glistening in the sun, which sent a few struggling rays between the black trunks of some mountain birches. It was a pleasant spot, with a broad green bank on the one hand, where the afternoon sun had found an entrance, while, on the other, where the sunlight never reached, a perfect grotto of rare ferns grew from the crevices of the rocks that composed the high overhanging bank.
Here upon the broad green sward we built our camp fire and prepared to stay the night, and it was here that the strange thing happened which went a long way to confirm Tiki in his ideas of the haunted mountain and perplexed us not a little. Twilight was deepening over the gloomy hills, and the silence in which bush travellers hear mysterious noises grew deeper and deeper as the late-singing birds stopped their songs one by one to make way for the little owls. We sat upon the bank of the pool, smoking after our meal and looking idly at the water, when the Maori’s quick ear caught some unusual sound. He sprang up and stood stock still, with a scared look upon his face.
“Is it a taniwha coming, Tiki?” I asked, for I could hear nothing.
Presently, however, a distant moaning sound seemed to come out of the ground.
“The earth is shivering,” said Kahikatea, rising from his sitting posture.
“It is nothing, Tiki,” I cried; “it’s only Ru, your restless earthquake-god, turning in his rocky bed. He is rearranging his mat and his pillow; he’ll soon settle down again.”
But the sound grew nearer and louder, and the bank on which we stood trembled visibly. Then there was a hollow roar underground, and Tiki, without waiting to see what came of it, shrieked “Taniwha!” and turned to fly.
But Kahikatea was too quick for him. His long arm swept out and caught the Maori by the shoulder. Then, as he wheeled him round and nailed him to the spot, a great torrent of water burst forth out of the pool, and rose to a height of ten or fifteen feet in the air, swelling the stream level with its banks as it swept away. The noise of this rushing fountain, as it rose and fell into the pool, drowned all speech, and for some minutes we stood looking at it, too surprised to speak. I heard a howl of fear from Tiki, as my friend, gripping him by both arms from behind, made him face it.
“It’s an intermittent spring,” roared Kahikatea presently, above the tumult.
We watched the column of water springing now several feet higher, and then sinking lower as its force increased and abated alternately, and shouted many conjectures between the howls of Tiki. The seething pool dashed spray in our faces, and we drew back.
In ten minutes or a quarter of an hour a sudden change came over the springing column of water. It sank gradually back into the pool. The tumult ceased, and the water fell to its former level. The small stream then flowed quietly through the bed of its channel, and all was still again.
Tiki was the first to break the silence.
“The evil spirits have let the flood loose,” he cried. “Did I not say the place was tapu? O Wanaki, let us go back.”
A profuse perspiration was on the Maori’s forehead, and his knees shook. I felt sorry for him, and proceeded to explain an elaborate theory of intermittent springs, helped here and there by a word from Kahikatea. At length we took the keen edge off his fear, for he admitted that our mana15 was great, but he would not accept our explanation. Taniwhas were more in his line, and his attitude seemed to be based on this principle: Why invent an elaborate hypothesis like ours when a simple one like his would account for all the facts?
Some little time later, when our astonishment had worn off a little, and Kahikatea had begun to gather ferns on the other side of the pool, Tiki took advantage of the opportunity to urge me even more strongly to turn back and not venture further into the haunted place. But I assured him that we had no intention of taking his advice, and he accepted the inevitable, saying again that our mana was great, and that when we got out of the tapu we would no doubt reward his bravery by giving him a pair of trousers and a new pipe—indeed, in consideration of value received, he seemed almost willing to renounce his religion altogether. By his reassuring remarks I certainly gathered the impression that if he were only clad in a complete suit of European clothes no taniwha could touch him. He was no high-class Maori to talk like that, for, if Te Makawawa had caught him in trousers, he would have ordered them off, and thrashed him within an inch of his life for forsaking the ancient glory of his race.
Nothing remarkable happened during the remainder of that night, unless it was that Kahikatea moaned in his sleep several times, and I caught the impassioned words, “Hinauri! Hinauri!” A strong feeling of friendship had sprung up within my heart for this strange man, with his passionate love of birds and trees, of snow-capped mountains and deep, wide solitudes; of great symbols and lofty ideals. His very stone goddess, set with fantastic meaning in the high solitudes of the everlasting mountains, appealed to me as the strongest part of the bond that already existed between us. I lay wondering who he was, and what his past life had been; and, as I wondered, I fell asleep.
On the following day, when, after much up-hill work through thick bush, we gained what seemed the summit of a line of hills, we sent Tiki up a tree to search in the distance for the bold mountain wall which Kahikatea said he could dimly remember. When the Maori reached the top he called down that he could see a long, high rock running between two peaks like a great wall. It was far away in the horizon, but he said we could reach it by sunset. Tiki remained up the tree for more than a quarter of an hour, but what he was doing we did not learn until, continuing our march, we discovered that he seemed to know every tree and gully and fern patch on the way. Soon we realised that he was a most useful Maori—he had been mapping out the way from the top of that tree, and was now giving us an instance of the perfection to which the savage bump of locality can be brought. Without the aid of Tiki’s mental chart, I think we should never have been able to thread that mazy labyrinth of dense fern, supplejacks, and tangled undergrowth; and I am positively certain that if it had not been for my fluency of tongue in the matter of Maori abuse, Tiki would never have set his face so resolutely against the dread beings which he fully expected to encounter at every turn.
At length, late in the afternoon, having reached an elevation of some 3,000 feet above the sea level, we came to a gigantic rift in the mountains, through which, in a deep, rocky gully, issued the river which watered the plains far below. Fed by many little mountain tributaries, it issued from the gorge as a considerable body of water, but as we traced it back into the mountains it became a mere stream, frothing between great moss-grown boulders, on which gleamed here and there a mountain daisy, or a white lily bobbing its head in the swishing tide. Crossing and re-crossing this stream to avoid the precipitous rocks that occasionally barred our way, we toiled onwards and upwards until the vegetation began to grow thin and stunted, and, about sunset, we passed beneath two red birches that stood like the gateposts of a meadow land, with their heads woven together in the sunlight by luxurious clusters and festoons of the native scarlet mistletoe bloom.
Standing beneath these gateposts we looked out over what we knew was the Table Land of Te Makawawa’s legend. It was a strange, silent place—a yellow, rolling plain, some three or four miles across, sloping off into rounded hills on the west, and bounded on the east by the peaks we had seen from the distance. The moss-covered plain was almost bare, save for a few clumps of toi-toi, with plumes that waved all golden in the slanting sunlight, while everywhere in the yellow moss grew strange wild flowers, and long ribands of lichen, swept by the wind, trailed from a few stunted and isolated trees. It was like a piece of summer Siberia set down amid verdant surroundings. But what caught my eye more particularly was a stupendous wall of rock that ran up against the eastern sky at a distance of two miles on our left. It seemed to connect the bases of the two peaks which towered above it, their summits tipped with snow. This wall—on which there was now a dark, uneven shadow creeping up as the sun went down beneath the rounded hills opposite—must have been nearly a thousand feet high, and, near its topmost crags, veins of obsidian, or mica, caught and threw back the rays of the sun like the coloured windows of a vast cathedral front.
“Beyond a doubt this is the place old Te Makawawa spoke about,” said Kahikatea, gazing at the mighty rock; “and now I am certain that I have seen it before. That outstanding oblique spur at the base of the wall, those jagged rocks at the top, and the snowy peaks—I can recall them well, though the how and the when of it seem gone completely.”
He passed his hand across his forehead, and his face wore a puzzled expression, as he tried to recall the details of his strange, dreamlike experience.
“It certainly does suggest a giant’s temple with two grand spires,” I said. “I wonder if Miriam Grey is there.”
“And I wonder if Hinauri is there,” returned Kahikatea.
“And Ngaraki!”
“Ah, Ngaraki, the fierce guardian priest, with his foes, the Vile Tohungas of the Pit, and his wild incantations, taken up where Te Makawawa dropped them.”
The sun’s last ray was now pink upon the snowy summits of the peaks. As we watched, it faded away and twilight fell upon the Table Land with a solemn hush, broken only by the murmuring of the river, and the deep, hammer-on-anvil notes of the tui’s last song. It was time to look for a camping-place and to gather firewood, for the air was crisp almost to the point of frostiness, and our blankets were few.
By the time the Southern Cross was visible above the mountain wall we were comfortably established on a mossy bank of the stream, behind a clump of outstanding trees, and Tiki was busy cooking our supper in his own peculiar way. After the evening meal was finished the Maori rolled himself together near the fire and was soon sound asleep. We sat awhile smoking, and then followed his example, for we were both very tired. But scarcely had we settled ourselves on our beds of dry fern when the moon, almost full, rose above the great rock and lingered a moment on the edge of the southern peak before passing behind it.
“That’s very fine,” said Kahikatea appreciatively.
“Yes,” I replied, “but I don’t like the idea of sleeping in the moonlight. Supposing we move our beds down behind that larger clump of trees. Tiki appears to have monopolised the only shadowy spot here.”
He assented, and we took up our beds and walked to the spot indicated, where we re-made them and settled down to our night’s rest. A small waterfall poured into a pool in the river near by, and, lulled by the monotonous sound, we lapsed into silence, and then into sleep.
I do not know whether it was the enchanted solitude of the place that aroused my imagination, or whether I was overtired, but my sleep was full of dreams based on the strange story of Te Makawawa. I saw the giant sorcerers of old coming and going out of the great temple with the two snow-capped spires; I heard their mystic chant echoing down through the ages; then, the fair queen who came down from the skies hovered like a misty moon-goddess above the mountains, and I had to move away from there. But my dreams went on. I saw the great city of old standing on the site of the yellow plain, its palaces glistening like alabaster in the moonlight, while faintly to my ears came the ghostly hum of a phantom race, hurrying through the ways of that city, bent on the business or pleasure of long ago.
Suddenly this ghostly murmur ceased abruptly, and I awoke with a peculiar sense of an unnatural silence, and found that day was just breaking. What had happened? I could no longer hear the waterfall. I suddenly fancied that I had been struck deaf, and, to make sure of the fact, I called out:
“Kahikatea! are you awake?”
Relieved at the sound of my own voice, I was still puzzled at his reply:
“Yes, just woke up. What’s become of that waterfall? River seems to have dried up.”
In another moment we were on our feet and making towards the spot where the waterfall had been. It was not there, and the channel was a mere string of pools. The flowing water had been shut off at its source, wherever that was.
“It must have been the sudden stopping of that waterfall that woke us,” I suggested.
“Yes, it must have been,” returned Kahikatea. Then, after gazing abstractedly at the bed of the channel for a time, he continued: “I’ve an idea that the drying up of this intermittent stream accounts for the other one’s spurting up in that extraordinary way. They must be connected at their source in such a fashion that the shutting off of the water in this one causes an overflow in the other.”
“I should like to see how it is managed,” I said. Then, having an idea in my turn, I went on excitedly: “I propose we follow this stream up and see if we can get to the source—now’s our chance while it is empty.”
“Ah! while it is empty. But if it has anything to do with the other stream it probably will not be empty for longer than that was flooded last night. Besides, it may lead us miles away into the mountains for no good. I’m more inclined to make the attempt to get round to the back of those peaks and so on to the top of that precipice. I’m sure I’ve been there before, and I don’t see why I shouldn’t do it again.”
“If you are going to look for ‘the way of the spider,’ then,” I said, “I’ll have a try at ‘the way of the fish,’ and it seems to me that this stream may be in some way connected with it.”
“Possibly. ‘The way of the fish’ must as certainly be by water as ‘the way of the spider’ must be by climbing.”
For some time we discussed the possibilities of these two hints old Te Makawawa had let fall in the course of his story, and finally we arranged to make a start as soon as possible, with the understanding that Kahikatea was to take his way round the western end of the Table Land until he reached the south-eastern side of the peak, and there attempt the ascent, while I was to follow up the bed of the stream and reconnoitre the base of the mountain wall. We told Tiki that the fierce chief Ngaraki dwelt among the mountains, and that he must remain hidden in a sheltered spot in the bush till our return, to which he replied that he had once seen the great tohunga Ngaraki, and would be very pleased to keep well out of his way, for Ngaraki would certainly kill him if he found him on the tapu.
Then, after a hasty meal, we set out. As I shook hands with Kahikatea our eyes met, and he said: “When we meet again we shall probably know more about this mysterious business. Don’t set out to look for me within three days, but if I reach camp before you I shall conclude you have fallen into Ngaraki’s clutches—if there is such a person,” he called back over his shoulder as he strode away.
“If there is such a person,” I repeated to myself, as I set out along the bank of the silent watercourse. I was very soon to discover, however, that Ngaraki the Maori was no phantom of Te Makawawa’s brain.
In the dim shadows cast by the towering rocks upon the Table Land I followed the course of the dried-up stream, which, after a distance of nearly a mile, took a turn and led round towards the mountain wall on my left. In half an hour I came within the deep shadow of this mighty pile, and, looking up, saw its tremendous outstanding crags, nearly a thousand feet above, surmounted on each hand by the snow-capped peaks clearly defined against the rosy flush of the eastern sky. High up on the wall, where it united with the base of the northern or left hand peak, a spur left the parent rock and ran down obliquely from a height of several hundred feet to within fifty feet of the ground, then, curving upwards again, terminated in a gigantic crag, which to my mind suggested a strange resemblance to a huge lion sitting upon the plain with his head erect, and mounting guard over the approaches to the mountain.
Following the bed of the stream right up to the base of the great wall, I saw that this spur hemmed in from the bare plain a small valley, about a hundred yards across at its mouth, but gradually narrowing back until it ended in a precipitous ravine in the acute angle formed by the descending ridge and the main rock. Great pines grew upon the spur’s inner face, and the varied foliage of the virgin bush which it enclosed softened its rugged contour. In the broadest parts of the valley grew smaller trees, isolated and with green grass beneath them, while further back the creeping vines wove the tree-tops together and crowned the tangled undergrowth with white flowers and yellow berries. One or two tall palm ferns nodded their heads over the lower growth, and some little distance up the valley towered a gigantic rimu, holding its massive foliage against the deep gloom of the ravine beyond. On seeing this great tree I immediately recalled that part of the aged Maori’s story in which he spoke of burying a stone instead of the child beneath its shade, and determined to visit the place and see for myself.
But meanwhile the course of the stream was demanding all my attention. I was beginning to wonder whither it was leading me as I followed it for another hundred yards towards the valley, its one bank the mossy turf of the plain sheltered by a little scattered bush, the other the bare rock itself. Here a little proof of human occupation confronted me: I almost stumbled over a small stack of firewood, neatly piled beneath a clump of silver birches and giant manuka. A little further on I came upon a kumara16 patch and some peach trees laden with ripening fruit.
While I was inspecting these, a far away hollow roar fell upon my ears, followed by a hissing and a rushing near at hand; then presently I heard the sound of waters coming down the bed of the stream towards me, and knew that the mysterious freak of nature was at work again. I rushed to the edge of the bank and watched the foaming water, flooding the channel as it poured by, leaping and dancing as if glad to be free again.
Anxious to find out whence this water came I followed the bank, concealing myself as much as possible among the bushes, until, just at the opening of the valley, I found that it curved round at right angles, enclosing a patch of mossy ground against the rock, and came to an abrupt halt, as far as I was concerned, at the foot of the mountain wall. Here the water welled forth silently right out of the side of the rock, forming a deep pool some seven or eight yards across. The smooth open bank on which I stood carried its yellow moss and daisies up to the feet of the precipice, and then sloped away into the dark shades of the valley to the left.
I could see no opening through which the water issued. Evidently the current ran far below the surface, but how was the water dammed back to such an extent? I soon ascertained the cause: after flowing straight out for about twenty yards the water was obstructed by a narrow constriction in the rocks, through and over which it frothed and seethed before swirling round again towards the great wall.
I strained my eyes down into the dark green pool, trying to catch sight of the hidden opening, but the stream of bubbles which rose to the surface obscured the depths. I regretted that I had not been five minutes sooner, but my only plan now was to wait until the stream stopped flowing again, and then I should see what I should see—perchance the ‘way of the fish.’
Not knowing the habits of this extraordinary stream, I had no idea how often it dried up. It might be weeks before the strange phenomenon happened again, and yet on the other hand it might occur a second time that very day. I was willing to take the chance of this, and, as it was evident from the wood heaps and the kumara patch that the place was inhabited by someone, I resolved to conceal myself among the thick bushes across the pool on the strip of land which the river enclosed against the wall of rock.
Accordingly, I jumped across at a narrow part at the end of the deep pool and crept beneath a large spreading arm of a dwarf tree-fern. The tip of this leafy arm drooped till it touched the water, so that, as I lay at full length beneath it on the edge of the pool, I was fairly concealed from view, although through my green screen I could see the opposite bank and the edge of the bush at the opening of the valley. Here I made up my mind to wait and watch all day, for if there was anyone about I was certain either to see or hear them.
I conjectured many things as I lay, looking now at the bubbles that came up from the depths of the pool, and now at the blue sky, brightening with the morning sun. But of all the wild imaginations that flitted through my mind concerning that mysterious place, none was so strange as the series of events and adventures which actually befell. For several hours I lay beneath my fern shield hearing nothing more unusual than the singing of many birds in the valley, the frothing of the water among the rocks at the end of the pool, and its gentle lapping against the granite wall, a yard on my right. There could be no one in the valley, for if the fierce Ngaraki had been there he would have been up and abroad long since; there was no sound, no sign of any human being. What if, after all, Ngaraki dwelt within the mountain? By what strange and hidden gateway did he pass in and out of his temple?
While speculating on this matter the southern sun appeared over the top of the mountain wall, and I knew it must be near noon. The bright rays flooded down into the pure green depths of the pool, and the bubbles rose like great shining pearls. About ten feet down I thought I could distinguish something that looked like an aperture in the rock through which the stream was pouring. It did not appear to be a very strong current, for there was no indication of its force anywhere on the surface of the pool.
As I peered down trying to see it more clearly, some dark object sped through the opening. At first I thought it was part of a tree; then, by its movement in the water, it suggested a gigantic fish. Another second and I held my breath, while my heart beat hard against my ribs, for the object was now more clearly defined. A cold shiver ran through me; and now, as I write of that feeling, I must record my firm belief that there are moments when the wildest superstitions touch us with an icy finger, if they can but touch us unawares. Tiki’s taniwha flashed into my mind in that half-second, while I saw the dark monster with waving limbs rising from the bottom, and then flashed out of it again as I saw a head and neck, a pair of massive shoulders and two great brown arms approaching the surface. Now the sunlight glistened on the wavy black hair and dark brown skin of a Maori not two yards away from me.
With my heart thumping against my ribs I lay perfectly still, while the man who had come out of the mountain by ‘the way of the fish’ shook his head angrily, tossing the water from his long black hair; then he struck out for the opposite bank. He caught hold of some roots that were growing there, and with a sudden spring, set his foot in a hanging loop above the surface. In another moment he was standing on the moss, the water dripping from his hair and from his flaxen waist garment.
It needed no searching scrutiny to tell me that this was the fierce Ngaraki, of whom Te Makawawa had spoken. The stately dignity of his tall form, and the easy grace of his movements as he turned himself about upon the bank, marked him out as a chief among his people. His neck was like a pillar of bronze. His hairless face was tatooed in a way to denote his high rank. In his arched nose there was an untamable pride, which his piercing, coal-black eyes made fierce and fiery. His brow bespoke him a learned man of his race—a tohunga versed in occult lore and ancient traditions, while the long wavy hair that rolled back from his forehead and fell dripping on his glistening shoulders, revealed the perfect shapeliness of his head. From my concealment I marked him down a magnificent savage—a terrible fellow; and yet—and yet, for all the wrath that slumbered in his eyes, I fancied I detected something gentle in the lines of his sensitive mouth; something which imparted to his whole rugged, tatooed face a pervading expression of melancholy sadness.
He looked up at the sun; then a forcible, nasal-guttural, which seemed to be spoken by his whole body at once, fell from him:
“Ngha!”
The ferocity of that single word was like the sudden snarl of an angry tiger. It seemed almost enough to knock a man down. With a quick pace he turned and strode towards the valley, where he disappeared in the gloom of the trees.
When he was gone I had time to consider the situation. This opening, then, was ‘the way of the fish’—“the way a brave man might take to enter the ancient temple”—but not so fast: a good swimmer might come out that way with the current, but could he go in against it? The coming out was evidently not an easy task, for while he had been standing on the bank, the Maori’s broad chest had heaved considerably with the exertion of it. What, then, must the going in against the current be like? Of course, it was possible that Ngaraki, knowing the habits of the stream, would wait for the water to cease flowing, and then simply walk in dry shod through the hole in the mountain side. In this case I determined to follow him, for I knew there must be a cavern of some sort within. What I should do when I got there I did not know. The thought of the Vile Tohungas of the Pit came to me and filled the supposed cavern inside with vague, shadowy horrors. But I shook them off and held to my resolve.
Presently I saw the chief emerge from the shade of the trees in the valley, carrying a heavy axe over his shoulder and some other rude agricultural implements in his hand. I guessed that he was going to till his kumara patch and cut firewood. In a few minutes I heard the sound of his axe from the bank of the stream further down, and knew that I was probably a prisoner until sunset, for I well understood that if Ngaraki became aware of my presence, my chances of exploring the mountain were gone.
Therefore, through the long hours of that summer afternoon, I lay beneath the fern thinking, imagining, wondering what the vast pile above me contained. For long intervals Ngaraki’s axe was silent, and I watched for his return, but, as he did not come, I knew his work was not finished. At length, when the sun was within half an hour’s journey of the hills, I caught sight of him returning into the valley, evidently to put his tools away. Arranging a few stray ferns as an extra precaution against his catching sight of me, I watched eagerly to see whether he would return to the bank.
In a few minutes his tall form emerged from among the trees. He approached the pool and stood for awhile looking down into the water meditatively. Then he raised his eyes and swept them slowly around the pool. Now they rested on the fern beneath which I was concealed, and I half closed my own eyes lest they should attract his notice through the screen.
“Ngha!”
For a moment I fancied he had seen me, but the next I knew that he had not, for he began striding up and down the bank without looking again in my direction. He was beginning a chant, for some purpose which as yet I could not ascertain. As he strode down the bank for half a dozen paces he hung his head in thought; then, turning, he quickened his steps and muttered a few low words which I could not catch. Again and again he repeated this movement, and each time his retreating form became more suggestive of repose and his on-rushing aspect more wild and fierce. He was working himself up for something. What it was I soon guessed, for the words of his chant began to be intelligible to me in places:
“Thrust aside the running waters,
With one arm beat them aside:
Pierce the heart of the dark.
Like a spear thrown in battle
Cleave the rushing torrent.”