I looked up through the darkness, and saw the vague, white form of Hinauri standing on the ledge above.
“We can do better up there,” I said; “we can see without being seen—come!”
“All right, you go first.”
Feeling it was foolish to waste time I complied, and made my way up the rock, thinking Kahikatea was close on my heels. But he made Tiki follow me with the kit of cartridges, and before he himself set his foot in the first niche there was a chorus of yells immediately without.
In the dim light I darted on to the rim of the basin just in time to see the first savage fall to Kahikatea’s rifle. Then, as they crowded in with wild yells that echoed strangely in the great cavern, I saw my giant friend, who now stood before the opening, throw his rifle aside and set to work with the sword. The second Maori that entered with axe upraised had his head cut clean off by the first sweeping back stroke: it rolled on the ground at Kahikatea’s feet. The third was run through the body, and the fourth I picked off to give Kahikatea a chance to settle down to it. Then it grew grim as death, for they crowded in two and three at a time; but Tiki had now got to work also, and, between the three of us, we kept them at bay until there was a ghastly pile before Kahikatea. But they crowded in, urged on from behind, and Kahikatea was beginning to let out with his left hand, in addition to doing fiercely with his right. It was getting serious now, for I foresaw that if anyone got past him into the shadows he would be struck down from behind. I shouted as much to him, and he answered as his sword swished through the air: “All right! as soon as one gets past I’ll come up.”
In less than half a minute, at a moment when Tiki and I both killed the same man, two of them did get past, and Kahikatea, true to his word, drew back and ascended the rock. I had reserved my revolver for this, and until he was out of their reach, four out of six Maoris failed to follow him. Then they flocked in over the fallen bodies, and I began to fear that if once they found the way up the wall and gained a footing, we should have to beat a retreat. Even now I heard them climbing the rock, but Kahikatea was on the ledge with his sword, and the foremost fell with a thud on to the floor below. Tiki and I still directed our attention to the opening, as those already inside were mostly in the darkness. Presently I heard sounds as of men climbing on their fellows’ backs to mount the wall near me, and realised that very soon it would be a hand to hand fight in the dark on narrow and slippery places.
While destroying several of these formations by mere guess work, I was suddenly startled by a light on the other side of the lake. I turned my head and saw Hinauri walking round the margin bearing a torch in each hand. From time to time I glanced at her and wondered greatly what she was about to do. Presently I saw her leave one torch on the ledge below and hurriedly ascend the rocks of the buttress, beyond the abyss, which led up to the point high on the cavern wall where the tapering spar reached towards the overhanging crags. She had now nearly gained the narrow standing place from which I had seen Ngaraki leap out to catch the sprit of the spar. Surely she was not going to take that awful leap! In a flash I saw her purpose and cursed myself that I had not forestalled her. I stood on the rim of the basin, and with a hoarse cry called to her, but she did not heed. She had placed her remaining torch upright in a crevice of the rock, and now stood erect in the narrow niche high up on the cavern wall—a frail, white figure outlined against the darkness by the light of the torch. I held my breath, rooted to the spot. There came the quick panting of the Maoris below as they struggled to gain the level on which we stood; there came the steady swish of Kahikatea’s sword, and I felt that I should be doing my part in that grim defence; there came, too, a cry of “Ngha!” outside the opening, and I knew that Ngaraki the Terrible was splitting skulls outside. But all these things seemed like the points of an instantaneous dream, the one reality being that the woman I loved was about to take that daring leap above the abyss.
While I watched she crouched for the spring, and my heart stood still. I recalled the prophecy engraven on the golden circlet, and a choking horror entered my soul as she sprang out above the abysmal gulf. My head grew dizzy and my sight blurred. For the moment I reeled and clutched at the air, but steadied myself and looked again. The long spar, a dark heavy mass, was moving slowly downwards through space. The rock beneath my feet trembled as, with a mighty roar, the sluice gates were opened, and the water, now released by the action of the lever, gushed through the opening in the basin below. At that moment, and while the dim daylight from the opening served, I glanced round me at a sharp cry of “Wanaki!” and saw the last of my faithful Tiki. A Maori had just gained the ledge. His club was descending on my head when Tiki, who must have sprung through the air to do it, jerked him back by the neck. The club whizzed down past my face, and both of them, friend and foe, fell back into the sweeping torrent as the daylight from the opening was flooded out. Tiki the Maori had given his life for me, but his end was peace, with his hand on his enemy’s throat.
There was wild confusion in the darkness then. From the savages came gurgling cries of dismay as they were carried away by the sudden flood. But the swift happenings of that moment, when the rushing water gave us the victory, came to me through the back of my head, for my eyes were again fixed on the moving spar, whose track through space was lighted by the two torches, one above and the other below. The white form clinging to the end of the sprit swept down out of the intervening gloom into the light of the torch left burning on the margin of the abyss. Quick feet found the level rock, and Hinauri sprang aside. The great round stone rolled into its groove above the basin’s rim with more than its wonted impetus, for the end of the spar in its unchecked downward career ground violently against the rock where Hinauri stood. Sparks flew from that end as the round stone, looming near me against the light, rose on the outer lip of the groove and remained in momentary balance. But the long arm of the lever snapped at its thinnest part. The stone hesitated no longer. It rolled from its poise and overbalanced. Then those three colossal fragments—the two parts of the broken spar and the great round stone—fell down, down into the darkness, while the white figure beyond the abyss bent over the brink and listened. A dull, crashing sound of thunder came up from the depths and reverberated through the whole gloomy place, echoing from the stupendous crags overhead and rolling away into the vast reaches of the cavern. The false image of the woman, with the heavy stone which oppressed it, had at last been hurled down, and now lay among the ruins of old-world things on the granite floor of the earth.
Hinauri took up her torch and came round the lake towards us, but Kahikatea met her half-way, his dripping sword still in his hand. I heard the sword clink as he cast it on the rocks—he had no further use for it as they stood facing each other in the torchlight. At this moment my attention was diverted by something brushing against my sleeve. I put out my hand and clutched what seemed to be a stick pointed towards the spot where the two stood. A quick horror shot through me, for at the instant I touched it I heard a peculiar hiss that I knew only too well. It was the reed tube of the negro wizard. But I had spoilt his aim, and before he knew what had happened I had thrust him backwards and wrenched the tube from his hand as he fell into the water, which had now risen above the aperture and was rapidly finding its level. My first impulse was to fling the accursed weapon of the Poisoner into the abyss; my second to keep it and use it against him, for I remembered how the darts had been arranged around the one I had taken from him at our first encounter. But, in case of accidents, Hinauri must be placed out of danger. With all my lungs I roared across the lake.
“Kahikatea! for God’s sake, and for her sake, get out of this infernal place as soon as you can.”
“Is it urgent?” he called back.
“Yes,” I yelled excitedly, “do as I say; go up the rope, quick!”
“All right,” he returned, and I knew he would not go alone.
Then I struck a match and directed my attention to the wizard, whom I could see struggling in the water below, surrounded by ghastly corpses. Not without an inward misgiving, even a feeling of dread, at what I was about to do, I turned away, and, detaching one of the poisoned darts from its receptacle, placed it in the tube. By the dying light of the match I saw the glistening of his skinny black back as he pushed his way between the floating bodies and made for the further wall. I raised the tube, took careful aim, and puffed the dart. The match, which was burning my fingers, fell into the water with a hiss, and all was dark. The wizard pushed on a little before he spoke, and then it was in a hollow guttural voice that rattled in his throat: “He got me!” he said, and this was followed by a harsh grating shriek which sounded like the final curse of an incarnate fiend who knew his time had come. Yet it seemed a trifle strange to me that he should not have cried out directly he was struck. Such an accurate aim with an untried weapon was a matter for self-congratulation, and having succeeded so far I went on to use his own black art against himself.
“You are powerless,” I said; “powerless to act except in obedience to my voice. Keep on swimming—you hear me?”
“Yes, I hear—and obey,” came from the wizard in meek, obedient tones.
I struck another match, and walked along the rim of the basin to the ledge of rock which Kahikatea had held against the Maoris. There I held the light so that he could see to ascend, and presently we were standing face to face. By still another match I examined his countenance. Hideous, repulsive it was, hate and malice written on every line, and in the piercing eyes was a suppressed alertness which did not seem natural in one in the passive state.
“Who are you?” I asked, fixing my eyes on his; “and why are you here?”
“I am the servant of Cazotl,” he replied in fairly good English; “and I have come here to look for gold hidden in this mountain.”
“Why did you attempt to carry off the white maiden?”
“She has the power of spirit-sight,” he said again. “A witch described her to us, and I have been looking for her for years among the Maoris. When I had found her my master came from Mexico, for she could tell us where the gold is hidden—many, many tons of gold—and sparkling stones.”
I was nonplussed. Was it merely a matter of gold after all? I paused and, while I paused, the match went out. As I drew another from my waistcoat pocket I heard a faint movement before me; it was very faint, but I heard it and stepped back. Then as the lucifer fizzed—I remember it was a double-headed one—I saw the negro in the act of springing towards me with arm uplifted and a small pointed thing in his hand. In a flash I saw that he had been shamming so as to take me unawares, that my dart had never struck him at all, that he had a spare one in his hand, that—but the end of this lightning grasp of the situation was finished in the air, and the whole was checked point by point beneath the water, for I had sprung aside into the lake to avoid the possibility of a prick with that poisonous thing. That spring saved me so far, and when I reached the surface, still grasping the reed tube, I realised it was now a level fight in the dark—a weird, subtle, creepy contest to be determined by a mere prick of the skin.
The hissing of the water as it welled up from below, laden with bubbles that burst all about me, made a cover of sound sufficient to conceal my movements from the listening ear of my enemy. Still I made no more noise than was necessary in reaching the margin. But in grasping the rock, which was scarcely a foot above the water, the tube in my hand came in contact with it and made a slight click. Instantly I pushed it back in my armpit, and made my way a yard or two further along, knowing that he must have heard the sound. My next move was to push off a little again and extract two darts from their places. With one I loaded the tube, and the other I retained in my left hand ready for use at close quarters. Then I held the rock with one finger and strained my ears to catch the faintest sound. The ceaseless seething of the water disturbed the silence as little as it lightened the utter darkness, and here in this terrible suspense I recalled a moment, not long since, when my arms had enclosed the form of Crystal not many yards away on the rock. At that time I had felt with a wild thrill of delight that the whole heaven of a world contained only us two, but now the same thing came over me with shudderings, and it was again as if the whole hell of a world held only the thing of evil and myself, both watching in the dark.
Suddenly something touched my finger on the rock. Instantly I threw myself back on the water and, raising the tube to my mouth, puffed a dart at a venture. No sound followed, and I cautiously approached the bank again at a different spot, loading the tube with my spare dart as I went. But a better idea occurred to me. A light would give me a great advantage, for, having the tube, I could fire from a short distance, while my antagonist could only strike at close quarters. I remembered that the smouldering punk was kept near the heap of pinehearts in the recess in the wall; perhaps with care I should be able to get a light before I was seen. Accordingly I struck out across the lake, guessing the direction as nearly as I was able, and finally grasped the rock at a distance which conveyed to me the idea that I had cut off a considerable arc of the lake’s circumference. With great care, and a horrible feeling that at any moment I might feel the prick of the skin which would place me and everything else in the power of the wizard, I raised myself on to the ledge and groped along the wall to find the recess. The vividness with which I could see my surroundings—all except the position of my enemy—in my mental eye, surprised me: yes, the recess should be just here; no, it was not there, and for a moment I grew giddy and lost my bearings. I recalled myself with an effort, and continued my way. Suddenly I stopped, and selecting another dart from the tube, held it at arm’s length before me with one hand, while I felt the wall with the other, and suspended the tube from between my teeth. It seemed hours before I found the recess, and hours more before I crouched, with the punk in one hand and a torch in the other, gently blowing to get a flame; and all that time I endured the most frightful suspense lest the light, carefully as I sheltered it in the furthest corner of the recess, should be seen too soon.
At last the pineheart ignited, and the resinous wood began to hiss and blaze. I held it aloft, and placing the tube ready to my lips, advanced on to the side of the lake. The light fell on the swelling bosom of the water, on the rocky wall above, and on the narrow margin at my feet, but I could not see any enemy at first. Yet I knew I had now the best of the situation, and proceeded boldly round towards the basin. When I had gone some dozen paces I stopped suddenly, for there was the figure of the wizard crouching down on the ledge, with his eyes fixed on the water and his arm upraised as if about to strike. He seemed unconscious of the light, and, as I advanced nearer, remained fixed in the same position. Had the dart I fired before striking across the lake reached its mark, or was this another piece of cunning? I drew still nearer, covering him with the tube, and saw that his frame was rigid, while on his set face there rested a look of the most diabolical hatred.
I was not in a mood to trust to appearances, however, and, to make certain, I puffed another of his own poisoned darts at him. It pierced his shoulder, but he did not move. Then I realised that at last he was at my mercy.
I passed behind him, told him to stand up and follow me, for my voice was the only thing, and he would obey it. He prepared to follow me like a dog.
“Throw away that dart,” I said, pointing to the small thing he still held in his hand.
He did so without any hesitation.
“Now follow.”
I went before him with the torch, past the landing-place, and on to the rim of the basin, where I made him proceed first to the outer lip.
“Stand there on the very brink and do not move from it,” I said, and held the torch so that he could see.
He obeyed. Now I would have the truth, for I was convinced the information he had volunteered before was false. I drew near him and stood at his side.
I said, “Again, who are you? Speak, and speak the truth, and nothing but the truth.”
No sooner had I spoken than I heard the most extraordinary scheme of echoes imaginable. My last word—truth, multiplied from crag to crag about the vaulted roof, ended in strange gurgling sounds, in which the meaning was wholly lost. I had not heard this echo from any other spot of the cavern, and I wondered if this, too, was a mysterious device of the ancient giants, or whether it was one of Nature’s more accurate calculations, with mighty pebbles, in acoustics. When the wailing sounds had almost died away the wizard answered:
“I am one of the Brotherhood of Huo,” he spoke in deep, hollow tones, “and I have come here at their command to carry out their will—to degrade and destroy one who threatens their power in the world.”
“What is their power? Answer from your own knowledge and intelligence.”
The terms in which he answered astonished me; they were those of a man well versed in occult things.
“The power of the Brotherhood of Huo is the power of the Single Eye looking downwards. They strive for what men call Evil—Pure Evil; and when they attain it, they become one with all Evil on the earth, with increased powers to further it.”
“And why,” I asked, “why was it worth your while to come half-way round the world to do this particular piece of evil?”
“It was revealed to us in the great mirror of the Daughter of Darkness, whom we worship, that the ancient spirit of Hia would return to this temple with a magic sign of motherhood which would undo our work in the world. Cazotl, our chief, and I, his servant, then came to degrade and darken the maiden Hia, so that she might forget, as other women have forgotten, this sign which threatens our power. But the magic of this place is stronger than ours: Cazotl was overpowered by his own evil flung back on him by one stronger than our strongest—one who must have mastered our own magic to do it. Many of our number have set out to find the magic which controls our own in this place, but none of them has ever returned. I, too, was struck and crawled away to die, but recovered, and came here to find Hia and destroy her.”
“The sign is already given,” I said. “Hear me and understand: the sign of motherhood, of birth and remembering, is already given. What does that mean to you?”
“It means that our power is doomed. Our ancient enemies, the giants in what men call Good, will be born again upon the earth. These strong ones can only come back by means of the pure white magic of the woman. It has been the aim of our Brotherhood from earliest times to bind woman down in darkness, to narrow her mind, to degrade and blind her lest she should recall this magic. But now the sign is given, and we are doomed.”
“And what is your punishment?”
“We have no punishment,” he said. “Punishment exists only for those who have a spark of good left in them. We have severed all connection with that. Remorse, the hell of those who vacillate between good and evil, has no existence for us.”
“But you can suffer physical pain?” I exclaimed.
“Yes; pain and pleasure are in our bodies,” he replied.
“Then before you go out into darkness”—my words hissed out in a voice that sounded strange to my own ears—“you must suffer. You cannot act except in obedience to my voice; but you are conscious, acutely conscious in all your body, to feel what my words will work in you. You cannot stir from this spot, neither can you move a limb nor yet cry out. Servant of the Vile Brotherhood of Huo, hear your punishment. You have a raging fire in your vitals, so that your blood seethes and hisses through your veins. For one hour as we count time, this fire will rage through your being with the most horrible pain. In the darkness before you, you will see the face of a great timepiece, and every second as marked there shall seem to you like the time that passes between sunset and sunset, fully stretched out and crammed with agony. Yet you will neither faint nor fall, but endure the whole.”
My voice was the voice of cursing, and, as the last words echoed round the cavern walls and finally died away on shapeless granite lips in the high vaults overhead, I recoiled at the awful nature of the thing I had uttered. The torch fell from my fingers; then, in the darkness that ensued, I staggered and fell backwards into the water in the great basin.
I struck out for the rim, but no sooner had I drawn myself up than I was startled by another voice than my own in the darkness near by.
“Ngha! the lizard looks in vain into Ngaraki’s eyes,” it said fiercely.
At the sound, I knew that the terrible chief, having, in consideration of the indignity heaped upon him, accepted utu26 from Tu, the war-god; and, having, moreover, left a full receipt and acknowledgment thereof on the cracked and battered heads of his foes outside, had now just come in by the ‘way of the fish.’ I heard him shake the water from his hair and climb on to the ledge. The drops dripped, pattering on the rock as he stood up, and then his quick footfalls passed away round the margin of the lake. Presently I saw a faint glow in the recess, and in another minute he came out holding a blazing torch above his head, and stood looking across the lake towards the abyss. But the light of the torch did not carry far enough, and he passed with rapid strides round the further side.
When he reached the ledge by the partition between the lake and the abyss, and held his flaring torch out and gazed forward at the empty air where the spar had been, a wild yell of triumph came from his great chest, ringing like a clarion through the spaces of the cavern above and below. Hinauri had hurled the long spar and the rolling stone down upon the heads of his granite enemies of old time in the pit. His meré, still in his hand, was whirled again and again round his head. Then his furious outburst was checked and, with a sudden fierce pant of the breath like an escaping throb of energy at bursting pressure, he stood still. He would take it more methodically. A high triumph over the broken heads of the Vile Tohungas of the Pit was now for him, and he would hold that triumph in due form. This was in his manner as the meré shook fiercely in his grasp, and he turned and strode, with head held high, along the path that led down into the abyss.
I knelt on the rock and watched him go, while my heart went out to him across the gulf. More than ever, the heroic bearing, the grand, fierce spirit, the noble and graceful dignity of this savage had my admiration. I would go and witness his triumph and hear the words he would speak to the Vile Tohungas.
Carefully I made my way round the lake, lighted another torch in the recess, and proceeded after Ngaraki; but when I came to the ledge where he had stood I began to wonder if the wizard negro on the other side of the abyss was suffering all the torture I had suggested. I stopped and pondered my doubt awhile. At last I determined to speak to him across the darkness, for the light of the torch fell short, and I could not see him standing there on the basin’s rim.
“Servant of the Brotherhood of Huo,” I called, “listen! my voice is the only thing. You cannot move from where you stand nor can you fall forward into the darkness, but your tongue is loosened for me to hear what you suffer and——”
But I proceeded no further, for as the words left my lips there came out of the darkness on the further side a sudden harsh roar, rising to a shriek, that seemed to strike and grate against the rocks of the gloomy place, wringing harsh echoes of an indescribable agony from their time-worn sides, and calling hollow murmurs of woe out of the abysmal abode of the Vile Tohungas. Weirder and more terrible came the cries of the tortured wizard, mingled with articulate gnashing of words that sounded like curses in a barbarous tongue. From the echoes of his cries the whole place seemed filled with the shrieking and moaning and dismal wailing of the vile ones of far time come back to be torn by fiends in the darkness. Had every granite facet of every crag on the walls and roof of that terrible place been a rack on which was stretched a living, shrieking victim, the effect could not have been more awful. My God! What had I done! Who was I to judge this man? The voice of mercy rose up in my soul, and I thought to retrace my steps in the hope of undoing this horrible curse, but before I could turn to carry out my purpose a strange thing happened. A chill blast of air came from across the abyss and struck my face. A thrill shot down my spine. My flesh crept and my hair rose. Then, far within my brain—it seemed to come from an immeasurable distance—a voice spoke, “Let him alone! it is our will, the will of the One above us. Who are you to show mercy when we, the Lords of Compassion, have set our seal to this man’s doom?”
I passed my hand across my forehead: it was cold and wet. Awed and full of tremblings, I turned and walked swiftly towards the giants’ window, hurrying away from those awful sounds which were still ringing in my ears like the imagined cries of hell. In the twilight that pushed the thick darkness back from the huge grating, I partly recovered myself and stood for a moment on the sill, looking out. I wanted a breath of air—some tonic sign of human life from the outside world, and chance gave it me in a small sweetened draught, for which I was thankful.
It came in this way. While I was looking out into the blue sky and listening to the faint music of the wind across the great stone bars, I heard a murmur of voices without, speaking in low tones. I set down my torch and stepped outside to listen. The sounds came from behind the rock on my left. It was the sweet, plaintive, happy-sad voice of a woman that spoke:
“And through all these long years you have forgotten me. I have had no existence to you, no part in your life, no place in your heart. I know the reason of it only too well, dear—Te Makawawa offered me the same forgetfulness, but I would not.” The owner of this voice evidently knew nothing of the terrible things which had just taken place in the interior of the cavern.
“I had no option,” replied a man’s voice, which I knew to be Grey’s; “but I did not wholly forget. Many times in the day and night a strange reminiscence of a tender face flitted across my memory like the face of an angel I might have seen long ago in dreams. They called me ‘Dreamer Grey,’ because at odd times I would stop in what I was saying or doing, and look into the air, trying to follow this fleeting glimpse which was all I knew of some forgotten heaven. But, as I told you just now, the memory of these intervening years is fading away, and I recall these things but dimly. It is beginning to seem but yesterday when I came with you a prisoner to this place. Strange—but I almost think that soon those eighteen years without you will be crowded out, and I shall take up my life again where I left it off—my old life and my old love for you, dear.”
The voice ceased and a happy sigh, breathed all about the one word “Husband!” fell upon my ears. It dismissed the faint, far-off wailings that came from the interior of the mountain; it swept away even the consciousness that I was playing the part of a paltry listener. When this did occur to me some time later the lump that had risen in my throat, and the mist that had gathered in my eyes seemed to take away the paltriness of my part.
Again the sigh, again the tender word as the happy wife replied: “When you saw my face it was when I, too, paused in what I was doing or woke from sleep and stretched out my arms to you. Oh! how I have loved you night and day through all these long years of my imprisonment, and now we are together again, never to be sep——”
The voice stopped, arrested perhaps by some sudden doubt.
“What is it, dearest?”
“You told me just now”—her words had a ring of pain in them—“that your old memory was coming back and the intervening years were slipping away.”
“Yes, they are almost gone. It seems as if some powerful hand is slackening its hold on my brain, and long-forgotten memories are flooding in and taking up their old places. Even now the eighteen years is a mere blank covered with flitting dreams.”
As I listened I remembered the aged chief’s words concerning the spell he had cast over Grey, and a strange thought came to me. I said within my breath, “Te Makawawa is dying. His aged face is turned to the golden west. Soon the lights of heaven will come out in the depths of the sky; soon the eyes of the great chiefs gazing down to see what noble needs are done among mortals will be opened, and Te Makawawa’s eye will shine there—a new star.”
But Miriam Grey spoke again, and her voice was like a moan of pain.
“Dear husband, tell me—I did not think of it before—and forgive me for thinking of it now—but when you forgot me—forgot that—that you ever had a wife, dear—did you—was there anyone——”
“Good God!” said Grey suddenly, “it’s too late; it’s all a blank—I remember nothing—nothing!”
And then I knew that the aged chief Te Makawawa was dead.
“No, it can’t be,” she cried, in answer to his words. “I should have seen it in your face before. I am certain it can’t be; I should have felt it. Dear husband! take me in your arms again and call me wife. No one has ever come between us.”
“And no one ever shall,” he replied.
In the silence that followed I withdrew, and when the manifold sound of agony and wailing, coming out of the far darkness of the interior, again fell upon my ears, I felt toned up to endure it. But another voice, rising up out of the abyss, high and jubilant, told me that Ngaraki was there holding his grim triumph. I picked up my torch and made my way down.
When at last my feet found the great granite steps at the bottom of the vast place, I saw lights flickering below. The chief was preparing many torches and placing them all about, chanting in measured tones the while. I put out my own light and crept down almost to the lowest step, where I stood and witnessed a scene of a savage drama so wild and strange that I must lay down my pen awhile before attempting to describe it.
On the floor of the abyss was a mighty wreck. The falling spar had snapped the heads from the shoulders of the vile brood, and here and there a granite torso, topping the ruins, indicated the semicircle where they had once stood looking up at the moon, each nursing his stomach and curling his lips in that everlasting smile of calm disdain. One image alone was spared—and he stood apart facing the white gleam of the cataract and looking up through the dark with his back turned upon the colossal débris: the Twelfth Tohunga remained untouched, and, at his feet, not far from the abyss below the abyss, was the great round stone, still unbroken.
About the more open spaces of the floor between the shattered ruins and the sheer wall of the abyss moved Ngaraki—a tall figure clad only in his undergarment of tasselated flax, girded fast about his waist with a warrior’s belt. As he paced to and fro he chanted. Then, whirling his meré round his head, he danced and yelled like a very savage. His voice rose high with jubilant rage; it was his hour of triumph, and the fury of it was appalling. The blazing torch in one hand, the green flashing meré in the other, and his wild, illustrative gestures from the war-dance invested him with all the terrors of savagery. But always there was the dignity and masterly movement of the chief. To me, who loved this great Tohunga, it was a grand spectacle; to me, who feared him, it was awe-inspiring, terrible. And through it all, yet heard only in the pauses of the chant, there came the wailing shrieks and gnashing cries of the wizard standing far up there in the darkness on the basin’s rim.
In the midst of his wild vehemence the chief espied one of the heads lying face uppermost on the floor. Its glaring red eyes and the sneer upon its lips infuriated him on a sudden. In one spring he was upon it, and, with two mighty blows, each accompanied by a terrific yell, he brought red sparks from that Vile Tohunga’s eyes, and then broke forth in a wilder strain than ever. To my wrought mind the whole thing suggested a symphonic music scored by some Grand Devil of a Master, whose gamut ran from hell to heaven, whose instruments went raving mad in the rendering, whose world was earthquake and eclipse, with the lightning flashing through the dark, and the thunder of the storm gods roaring round him. Built on a bass of gloom, the triumphant strain of Ngaraki, the ghoul-motive of the shrieking wizard, the sad murmur of the rising wind in the giants’ window, and, above all, the unheard part called up here and there in the chief’s chanting: his love-strain of Hinauri—these were running through my prosaic soul in a way which hinted that perhaps the fate in store for me was to go forth from that awful place madder than that “some Grand Devil of a Master” himself.
After a full half-hour at this initial outburst, the fierce tohunga became more coherent. He calmed his wild gesticulations and paced to and fro striving to reduce his feelings to poetry—the poetry of a life’s labour and final triumph. There was a clear ring in his voice as he began his more ordered chant. His soul swelled with his voice, and I knew he felt like a whole victorious army marching steadily in column. His words came “straight from his breast” with that fluency so wonderful in the Maori tongue:
“Ngha! none can stand.
Headlong have they fallen.
The Vile Tohunga eat the dust
Their cursing power is gone.
They thought to bind the Bright One—
With a Stone they thought to bind her,
But she arose in all her beauty:
Hinauri, Rival of the Dawn,
Lovely as the mountain lily.
See! she leaps above the darkness.
Lo! the stone rolls from its place.
Down it falls, in anger roaring
Like the voice of Tongariro,
Like the waves that crash in thunder
On the cliffs of Waitariki.
Now it strikes the Vile Tohunga;
Snaps their heads from off their bodies—
Grinds them into many pieces.
Ngha! the magic of Hinauri!
Ngha! the cursing of Ngaraki!”
And so he went on, until he had fashioned their teeth into fish-hooks and their bones into darts to shoot rats; until he had plucked out their eyes and boiled their heads and eaten them in the course of a chant in which he summoned all his Maori ancestors by name to come and partake of the feast. Then he sought out each available head and triumphed over it separately, smiting with his meré until the sparks came again. After that he seemed searching for a head that was missing. For a long time he wandered about with his meré ready. At last he found what he was looking for—a head that had rolled away to the brink of the abyss below the abyss—the head of his most hated foe, the chief of the Vile Tohungas. He looked at it with high contempt; then crash! and crash! and the red eyes flashed for the last time. Crash! again, and the leering lips spat blood of fire.
He paused. An idea had occurred to him. He glanced at the awful pit that yawned hard by, then at his enemy’s head, and then at the great round stone
some little distance behind. I saw plainly that he would hurl the Vile One’s head into the bottomless pit, to be boiled and eaten in Porawa, and, when he had done that, he would roll the great stone on top of it to keep it down for ever and ever and ever. Having thrown aside his meré, and set his torch against the base of the Twelfth Tohunga, he placed his shoulder to the gigantic head, and put forth all his strength. Slowly it moved; for some time he rocked it backwards and forwards until at last he raised it on its side, and there, with a firm hand, he held it poised upon the very brink.
It was a great day for Ngaraki. It was not a day for beating his meré on the ground, but for plucking the very eyes and boiling the very heads of the gaunt images which were his hated foes. And now in a supreme moment he stood on the brink of Porawa with his arch enemy’s head in his hand. He looked into the awful depths, and would have chanted his crowning triumph. But words would not come. How could he chant on such a theme without striding up and down? All he could do was to express his utmost and fiercest contempt for the head of the Degrader of Women and all his brood.
“Ngha! Upokokohua!” and with his foot he spurned the head from him. Down, down it went into the silent darkness, and the chief, always willing to give his enemy the right of reply, leaned over the brink and listened. A minute passed, but there was no answer. All was as silent as the everlasting grave of things forgotten, save for the unfolding of the falling water, save for the wailing shrieks, now growing fainter, of the wizard far away above. I could see from Ngaraki’s listening attitude that no sound came up from the unfathomable gloom.
“Upokokohua!”27 This is the final word of Maori invective—an insult invocative of the utmost depths of everlasting shame. And it was in a terrible voice of cursing that Ngaraki hurled it down a second time after his fallen enemy. Then he turned to the round stone. A glance showed that it would be a tremendous task, but his face and manner told plainly that he would roll that stone upon his enemy’s head if it took till sunrise to do it. The floor was level; if anything it sloped a little in the desired direction, and if once he could start the stone he would probably accomplish his object.
He went down into the shadows of the gulf, and soon returned with a long jade-tipped spear in his hand. With this he made two rough places in the granite in which to place his heels for a better purchase. Then, setting his back against the stone, he put forth the strength of a giant, but the stone did not move. He sprang up with a shout, snatched up his spear, and paced swiftly to and fro, chanting a karakia, naming the Samsons of his race, and telling of their mighty exploits.
Again he returned to the task and bent himself against the stone. By the light of the flaring torches I saw his face distinctly, the veins standing out upon his forehead, his nostrils distended. For a full minute he put forth his utmost strength, adding the power of will to that of sinew. The great stone began to move. It rolled slightly and stopped. Ngaraki straightened himself again, panting, and paced the floor to chant for the strength of a thousand men.
But the strength of a thousand is nothing compared to the power of one who knows the way. It might have been this idea that struck him, for he dropped his pacing and walked round the huge mass taking thought. There was a space of six or seven yards between the stone and the brink of the gulf, and this space, like all the rest, was strewn with the dust and grit of ages. Eagerly he set to work, and, with one tool and another, he scraped and polished the granite floor. At last the way was fairly smooth, and he seemed satisfied, but, instead of placing his back to the stone as before, he went off to search for something he had seen among the débris of the spar. It was the sprit that had snapped on the rocky ledge far above, and was now lying on the top of the ruins. It was still long enough for Ngaraki’s purpose. His ideas were enlarged. The sprit and the spar, with which he had controlled the round stone in its movements above the abyss, were still to his hand for a lever. And, to his mind—and mine—it was a fit and mystic thing that such symbols of his conquest and adaptation of the giants’ handiwork should now be used to roll the stone—their image of the ancient world—upon the already parboiled head of their mighty one.
So with a fragment of spar for fulcrum, he used the remains of the sprit as a lever against the stone, toiling at it steadfastly, until at last the great round mass rolled over the brink and disappeared for ever in the awful depths. Standing on the brink, the Maori hurled the fragment of the spar after it, and the sprit also; then, not satisfied with that, he took his spear and meré and sent them hurtling down with a cry of farewell—almost of lament—to each.
It was over, and he turned to take his torch. As his hand closed over it he gave a sudden start. There, on a ledge of the pedestal of the Twelfth Tohunga, something was looking at him. By the horror-struck face of the chief I guessed it was something of a terrible nature that he saw there. Then, by an exclamation of his, I knew that it was one of the little green lizards that run upon the rocks. The chief and the lizard remained motionless, face to face, and their eyes met. That was a death summons according to the Maori lore—a call to Reinga distinct and clear. I knew how it filled him with serious thoughts, which the excitement of triumph had banished from his mind, how Hinauri’s words recurred to him, and, finally, how a nameless foreboding took possession of him as he recalled his own part in the fight—a foreboding lest the vague alternative mentioned by the Bright One should have been realised, and he should be doomed to look for her in vain. Alas! he had not stayed the violence. He had left war and knife behind him at her feet, and had snatched them up again in the pa. With one gesture of despair the whole tide of his thought and feeling turned from his late triumph to the person of his goddess. He would go and search for her. It was at that moment the shrieking of the wizard suddenly died away. His hour of punishment was over. Ngaraki’s had just begun.
Driven by a vague fear, the fierce ariki hastened up out of the abyss, and I, going before, remained in the shadow of one of the crags, where the path turned back upon itself, until he had passed me. On, past the giants’ window, along the level path, and by the place where the spar had stood, he went with long strides, his movements quickening with a growing anxiety. When he came to the lake he mounted the stone near the rim, flung his torch away behind him, and plunged into the depths. I reached the spot and took up the torch and waited. Again the lake heaved and twisted with the movement of great things below, and again the black head of the stone under water rose above the surface. Then the hollow thunder reverberated above, and the cascade came roaring down from the darkness overhead. He had gone by the ‘way of the winged fish,’ and I would follow by the rope.
I found it without trouble, and unhitched it from the rock, but the tube which I still held in my hand was a difficulty in the way of climbing. What should I do with it? From that my thoughts wandered to the wizard; what should I do with him? I passed round the lake to see if he was still there, thinking as I went that it would simplify matters if he had fallen forward over the brink. But when I gained the basin’s rim he was still standing as I had left him.
I stopped. It was enough. He might be dead, he might be living—I would leave it at that. If dead, his wickedness was over; if living, it was not safe to free him from the poisonous spell which held his will in an iron grip. Besides, after my eerie experience of the voice in my brain, I was disinclined to have anything more to do with him. When the poison had lost its power, no doubt he could fall forward into the abyss and add one item to the lumber of ages on the granite floor below.
With these thoughts I left him and hurried after Ngaraki. When I had succeeded in throwing my torch up on to the vantage ground above, I climbed the rope, and then drew it up after me, for where that wizard thing was concerned I was certain of nothing. I was anxious to overtake Ngaraki, and ran on and on through the lofty tunnels, until at length I came to the Place-of-Many-Chambers.
Just as I was passing through into the tunnel beyond, I stopped, for I saw, through the opening of one of the side chambers, two figures standing together. They were Kahikatea and Hinauri. Her hands were clasped in his, and she was looking up at him, while he, with drooped head, was speaking to her. They were both oblivious of all else but each other. Even my flickering torchlight did not rouse them.
“Till death do us part?” he said.
“Nay, Kahikatea,” she returned, “for ever and ever. Here, in this very place, in an age gone by did I plight my troth to you, and here again——”
I dashed on, the light of my torch blurred before my eyes, up through the tunnel towards the marble cave, whither I knew the chief had gone. When I came to the hewn steps I saw him striding before me; I flung aside my torch and followed, gaining the uncertain border of daylight and darkness, whence I could see into the cave, just as he reached the entrance.
There before him stood the statue of Hinauri, immovable, silent, all white, with arms outstretched. With a quick step he stood before her and looked into her eyes. There was no colour there. The living hues had fled. The tohunga’s lips quivered. He stretched forth a hand and touched her reverently upon the arm. It was cold stone.
Then despair crowded in upon his heart, and a terrible sorrow came upon his face. Anguish drew deep lines beneath his eyes, and the power of his presence dropped from him. His great chest shook convulsively, and he gave way to a grief as awful to behold as his savage triumph in the abyss. He prostrated himself at her feet and mingled the tears of his agony with the white dust of the floor. Raising himself upon his knees, he held up his arms and implored her to come back. With bitterness he reproached himself as the cause of this sad end to all his hopes. His words grew fierce against himself. He raved wildly, and addressed heart-broken appeals to the statue; but Hinauri answered not, nor pitied the Maori in his grief.
At last it was driven home into his tortured soul that the end had come. He had failed to do her bidding, and she was changed again to stone for ever. He stayed his wild woe and stood motionless, his face calm, his form erect, and in his eyes the splendid sadness of a god in pain. As he stood there the aspect of Zun the Terrible deepened on him. The sorrowful longing on the face of the Twelfth Tohunga was his again.
I could not stand there and look calmly on when a word of mine might explain the trick that had been unwittingly played upon him. My foot was on the step before me, and I was about to rush forward, when again a cold blast of air struck me in the face, again the thrill darted down my spine; my flesh crept and my hair rose. I was rooted to the spot. Then, far within my brain, the Great Tohungas of the Earth spoke a second time: “Let him alone! It is our will—the will of the One above us. This man is worthy of correction—may you be as worthy in your sin. In ages past, to trick the giants of evil, he substituted the False for the True, to protect the True; and now it comes back upon him in like manner, and he is tricked. Let him alone!”
Such words as these took shape within me, and I could neither speak to him nor move to his aid. As I stood shuddering helplessly, his mood changed, and he began to pace fiercely up and down the cave, passing and re-passing through the broad flood of twilight that came through the opening, and fell upon the face of the marble image.
“Ngha! she has withdrawn into the sky,” he said. “I will go to her, and she shall not return when I am one. It is but a stone that is here. It shall not remain. The world shall see the Bright One no more. It is the end; it is the end.”
He disappeared in the darkness of the inner cave, and came out again with a weapon, a heavy meré of the broad-leaf kind. Whirling this above his head, he paced to and fro, again chanting the long toil of his life. Now he stopped before the image and whirled the weapon within an inch of the lovely face.
“None other shall chant your loveliness,” he cried fiercely, and yet there was worship in his aspect; “none other shall say, ‘She came again at my bidding.’ Oh! Hine-tu-a-hoanga—sacred stone on which I sharpened my curses to cleave the heads of the Vile Ones—you are as a house that shall not stand. And this great house that holds your house shall be closed for ever.”
At this point I was sure of his purpose, and resolved to go in search of Hinauri herself in the Place-of-Many-Chambers. She would stay his hand if I could not.
The thrall that held my feet relaxed as I turned to descend. More fierce and high the chant of Ngaraki sounded behind me as I went. My torch was still burning where I had left it, and I picked it up to hurry on through the tunnels, sick with a vague fear that, as Hinauri had said, she and the stone had but one spirit between them; that the tohunga’s ancient magic, which had glanced from the granite Cazotl to the real, might—I fled on, striving to run away from the terrible thought. The chanting voice still reached me faintly through the high tunnels as I emerged into the Place-of-Many-Chambers. My God! What was that? A crash! and a yell! and another crash! echoing down through the tunnels from the marble cave above. My God! What was this? A woman’s shriek! a moan! and another shriek! coming from the chamber towards which I was hastening.
As I staggered forward I saw Kahikatea supporting the form of Hinauri drooping on his arm. Her face was as white as the stone image I had left in the marble cave. Yet another yell and another crash echoed faintly down the tunnels, and a tremor ran through the fair form, as Kahikatea sank upon a rock and supported her head upon his knee.
“She is dying, Warnock,” he said, in a voice of anguish, gazing down into her lovely face, while I held the torch so that the light fell upon it. The long lashes showed very black against the pale cheek, and her whole face and neck, to her cross-girt, white-robed bosom, showed too deadly white against the enveloping cloud of her hair. It was not a mere swoon.
“Yes,” I replied hoarsely, and the torchlight trembled as it fell on the rocks of the chamber, “it is death.”
As we gazed in too great agony for words, Hinauri’s dark eyes opened, her bosom rose and fell, and a sweet smile rested upon her lips as she looked up into Kahikatea’s face.
“Be patient, my lord!” she said, raising one arm and placing her hand against his cheek, “it is but a little time since we planned our work in this world, and now I have to go. It is hard, my love—but raise me up—it is sweet even to die upon your breast.” He raised her while she placed her arms about his neck and nestled to him.
“When I am gone,” she murmured, “take this poor body out on to the roof of the mountain, and there, on the shore of the crystal lake that stands against the sky——”
A low groan of agony came from Kahikatea, and she ceased!
“Be patient, my lord,” she said again, drawing his head down and raising her lips to his. “Hasten the world on to the brighter day when we shall meet again—kiss me, love, I am going.”
Their lips met. A shiver of joy ran through her last breath. Her head drooped forward and lay on Kahikatea’s shoulder, shrouded in her hair. Hinauri had withdrawn into the sky, and at that moment I stood like a stone among the everlasting stones, and asked myself, What is this world of many shows, of glimpses, and flitting shadows? And the answer came from the depths of my despair: A desolation of nothingness, a barren waste where the bright dead moon smiles down on the sapless ruin of things once living as herself; where the wild wind wails like a planetary spirit come back to view the scene of its buried hopes. To me this was a world where nothing mattered, and I scarcely know why I moved forward to Kahikatea and placed my hand upon his arm. Perhaps it was with a confused consciousness that his sorrow was even greater than mine. I strove to speak his name, but a throb of grief choked it back. My friend sat with his dead love in his arms, gazing straight before him. I shook him gently, and he looked up with speechless agony on his face. I saw his desire to be left alone with his pain, and stood away.
At that moment I caught sight of a light descending through the tunnels. It drew near, and I saw Ngaraki striding down. He came on and emerged into the Place-of-Many-Chambers. I almost barred his passage as I stood there with my torch, but he did not see me. His flashing eyes were too bright for the calmness of his bearing. Despair was on his face; a quick thought told me that I might increase it, but that thought passed away, and the feeling that nothing mattered was stronger than ever upon me. I stood and watched him like one sleep-walker watching another. He approached the strange-looking lever—the device of the giants, whose purpose in placing it there had been handed down through the ages.
“It is the end,” he said sadly, as he raised the tapering arm.
It swung to the roof and then fell back and struck the floor. I knew then that the great rolling stone that had rested on the weight of the lever was now speeding into the deep gulf below, on the gloomy errand it was designed to execute. The openings of this vast temple would be closed for ever—yes, but it did not appeal to me with any force; it was a matter of no consequence now, for who wanted to go out into that waste place called the world? I did not, and I was certain Kahikatea did not. Yet I noted the hollow rumblings that followed the fall of the stone, and wondered wearily what would happen.
Ngaraki passed down through a side tunnel, and I returned to the place where Kahikatea still sat with his dead. After gazing at the scene awhile I withdrew again, mindful of my friend’s unexpressed desire to be left alone. Then Grey and Miriam floated into my mind; since I could do nothing else I could at least see that they were safe. Acting on this thought, I made my way down through the main tunnel, and at length reached the vantage ground high up in the wall above the lake. The cascade was silent again. Ngaraki had gone down by ‘the way of the winged fish’ beneath the water. Presently there was a flickering light below, and soon afterwards the chief, bearing a torch, passed round the lake and paused upon the ledge above the abyss. As mechanically and wearily as I had found my way down to this point, I now stood and watched him.
Pacing to and fro upon the rocky ledge, he chanted his last karakia—a lament in which the poetry of his despair struggled through all his fierceness.
“Ihungarupaea! Hine-nui-o-te-po! Thou art hurled down, a sunken rock.
“Thou canst not rise. Shattered into fragments; never will your dust be gathered from its everlasting grave.
“Hinauri, Rival of the Dawn! thou too art gone for ever.
“Alas! what melting sorrow fills my breast to overflowing.
“Hinauri, Daughter of the Light! for whom I cursed and toiled—for whom I waited all my life—for whom my bosom yearned with love, alas! thou too art gone.
“The gentle brooks of Marahau poured laughter down the sunlit slopes—ran glad with songs to Tinirau—with love songs to the Ocean Lord.
“But now their waters flow like tears—while on Kaiteriteri’s shore the penguin wails with sobbing cry—
“Tears of Rangi and of Papa flowing to the lake of tear-drops where the waves of woman’s weeping rise against the sky.
“Hush! those billows roll for ever, swollen with our lifelong tears—
“On and on into the distance till they break in lamentations on the far off Sacred Isle—
“Break with many mourning voices at the feet of Tinirau—
“Kiss those feet with sobbing tidings: Hinauri is no more.
“She will never come again. No distant dawn will bear her feet, no sun ray bring her back to life.
“Alas! Alas! the wild white crane against the cloud a moment shows her shining wing, then all is dark and all is lost.”
He paused for a moment on the brink of the abyss—a torchlight picture framed in the gloom of his ancient temple. For a moment his eyes were raised as if his glance could pierce through the darkness and beyond the cavern’s roof; then his voice rang out again in fiercer tones:
“She stays not! neither will I stay! I’ll fling me to the dark! Ngha!
“Down, down into the black abyss, that I may gain the sparkling stars and look into her eyes once more.”
As a soul plunges down into the world of spirits from the heights of gloomy Reinga, so he hurled himself headlong into the abyss, lighting the way to death with his blazing torch. The sight of it wrung a cry from me. I slid down the rope and made my way to the brink of the abyss, where I leaned forward, gazing into the darkness. Far down a light burns still and clear—a night-lamp by a hero’s bedside. For a moment I think I see its ray light up the image of Zun the Terrible, for ever gazing upwards through the night. The love that does not die is stamped upon the granite face. “I will return,” is graved indelibly upon his breast, and the hands that graved it are clasped above his heart. The leaping flame springs up, and all is dark again. Kia kotahi ki te Ao: kia kotahi ki te Po: Ngaraki is dead, but clings to Life in the darkness.
While I remained standing on the brink of the abyss, full of a savage pathos for the noble Maori chief, as well as with sorrow for his goddess, my ear caught something unusual. A dull roar came up from the depths, faint and far away; could it be that the overflow from the lake had found a bottom at last? I listened intently, and even as I did so the sound seemed to deepen. Was this the work of the rolling stone which Ngaraki had launched from the mysterious lever in the Place-of-Many-Chambers, or had the great round rock which he had rolled down after the Vile Tohunga’s head blocked the channel and dammed the water back?
Whatever was the cause, I soon came to the conclusion that the water was rising rapidly in the abyss below the abyss. It would fill the gulf, and then would flow out through the giants’ window into the fissure beyond. But while concluding the matter thus there came back into my mind the words of Te Makawawa in reference to the ancient tradition of the mysterious lever: “When it is raised all the ways of the temple will be closed.”
I was about to follow this matter up and see for myself, when there was a sound like a great gush of water in the lake as if another sluice gate had been unbarred in its depths. Then I heard the increase of the flood as it hissed and tore through the aperture in the partition and fell into the darkness of the abyss. Presently the change was marked again by a louder thunder from the depths. In the midst of this I heard a shout from the direction of the gulf. I hastened towards it, and, midway on the path that led to the giants’ window, encountered Grey and his wife. Grey, the man who had forgotten, looked into my eyes without the slightest sign of recognition and said:
“Look there! What is to be done? That is the way out—I travelled it quite lately—and it’s closing up—my wife tells me there are two more here besides yourself. Where are they?”
I followed the direction of his finger, and saw what startled me. The moon was just showing above the sill of the giants’ window, and its light glinted on the under surface of a tremendous hewn stone that had already descended half way down over the upright bars like a colossal shutter.
“I know what has happened,” Miriam Grey was saying hurriedly; “the lever in the heart of the mountain has been raised, and all the apertures will be closed. Where is Crystal—Hinauri—where is she?”
“High up in the mountain,” I said slowly, for I had not the heart to tell them that she was infinitely higher than the highest mountain on earth. “Kahikatea will take her up through the roof by the way he came down. There is yet time for you to escape by the giants’ window.” Turning to Grey I added, “You say there is a way?”
“Yes,” he replied; “I remember the way perfectly, but it requires a rope.”
I glanced at the opening which still remained as the great shutter seemed to be descending slowly, and guessed there was time.
“Wait here,” I said to Miriam, “and, for the present, good-bye. If we meet again it will be at Wakatu.”
There was much more to say, but no time to say it. I grasped her hand, and with “Follow me, Grey, I will find you a rope,” I turned away.
She was a brave woman. “Good-bye, and God bless you; I trust you with my child.” This was all she said as she stood there against the rock to wait for her husband’s return.
With all haste I hurried along the level path, followed by Grey. Round the buttress on to the margin of the lake we went, and there we came to a halt, for the water flung back from the fountain, which now rose several yards high in the centre of the lake, was washing over our feet. But the halt was only for a moment. Knee deep in the wash and ripple that swamped the margin, I led the way round until we reached the place where the rope was hanging. There I handed the torch to Grey and said: “Wait here; I will cut the rope above and throw it down.”
With feverish haste I climbed up, and, when I had gained the upper landing, drew my sheath knife and severed the rope.
“Hold your end and stand away round the wall,” I shouted down to Grey. “Stand away, and I will drop it.”
I heard his answer from below, signifying that I might heave it down. I did so, and then heard him call up: “But what about you?”
“Make haste,” I yelled down; “damn it all, make haste. Save your wife, never mind about me.” Well I knew that my life was worth very little either to myself or anybody else.
He made some reply which I could not catch, then shouted “Good-bye! good-bye!” and something else which was lost in the tumult of the lake below. I watched his torch disappear round the buttress, and then fell to gazing at the small stream of moonlight that now pierced through the darkness above the abyss. Would Grey and his wife get through the giants’ window before that ray was darkened altogether? I prayed that it might be so.
In less than three minutes I was sure of it, for something obstructed the ray for a moment, and then it shone on clear as before, though perceptibly less. They had passed through, and now in a few minutes the giants would close their window for ever.
But before the ray died out it fell above the outer lip of the huge basin, and revealed the form of the wizard negro still standing there spellbound.
What would be his end? I knew the abyss was filling; by the roar of the falling water I judged it was filling rapidly. The picture of that figure in the moonray standing, as soon he must, with nothing but his head above water, unable to stir hand or foot to save himself, moved me strangely. I would release him from his bondage and let him have at least a rat’s chance of drowning on his own responsibility. But I feared it was too late. Would he hear my voice against the roar of the waters? At least I could try. Standing up, I shouted to him across the intervening space:
“Servant of the Brotherhood of Huo! My voice is the only thing—you are free to save yourself if you can.”
He heard me. I saw him crouching down on the rock. Then, as the moonray dwindled away to nothing, there came from the darkness the same wild, unearthly laugh I had heard so often before. It echoed from a thousand crags in the walls and roof of the vast cavern, and was finally bandied about in the central vault like the voice of a fiend chuckling to himself. But he could do no harm now; sooner or later he must drown like any rat.
Louder and louder came the thundering roar from the abyss. The sound seemed to have risen several tones in pitch, and from this fact I strengthened my conclusion that the vast cavern was gradually filling. There was now no way out except that by which Kahikatea had come in—the ‘way of the spider.’ Should we scale that way, or should we sit in darkness, with the body of Hinauri between us, and wait while the rising water surged up through the tunnels and covered us? I thought the latter grim alternative would be the end; at least I felt like it as I turned and toiled again up through the tunnels.
The way was dark and I had no light now, but with slow and heavy footsteps, groping my way with both hands, I at last gained the Place-of-Many-Chambers. Even there all was dark and silent. I fell over the arm of the lever on the stone floor, and Kahikatea cried out, “Who goes there?”
“I, Warnock; strike a light—my matches are wet.”
As I gathered myself up I heard him strike a match on the rock, and, by its light as he held it up, saw that he was still sitting where I had left him, holding Hinauri to his breast. He did not speak; his face was set with grief, and I was moved with a great sympathy towards him. In the endeavour to show this I went up to him, and, placing my hand on his arm, looked into his eyes, saying nothing.
He understood. “Thank you, Warnock,” he said softly and sadly; “have you ever lost someone who was all the world to you—someone whose going left a dreary darkness, which you wrapped closer about you while longing for death?”
“Yes,” I replied slowly, “I have.” The match went out. My hand slid along to his, and they met in a clasp of silent sympathy. He did not know—I think he never knew—that the one I had lost was the one lying cold and still upon his breast.
“Stay here, Warnock,” he said presently; “stay here and lighten my darkness. I have given way beneath this load of grief, and must rouse myself. Stay here and talk; I will listen, and try to struggle up out of my black despair.”
“I will,” I said, though it occurred to me that my own feelings were scarcely such as would lighten anyone’s darkness. “But first give me the matches, and let’s dispel this outer gloom.”
He handed them to me, and I went in search of a pile of pineheart torches which I had seen on my first exploration of the place. I lighted one, and then carried an armful into the open space and set a light to them. Soon there was a blazing fire, which cast a ruddy glow on the rocky walls and ceiling of the Place-of-Many-Chambers. Tenderly Kahikatea disengaged the fair arms from about his neck, and, bearing the white form into the open space, laid it gently down upon the rocky floor not far from the fire. Her head rested upon the soft pillow of her floating hair, and her limbs fell into the beautiful pose of one who is sleeping sweetly. As I looked down at her peaceful face, and saw still resting upon it the last smile of joy that had marked her spirit’s flight, I could scarcely realise that she was dead.
Then Kahikatea and I sat down one on each side of her, but neither of us spoke; it was a kind of vigil, and I could not break its silence. I had made the fire, and that was all I could do towards lightening the darkness of my friend. But I will not say what thoughts came to me in the presence of the lovely dead. They were strange thoughts of another world, where, in some inexplicable way, eternal love means eternal possession of the thing loved, where beings that love the same are one with their beloved. But these are not thoughts we can explain.
I know not how long we sat there; it was probably a matter of hours, and we might have sat for other hours had not something aroused me. It was a vague shadow moving like a tentacle of the darkness about the opening of the lower tunnel.
“Who’s there?” I shouted sharply, and Kahikatea raised his head inquiringly.
The answer to my challenge came from a very long way off; it was the wild and hideous laugh of the wizard. I sprang to my feet and stood looking into the gloom, where all I could see of him was his eyes, which caught and reflected the glare of the fire. He was crouching in the shadows as I advanced towards him.
“Servant of the Vile Brotherhood of Huo,” I said, “you are no longer free to move; you are——”
But the harsh laugh, sounding again nearer than before, cut my words short, and I knew the power of the poison had passed. He was again the powerful agent of evil, a thing to be feared, and, if possible, to be strangled.
“Come out here!” I said, “and I will fight you on equal terms now that your infernal poisoned darts are gone. But, first, what are we to fight about? You have been punished, and Hinauri, the Bright One, is dead—her body lies there.” I pointed to the open space by the fire where Kahikatea sat almost unheeding by the side of his lost love.
The negro came out of the dark at my words and stood before me. I saw his eyes rove quickly over me, and they bore a devilish glint of triumph as he saw that his reed tube was not in my hand.
“We will fight for the body of the Bright One,” he said, “and when I have bound you I will bind your friend there. Then”—he concluded by pointing his skinny finger at the white form of Hinauri.
I ground my teeth, but, before I could spring at him, Kahikatea’s deep voice arrested me.
“Stop!” he cried, springing to his feet and coming forward with fingers crooked and brows let down; “it is my privilege to strangle this black villain, whoever he is.”