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The Greenstone Door

Chapter XXII Prisoner

page 311

Chapter XXII Prisoner

"Your name, friend?"

The speaker was a man of between forty and fifty, of a plain but not ill-natured countenance. I had no recollection of having seen him before, and I searched in vain among the ten or dozen of his followers for a familiar face.

I answered him, giving him the name by which I was commonly known among the Ngatimaniapoto.

"It is well," he said. "Waharoa1 has need of his little finger. Therefore have we come to guide you to him."

"Alas!" I replied. "It is a thing to be regretted that at this time my business is urgent."

"True," he agreed phlegmatically, "since it must necessarily wait until the affair of the chief is disposed of."

We gazed at one another steadily, with the result—so far as I was concerned—that I recognised this was not a man to be trifled with. "I am, then, your prisoner," I said at last.

He made a movement of deprecation. "The pakeha will walk at liberty in our midst," he said. "No hand shall be laid upon him, nor any indignity offered him."

I looked round the group and weighed my chances in a rush for liberty. Every man was armed and plainly on the alert. Even if they hesitated to shoot me down, there

1 This peculiar use of a great father's name when the son was intended was not unusual with the Maoris. Tamihana, the son of Waharoa, is here alluded to.

page 312was little hope of evading such a number in a country all but unknown to me. Nevertheless, a rage of impatience, hard to control, possessed me. "If," said I, "the chief of the Ngatihaua can wait two days, I will give you my undertaking to visit him at that time."

"That cannot be either," replied the leader; "your coming is already looked for."

"Well, my friend," I said bluntly, "I am afraid I must refuse to come"

His eye shot a warning signal around his followers and again returned to me. "The wisdom of the pakeha is in many men's mouths," he said, "but here it is not evident. The command of the chief must be obeyed." He paused, expectant of my answer, and clearly ready for action in the event of a further refusal. To have offered it would have merely involved me in an undignified and futile struggle, and I submitted.

"Lead on then," I said bitterly, "and let us get through with this business as quickly as we may."

The leader of the party expressed his satisfaction in my decision, adding that it would be well also that I should deliver up any arms I might be carrying. I told him that I had none, and he accepted the assurance on the instant. At a word of instruction the party began to advance; five or six natives went on in front, the leader and myself followed, the remainder of the troop bringing up the rear. Through the bush we moved in single file, but beyond the way was more open, enabling my captor to range up alongside. Meantime my thoughts had been busy, and recognising the futility of a display of ill-temper, I resolved to make myself as agreeable as possible.

"You are of the Ngatihaua tribe, friend?" I began.

"Those with me are of the Ngatihaua," he agreed; "but I myself am of the tribe of the Ngatimaniapoto."

"Indeed!" I said, wondering, for I had no recollection page 313of his face. "Then I am surprised you should make prisoner one who may claim to be a member of your tribe by adoption."

Again he protested against the use of the word "prisoner." It was an ill word wherewith to designate my amiable acceptance of Wiremu Tamihana's invitation. "I have been much away from the district, Little Finger," he continued, "and yet you and I have met before."

"Where?" I asked, regarding him more closely.

"At the runanga of the religions. Remember you that occasion? Ah, but you were fleet of foot and agile as an eel! Few might have escaped from that ordeal. I have many swift runners with me to-day," he added as an after-thought.

"They will need their swiftness, friend," I said, unable to resist the opening he gave me, "if this quarrel is proceeded with."

He accepted the jest with undiminished good-humour. "The bayonet," he remarked candidly, "is a thing to be avoided by persons of sense. The gun is good. The loading, the taking aim—bang! One enemy the less. That is a thing that warms and pleases. But the bayonet —Ugh! That is not a weapon to be used by Christian peoples."

"Then what of your tomahawk, friend?" I asked, indicating the short-handled, workmanlike tool he carried in his belt.

"That," he said, "is good. Sometimes the gun fails, but one blow of the sharp axe will release the suffering spirit and speed it on its way to Te Reinga."

"One blow does not always content," I said. "I have heard that the men of Taranaki struck again and again, till it was difficult to distinguish one dead man from another."

"It may be so," said he; "for all men are brutal page 314with their first killing. Who was to say what would suffice for the slaying of a pakeha? It was a new thing and a madness."

His words so probably contained the true explanation of a fact which had aroused the horror and indignation of the whites that I was silent.

"You pakeha are strange beings," he commented. "There is but one Death, though he wear a hundred faces. Is it a more beautiful thing that a man should lie screaming with his entrails pierced by your bayonets than that his skull should be cleft asunder and his face disfigured in the quick death of a Maori axe?"

I kept him in conversation, hoping to discover a clue to the reason why Tamihana had taken such pains to intercept me; but, though his manner was friendly in the extreme and he talked freely of the possibilities of the war, he was too wary to drop a hint of the matter immediately in hand. The chief desired to see me. He was not a great distance away. He would be gratified by my ready acceptance of the invitation. I might be at liberty to-morrow or the next day or the day after. There was no hurry. All was well with the Thumb and Puhi-Huia and Roma; they remained quietly at Matakiki. He looked at me blankly when I inquired the whereabouts of my fellow-traveller. He had understood the pakeha was journeying alone. Possibly Hone had caught sight of the party and, fearing delay, had gone on by another trail. I was not deceived by his glib answers and soothing speech, but I saw that it was useless to question him, and that if any explanation were forthcoming it must be from Tamihana himself.

A tramp of about two hours brought us to the banks of the Waikato, where a large canoe, manned by a dozen stalwart natives, was in waiting to transport us across the stream. I judged that it was not one of the usual ferry page 315places from the fact that there were no habitations or cultivations in sight; indeed, in its mingling of swamp and bush it was as unlikely a place for a Maori settlement as could well be imagined. There were again no familiar faces among the warriors in the canoe, a fact which surprised me at the time but was afterwards explained by my captors' desire to avoid the possibility of some boyhood's friend and sympathiser providing me with a means of escape; but again there was nothing but good-humour and politeness in the treatment I received from this fresh contingent. The canoe made a slanting passage of the river, landing us some half-mile lower down on the opposite bank, and immediately returning by the way it had come. Some leafless willows fringed the bank, probably denoting the house of a settler, or at all events a Maori village, close at hand, and drawn up beneath them was a group of six horses, ready saddled and in charge of some ragged, bare-headed children.

Aporo's eye brightened at sight of them. "It is well," he said. "It shames me that the pakeha should have travelled so far on foot. Choose now, Koroiti,1 the horse that pleases you."

I made my selection, and, picking four men from his troop, he gave the rest their dismissal. Two riders were sent on in front, the leader and I followed, and the remaining two brought up the rear. I did not fail to note that before mounting every man renewed the priming of his gun—indeed, I had no doubt I was intended to observe the action.

Our route lay away from the river, a little to the south of westward, and it has remained a puzzle to me to this day why, in view of our destination, I was not taken down the almost straight reach of the Waikato in the canoe we had just quitted rather than the more tortuous channel

1 Koroiti = Little Finger.

page 316of the Waipa, for which we were evidently heading. They could scarcely have hoped to confuse me in a country the topography of which I knew so well, and I can only suppose that the presence of a body of my own people on the major waterway instigated their choice of the other route.

Whether, being now in the neighbourhood of friends, Aporo suspected I might make a bolt for liberty, his manner now took on a sterner and more watchful air. Speech in the ranks of his followers was reproved with a curt word. He himself, save for an occasional low monosyllable in response to some remark of mine, maintained a dogged silence, and if I happened to raise my voice above the key he set me, he would look around with an expression of irritation and answer me not at all. His evident desire for silence gave me an idea, which I at once put into practice by speaking loudly and at length, and, disregarding his uneasiness and annoyance, I went on to call his attention to an ancient waiata1 of the tribe, the staves of which I proceeded to drone out in a voice which I flatter myself could have been heard a mile away. He bore it awhile in silence, then laid his hand on my arm.

"Little Finger," he said, "a wise man is known by his silence, but only death can still the prattling of a fool."

"You are afraid to be overheard," I retorted; "but with me that is not a matter for fear. Here I am in the country of my friends."

"Sing, then, if it please you," he replied. "Yet you have more need to fear than to welcome the interference of your friends. The command of Te Waharoa is as the sky that covers all things, good and evil."

His reference to the chief by the dread name of his father was not without its influence upon me. Throughout my childhood, and until it was in a measure supplanted

1 Waiata = song.

page 317by the living figure of Te Huata, the great warrior had personified for me all that was most terrible in his race. Memories of a hundred ruthless deeds still lived in men's minds and found a voice round the charcoal fires, and among them were acts of treachery, such as the Matamata massacre, which, once heard, could never be forgotten. Very differently did the tongue of rumour speak of Wiremu Tamihana, yet the blood of the father flowed in the veins of the son and might yet pulse to a like purpose. There was no mistaking the meaning of my companion; attempted rescue would only result in instant death for me. Had help actually appeared, it is more than probable I should have thrown caution to the winds; but the woods were silent: scarcely a bird's note broke the afternoon stillness, and, resolutely closing my lips, I spoke no more till with the fall of night we came down on to the banks of the Waipa.

Towards the end of our journey we had turned aside from the wide horse-track or road we had pursued since leaving the Waikato into a narrow trail which could only be followed in single file. Two horsemen were again sent on in front, the captain of the troop fell in behind me; and so, with the nose of one horse at the heels of another, we pushed through the thick growth, bending beneath the overhanging boughs, which here and there scarcely sufficed for the passage of a horseman below them.

Arrived at the stream, the leader bade me dismount and accommodated me with a seat beside him on a fallen log, while the rest of the party gathered together what dry sticks they could find close at hand and lit a small fire on the water's edge. I had no doubt it was intended for a signal, and as I observed that our party was now reduced to five individuals, I concluded that one man had been sent on along the track we had quitted to make arrangements for the continuance of our journey. Hitherto page 318it had not occurred to me to doubt the truth of what I had been told, but now, as I reflected on the distance we had already travelled, I began to observe discrepancies in Aporo's story. It was impossible that the man I had seen on the banks of the Piako could have made and returned from such a journey in the short space of time at his disposal. Tamihana was evidently still some distance away, and it could therefore not be in accordance with any instructions from him that I had been waylaid and captured.

"How far have we to go now, friend?" I asked.

"About two hours," was his answer.

"The chief, then, is at Ngaruawahia. It would have been an act of courtesy if he had come some little way to meet me."

"Perhaps. But he has but this morning returned from the Lower Waikato."

I feigned to examine his back in the glow of the firelight. "Where are your wings, friend?" I asked, "that you are able to travel so far and so fast?"

He was only disconcerted for a moment, recovering himself with a laugh. "The order of the chief is not of yesterday," he explained; "we have been looking many days for the return of the Little Finger."

This—save for the unlikelihood of my returning by way of the Piako river—was plausible enough, but it did not convince me. I could not imagine myself of such importance that every way to Matakiki was patrolled with a view to my capture, and in the alternative I was forced to the conclusion that the scheme, whatever might be its object, had originated with Ihaka and was being prosecuted under his orders. I was, however, shortly to find that a brain more subtle and far more to be dreaded than Ihaka's was at the root of the matter.

Nearly an hour lapsed before the chunk of paddles page 319became audible above the crackling of the fire, and a large canoe emerged from the dark shadows up the river.

My companion sprang to his feet and, directing two of the party to return with the horses, he led me to a seat in the stern of the vessel. Once again I scanned the boat's crew for the sight of a familiar face; every man, so far as the flickering light enabled me to observe him, was a complete stranger, and doubtless selected for that very reason.

At a word of command from Aporo, the paddles dipped the water together, and in a few moments we were engulfed in the blackness of the night. On either hand of me sat a native, the knees of another touched my back, and I had but to put my hand forward a few inches to discover the presence of a fourth. Escape in these circumstances was next door to impossible, and, resigning myself to the inevitable, I slid down to the kaiwae1 and, resting my head against a thwart, was soon fast asleep.

It seemed that but a few minutes had elapsed when a hand on my shoulder and a voice in my ear called me back to consciousness. The canoe had come to rest. Even in the darkness and with sleep benumbing my brain I recognised the meeting-place of the waters, the delta at the junction of the Waipa and Waikato rivers. My guess was a correct one. I had been brought to Ngaruawahia, the heart of the rebellious district and the capital of the Maori kingdom. A few men were gathered together on the shore in the bright flare of a torch; but for the rest village and villagers were lost in the darkness.

"Come, Little Finger," repeated the voice of Aporo. "A few steps will bring you to a more comfortable sleeping-place."

"There is time for sleep," I responded. "We will go first to the dwelling of the chief."

1 Kaiwae = a floor of sticks lashed together.

page 320

"It is not possible to see the chief to-night," he replied.

"Why not?"

"It is a time of great trouble," said my captor, soothingly. "Tamihana has been called away and will not return till morning."

By this time we were ashore and had advanced to the midst of the group which had stood in silence awaiting our approach.

"What is it that you want of me?" I asked, gazing round upon them. "Let the men of Waikato and Ngatihaua disclose their business, that we may discuss it freely together."

They stood looking at one another in silence, as though each called upon another to answer me.

"It is a matter for the chief," said my captor at last. "Let the pakeha wait until the morning, and the business will be revealed to him. It is late, and he has travelled far; also for many hours he has eaten no food. Let these matters be first put right, then we may talk of other things."

The suggestion evidently met with the approval of the others, and, seeing it was useless to offer any further objection, I allowed myself to be conducted into the village. After proceeding about two hundred yards, the party paused in front of a building which appeared to be constructed in European fashion, partly of sawn timber and partly of stout slabs; the latter portion forming an addition against the house wall. There was a small aperture at one end, high up and unglazed, suggesting that the place might be used or intended for a stable.

Throwing open the door of the main building, the whole party trooped in. A candle was lit, disclosing to view an extremely dirty room, some twenty feet square, containing a few rough articles of furniture and a number of sleeping-places battened off on the floor along the walls and filled page 321with the bedding commonly in use among the natives, the tough, springy, climbing stems of Lygodium articulatum. Rugs of gay colours lay folded at the heads of the beds. In the centre of the room was a small table, on which, as though in readiness for the arrival of a guest, was spread a meal of potatoes, kumaras, and steaming fresh-water fish, flanked by a pale and heavy-looking loaf.

The food spread out on the bare and dirty table offered no temptation even after my daylong fast, and I was on the point of refusing my captor's invitation to partake of it, when the inadvisability of doing so occurred to me. I should be hungry presently, if not now, and why add physical craving to my mental anxiety? The whole party stood in silent attendance on my meal, following every morsel as it travelled to my lips with a vicarious satisfaction. But as soon as I pushed away my plate I was reminded that I was not a guest, but a prisoner.

Lifting the candle from the table, Aporo conducted me into the further room. The place showed signs of having been roughly cleansed, but the dry mud caked on the walls, and the absence of windows, save for the one small opening near the roof, gave it a dismal and depressing aspect. Little did I dream, as I looked distastefully around me, how familiar I was to become with every slab and crevice of that ill-smelling prison-house! However, there was a small iron bedstead in one corner, with a mattress and blankets upon it, which, in the expressed view of my captor, more than compensated for every other defect of the apartment. Cutting short his encomiums on this head, I wished him a curt good-night and watched him go forth and close the door behind him.

This door opened into the room I had just left, and being thrown wide against the wall, had escaped any special observation till the sound of heavy bars falling into place directed my attention to its size and strength. Lifting up page 322the candle he had deposited on the floor in the absence of any other convenient resting-place, I scrutinised my prison. The walls, as I have said, were of rough pine slabs, two to four inches in thickness and some nine or ten feet in height. They were sunk into the earth floor, as I afterwards discovered, to a depth of over a foot, and strongly nailed to stout cross-pieces at top, middle, and bottom. In each corner and at the middle of the outer side were roughly squared timbers, holding the building rigidly together. Lighter slabs formed the roof, concealing the outer covering from view. The window or opening to the air was close up under the roof, square in shape, and not more than nine inches in diameter. Having convinced myself that escape, for that night at least, was a matter of impossibility, I divested myself of a part of my clothing and, weary from exertion and trouble, was soon sound asleep.

I do not propose to make a long story of my captivity. Though it lasted for eight interminable months, it was diversified by few incidents, and these are soon related.

Despite Aporo's promises, it was not until ten days had elapsed that my protestations at length brought me into the presence of Tamihana. I was taken from my dungeon under strong guard to the house in which he was momentarily staying. It was a bare enough place for a "maker of kings," no doubt, but it was comfort itself as contrasted with mine. The room he occupied was floored with a cheap oilcloth and boasted a suite of furniture in the mahogany and horsehair of our grandfathers. A pedestal table of cedar occupied the centre of the room, and at this the son of Te Waharoa was seated, a large Bible open before him.

If you would know what this man—the best and greatest of his race—was like in appearance, conceive an Irish peasant tanned to a rich bronze, with shock black hair and heavy, nearly-meeting eyebrows, and he is before you. page 323There was nothing about him to suggest his savage ancestry. His face was without tattooing, his forehead high and well developed; his brilliant dark eyes were full of kindliness and intelligence. Only in the prominence of the cheek-bones and a slight distension of the nostrils did the Maori reveal itself.

As my guard ushered me into the room, he rose quickly to his feet and came forward with extended hand, greeting me by name in English.

I had proposed to myself not to reciprocate any courtesy he might show me until he had first explained his high-handed action in causing my arrest, but so compelling were the charm and sincerity of his manner that my resolution was forgotten, and I took his hand in a cordial grip.

"Is it the hand of a friend or an enemy, Tamihana?" I asked.

"Alas!" he replied in Maori, "that you should have reason to ask. It is not my doing." Then, turning to my escort, he bade them leave the apartment.

"Sit down," he continued, when we were alone, "and let us speak openly to one another. To begin—if I were to say to you, Go now, whither would you go?"

"Where, chief, but to my home and my tribe?" I answered diplomatically.

"Your tribe is the English," he said after a moment. "Go, then; the way is open."

"It is of the Ngatimaniapoto I spoke," I replied; "my tribe by adoption. It is to Matakiki that I desire to go."

"You have heard of the Thumb, that he is no longer of the people of England?"

"So I have been told, but it is a matter I would be convinced of from his own lips."

"And when you are convinced, what then?"

A glimmer of light came to me, and I hesitated. "It is a matter for grave consideration, chief," I said at last.

page 324

"Speak truly, Tregarthen," he rejoined. "God has made all good things in pairs—the day and the night, the man and the woman, the friend and the enemy. Only He Himself can be both."

"I cannot fight against the men of my race, Tamihana," I replied. "It may be that my soul is not great enough; but so it is. Yet, on the other hand, I will not fight against the men of yours."

"He who is not with us is against us," he said, placing his hand on the Bible.

For a while I sat silent, a prey to anxious thought. The object sought by my arrest was now clear to me. They dreaded not my open enmity but the influence I might have on my foster-father in his espousal of their cause; that, given freedom, I should use every means in my power to deflect him from his purpose I knew quite well, and their action in taking me prisoner showed they were equally certain on the point.

"Do you mean," I asked at length, "that to gain my freedom I must either fight against the men of my race or give an undertaking not to see my foster-father?"

He lifted his brows in assent.

"It is a hard saying, Tamihana," I cried; "for either I must desert my people or my father. Can you find in those pages any passage that justifies the traitor?"

"The third way," he answered, "is to remain here until the war is ended. Why should the pakeha appeal to this book in his troubles? Does he even believe in it? It is good that the Maori should follow its teachings and become a Christian, submitting to all things; but it is good only for the pakeha when it pleases or advantages him. Your missionaries have told us that the Bible is no longer for the Jews, but for all mankind; yet when we speak to the Government the words of the Bible they smile at us or are silent. Was it not because we made a king of our own page 325people that the Government first became angry with us? Then hear the words of the book: 'One from among thy brethren shalt thou set king over thee; thou mayest not set a stranger over thee which is not thy brother.' Have the Government a Bible of their own, better than the Bible of the missionaries, that these words are of no account?"

"It is to the New Testament you should look, Tamihana," I answered, "and not to the Old. There you will find little of kings, but much of peace and goodwill. Is it not possible even now to bring this trouble to an end by wise and temperate words in place of guns and tomahawks?"

The light of argument died from his eyes. "It is too late," he said. "If I spoke such a word in the Parliament no man would listen. Mine would be a voice crying in the wilderness. The thirst for war is in the blood of the people. It is a passion that has no end but in fruition."

Though he chose a different simile, his answer was identical in substance with that given me by the Governor. Brown man and white looked into the heart of the mischief and interpreted it alike. The road to peace ran through the iron gateway of war.

"I must consider my answer, chief," I said, rising; "for at present the two ways you offer me seem alike impossible."

"I would give you your freedom if I could," he responded, and repeated that my capture was none of his doing.

"Then if it be not yourself, Tamihana," I said, "where must I look for my enemy?"

"Among the Ngatimaniapoto," he said, after a moment of thoughtful hesitation. "I will speak to him, that he also discuss the matter with you. Then make terms quickly; for soon, if not already, all roads between here and Auckland will be closed against the white man."

My guard had retired no farther than the passage, and page 326when I had bidden farewell to Tamihana they again surrounded me and conducted me back to my prison.

The time came when I fell into a state of listlessness, taking no heed of the passing days; but at first a rage of impatience possessed me. Hour after hour I paced the squalid room, despair and fury alternating in my heart. No harm or indignity was offered me, and of food, such as it was, I had plenty; but the guard over me never relaxed. All day long men came and went in the outer room, now in grave conversation, now relaxing in boisterous mirth. Even when long-continued silence seemed to denote the place was deserted, I had but to make an unusual sound to rouse an answering stir without. From the night of my coming I had seen no more of Aporo. Probably he was far to the front, watching the advance of the British arms into the historic basin of the Waikato, laying more deadly ambushes than that wherewith he had trapped me.

My chief gaoler was a big, imbecile fellow, who seemed capable of understanding only two things, that I must be fed at regular intervals, and that I must not be allowed to escape from my prison. On every appearance he carefully scrutinised the cell with his wild, blank eyes, searching floor and walls and roof for any sign that they had been interfered with since his last visit. Often I have awakened in the night with the glimmer of his candle in my eyes, or heard, as through a crevice in sleep, the falling-to of the bar without that terminated such an inspection. He never entered the room save when there were others outside to hinder any effort at escape. Mad or sane, no poor prisoner was ever cursed with a more efficient gaoler. Many a time during the first few weeks did I gaze into his vapid countenance with murder in my heart. Now and then, especially when his eyes were turned elsewhere, he looked more like a great overgrown schoolboy than a man, and on such occasions there came over me an ill-defined page 327notion that at some time in the past I had encountered him before. He seemed incapable of replying to a question or even understanding it, and, after one or two efforts to trace home my obscure recollection by gleaning such particulars as his name and place of abode, I let him alone.

The first month of my confinement was nearly at an end when one morning he came hurriedly into my cell, mowing out some scarcely intelligible words, which I took to denote the arrival of a visitor. The ordinary wildness of his manner was greatly accentuated, and as he stood muttering and gibbering in the doorway, looking alternately towards me and back over his shoulder, I was impressed with the feeling that the whole of the creature's mind was one ghastly terror. Speculating on the cause, I turned my eyes to the room without, in time to see the outer doorway darkened by a black shadow. Little as I could see of the man entering, it was sufficient to establish his identity, and in a flash I knew also my gaoler. The intervening years passed as an obscuring vapour. Once again I stood with my boyish companion in the gateway of the pa; once again I heard his cry of derision, "Here comes Hoppy with the bird's claw." No derision was in the heart of the poor wretch now; only an abject and unspeakable terror.

"Go!" said the tohunga, curtly; and in an instant we were alone, the door closed and barred upon us.

Te Atua Mangu moved with his eyes bent on the floor and seated himself on the edge of the bed. I had seen him often since the day of the runanga of the religions, but never thus near at hand; nor in the whole of my life had I exchanged a dozen words with the bogy of my childhood. He looked slowly round the room, taking in floor, walls, and roof; then, with a motion of his hand, silently invited me to a seat beside him.

"Welcome, Black One," I said, setting my shoulders page 328against the wall; "friend or enemy, you are better than solitude."

"Why does the pakeha remain here?" he asked in a low, even voice. "Here are no comforts, such as the white man loves."

"True, O priest," I answered with a short laugh. "Perhaps, then, it is after all the solitude of which I am enamoured. Set wide the door, that the matter may be made clear."

"Presently," he said calmly. "Let us talk. Tamihana has told me that you desire to return to Matakiki. It is a good thing that the bee go back to the hive to which it belongs, and not to that of the stranger. Where, then, is your hive?"

"Is not the home of the bee the place where it has lived and laboured?"

"Good. There is trouble in that hive. The bees are angry. They have sharpened their stings against an enemy that would despoil them. Go, then. Make ready your weapon, that you also may defend the hive that nurtured you."

"My heart is not in this quarrel, Black Spirit," I answered. "I can neither fight with you nor against you."

"Then why do you seek to return to Matakiki?"

"That is easily answered—I would be with my people in their trouble."

"When trouble comes to the hive the drones are driven forth. They have mouths, but no stings, You are answered."

I find myself wondering if a man's moral sense becomes laxer as he grows older, or is it merely that he is more tolerant of weakness in others? It seems marvellous that I did not attempt to deceive him with lying promises, yet to the best of my belief no such thought found a moment's harbourage in my mind. Nevertheless, so possessed was page 329I with my single idea that even liberty itself seemed worthless if it could not help me to the side of those I loved.

He rose to his feet and took a lingering step towards the door, then, as though arrested by a fresh thought, returned to his seat. "That talk is finished," he said. "There is another matter. The mind of the Thumb is troubled. He looks two ways, and he who looks two ways stumbles. It will be good, therefore, that you send a message to him, that his heart may be free from care concerning you."

I saw what I conceived to be my opportunity, and grasped at it. "If an account of my present condition will relieve his mind, Black One," I answered, searching in my pocket for paper and pencil, "he shall have it."

"Good," he responded stolidly. "Write these words: 'I go to the city of the pakeha until this trouble is over. Proceed with the thing you are doing; it is a good thing. With myself all is well. Enough for this time.'"

I laughed and closed my pocket-book with a fierce snap. "What terms do you offer me for doing this, Black One?" I asked.

For the first time his shifty, red-litten black eyes looked steadily into mine. "Your life, pakeha," he answered.

For a moment I was staggered and at a loss. Ruthless as I believed him, it seemed incredible that he should proceed to such an extremity in cold blood. Yet, as his sinister eyes continued to gaze into mine, revealing not only an unshakable purpose but even, as I seemed to read, a gloating desire, all illusion as to my value in the eyes of the natives fell from my mind, and I recognised the imminent peril in which I stood.

"Has the Maori so many friends among the white people that he can afford to destroy even one of them?" I asked.

"Write," he replied. "Many of your race have fallen page 330in the Waikato. The war-parties pause not to ask if they be friend or foe, enough that they are white."

Slowly and with an appearance of reluctance I opened the book and began to write as he had directed me. I had little hope of deceiving one so astute, and yet it was at least worth the trial. The words he had given me I wrote in English, adding immediately beneath in German—"This is written under compulsion. I am a prisoner at the meeting-place of the waters." I dared not write "Ngarua-wahia," for that word would certainly be recognised among its unknown companions, and I chose English rather than Maori in the hope that the tohunga, having but a slight knowledge of the former language, would be unable to distinguish between it and the German that followed. No doubt his first act would be to submit the note to an interpreter, but as the first part was almost in his own words, there was just the possibility that the interpreter, having translated this, would be ashamed to display his ignorance of the few words remaining, and either give to them some innocent meaning from his imagination or ignore them altogether.

He took the leaf I tore from the book and folded it in his hand without looking at it. "It is well," he said. "The talk is ended." And, rising to his feet, he limped to the door and gave it an imperative rap with his knuckles.

"How long am I to remain here, Black One?" I asked, as the bar fell and the face of my janitor appeared in the doorway.

"Wait," he said. "Presently I will send a party to guard you to the lines of the pakeha. There are many on the war-path, and alone you could not escape them." With that the door closed behind him and I was left to the solitude of my prison.

For a fortnight or more following this I was in daily expectation of release, or at the least a message from my page 331father, but days and weeks passed and nothing happened. Long afterwards, when my foster-father's papers came into my possession, I found the note I had sent him. The message in German at the foot had been neatly cut away, showing that in the prosecution of his business Te Atua Mangu had taken no risks. As for the party that was to transport me through the war country, it never appeared, and in all probability was never intended to do so.

Convinced at length that my release must depend entirely on myself, I began to devise and practise schemes for escaping. One after the other they resulted in failure. The only one I shall mention—perhaps it came the nearest to success—was an attempt to burrow out beneath the wall. I had no idea what a prodigious quantity of soil is packed into a few cubic feet of ground until I attempted to store the product of my exertions beneath the bed. Then, though the hole widened with painful slowness, the mound of soil grew with such alarming rapidity that I was at my wits' end to know what to do with it. By letting my blankets hang to the floor I managed for two days to hide the effect of my labours, but thereafter concealment became next door to an impossibility, and it was almost a relief to me when my janitor, detecting some crumbs of brown earth on the black floor, pulled aside my bed and disclosed my handiwork to the admiring garrison. I have read of ingenious prisoners who have broken through stone walls with no better implements than wire nails; all I can say is that they deserved their freedom. For me, it was but a wooden shell that held me, and yet I could by no means get out of it.

These attempts were all in the first three or four months of my captivity, for afterwards, what with the confinement, the semi-darkness, the relaxing of my muscles, and, no doubt, the shrinkage of my brain, I fell into a state of lassitude and melancholy from which I could only rouse page 332myself to an impotent fury. Books or papers were not to be had, and my one relief from self-absorption was in listening to the conversations in the room without. The parties using the house seemed to come and go, for I seldom heard their voices for longer than a week at a time, and always their talk was of the war; of battles and ambushes, of wounds and death. At first laughter and boasting prevailed. I heard of the small fish that fell here and there to the nets of the scattered taua—the unarmed settler and his boys tomahawked at daybreak in their fields; the farmhouse burning redly at dusk; milch cows driven off along the sloppy forest trails; and the feasts of good beef which closed the dreadful days.

But as the months went by and winter gave place to spring, jest and boast failed, and doubt took possession of the minds of the warriors. The young men still made the house ring with their war-songs, still looked forward to a day of victory, but it was not so with men of mature years. Many white men had been slain, settlers and soldiers, yet there was no relaxing in their advance. It seemed that for the white man there was but one road—forward. When the Maori suffered reverse he fell back; so much ground was lost. Not so with the pakeha. If he were checked, he lay still, enigmatically silent and motionless. Weeks went by, many weeks, and still his place was as a cemetery of the dead; then of a sudden, behold, he was alive again. On he came, cannon and men, driving all before him, and at night he was established in new country. To waylay and slaughter him was satisfactory only for the moment. To-day his dead might be counted, but it was a hard thing to number his living on the morrow. There was nothing easier than to elude him for the time being, or more difficult than to turn him aside from his chosen path.

There was scarcely an incident of the war that did not reach my ears. Skirmishes far and wide were graphically page 333described by participants in them. I learned of the division of councils that followed each reverse. Arguments for and against the fortifying of certain points were debated night after night. I do not think that any of the leaders ever entered the building, but no doubt what I heard was an echo of their disputes. A slow paralysis was creeping over the Maori arms. I heard of the battle of Koheroa, the evacuation of Meremere, the retreat on Rangiriri with the subsequent engagement at that place, the abandonment of the long-debated idea of fortifying Taupiri.

Then one night I was awakened by the sound of bustle in the village. Lying still in the darkness, I could hear the confused sound of voices, men's and women's, all tuned to a note of excitement. Horses were stamping the ground in the neighbourhood of the hut, and now and again I caught the sound of hoofs galloping away in the distance. In the room without a low-toned argument was in progress. I could distinguish the voices of three or four men, each adding his quota to the debate, while occasionally others—apparently pausing in the open doorway—would cry out to them to make haste.

My heart began to beat till, in the weakened state of my body, I could fancy the room trembling with the throb of it. Was it death that was coming, or freedom? I cared not which, so that the living death of my six months of captivity might come to an end. Thrusting my limbs out of bed, I hastily drew on my clothes and sat, sick and trembling, awaiting the dénouement. There came at last into the voices a sharp, louder note of finality, and a moment later the bar of my prison fell to the ground, the door opened, and my janitor, accompanied by several natives, appeared in the entrance.

"You must come with us on a journey, Little Finger," said one of them—a sallow, consumptive-looking man with fierce eyes; "this place is no longer safe for you."

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He gave a signal to the others and, ere I had time to guess their intention, they had seized and bound my arms together behind my back. I made no resistance, for my mind was consumed by desire to leave the house on any terms. The end of the rope which secured me was passed to my janitor, and we trooped out into the open. The earth was bright with moonlight. Ah, that first breath of fresh, early-summer night air! So abject is the dependence of the mind on the body that as I drew its invigorating balm into my lungs it seemed that the rapture of it was worth the cost. And to experience it I had endured six months of semi-darkness, amid filth and evil odours I have not attempted to describe, without once going into the open air.

They led me to the brink of the river, where I was bidden to sit down in charge of my gaoler while the party dispersed, presumably to get together such goods as they proposed to carry with them. My mind, awakened from its long torpor, noted every detail of the scene with interest. Close at hand a large canoe lay nose on to the bank. From the prostrate position of many of its occupants, and the low wailing of the women who came and went about it, I concluded it contained either the dead or the wounded, possibly both. This canoe, no doubt, had been the bearer of the ill-tidings which had roused the village.

At first, seated apart, we attracted no attention from the busy crowd, but presently one individual wandered up, and then, as the news of the captured pakeha spread, another and another, till a score or more had satisfied their curiosity by a sight of me. Some regarded me in silence; others threw me a taunt, a jest; and a few a word of compassion. Some—and these were all women—launched at me abuse and threats of violence, and, but for the interference of my gaoler, one or two of them would possibly have proceeded to greater lengths.

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The idiot was plainly anxious about something, muttering disconnectedly, and continually turning to look behind him in the direction of the whares. I took his disquietude to be on my account, until, with an exclamation, as one might cry, "Eureka!" he seized the free end of the rope and knotted it round my ankles until the cord cut to the bone; then, springing to his feet, he ran swiftly towards the village. There was something very horrible in the creature's entire disregard of the suffering he inflicted; I might have been a bale of wood for all the ruth he displayed in trussing me. For a few moments the pain was excruciating; then followed a sensation of numbness and a feeling that my feet were swelling to bursting-point.

By this time the owners of the canoe had apparently satisfied their curiosity concerning me. Three or four minutes elapsed before any one again came near. At length I noticed a solitary woman emerge from the shadows immediately below me. For a while she stood looking about her, then, with a studious appearance of aimlessness, came step by step towards me. My blood chilled as I watched her; the rush of a savage with brandished weapon would have been less blood-curdling than the stealthy, watchful advance of this woman. At last she stood in front of me. So far as I could see, her hands were empty, yet I had no doubt but in a few instants cold steel would be plunged into my bosom.

"Alas, Little Finger!" said a soft, compassionate voice.

She turned her face to the moonlight, and with a wave of joy I recognised her. "Pepepe!" I cried, and verily I believe, had I been free to move, I should have caught her in my arms, so great was my delight in the sight of a friendly and familiar face.

"Alas, Little Finger!" she repeated, crouching down beside me. "Who is it that has done this evil to you?"

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"I know not, Butterfly," I answered, "unless it be at the bidding of the black tohunga. For many months have I lain a prisoner in the village, and no friend has come near me. But now hasten to Ruka and speak to him, that he may take me under his protection before my jailer returns."

She buried her face in her knees, and there was no need for the words in which she told me that her husband lay among the shrouded shapes in the canoe.

"And there is no friend among the others?" I asked, after I had condoled with her in her misery.

"They are Waikato and Ngatihaua," she replied. "The flower of the tribes has fallen, and it is but a remnant that flees into the country of the Ngatimaniapoto."

"Then find a knife to sever these cords," said I, "and I will shift for myself."

She rose to her feet and, darting down to the water's edge, went rapidly along the bank until I lost sight of her among the folk round the canoe. A minute later she appeared again in a bright patch of moonlight betwixt the black shadows, coming fleetly back on her errand of mercy. As she turned directly towards me I glanced over my shoulder, and there was the idiot coming at a wild gambol down the hill. Yet she was the nearer, and fell panting beside me while my custodian was yet some twenty yards distant.

"It is too late, Little Finger," she breathed. "If I free you, you will be taken again on the instant. But have no fear; if not at this time, then some other."

"Quick, Pepepe," I cried, "put your knife to my breast as if you would strike me."

The clever girl caught my meaning on the word and, changing her aspect of compassion to one of hate, she brandished the knife above my heart. I had only time to give voice in a yell for help before the idiot was upon page 337us. Striking the girl in the breast, he sent her rolling down the bank; then, paying no further attention to either of us, he seated himself on the ground and poured from a broken gourd he carried in his hand a collection of shells, pebbles, and miscellaneous rubbish, the acute recollection of which had no doubt led him temporarily to desert his post.

Ever since I had learned the creature's identity my emotions had been in a state of fluctuation over him. Loathing and compassion daily overthrew each other. Now I could have strangled him with as little compunction as I could find for a wild beast; again he was so clearly an object of pity that my other mood brought shame in the recollection. Murderous fury, all the more fierce for its helplessness, was in my heart as I watched the poor girl creep away, her hands to her breast, and turned to see the creature fondling and gloating over his treasures. No doubt I but brought myself nearer to his own level when with a swing of my feet I sent his collection of trumpery flying in all directions, but I know that for the moment the act filled me with a glowing satisfaction. For a long instant he turned on me the wild glare of some savage beast despoiled of its young, but even as his great hands came out towards me I read in his eyes the displacing of fury by terror. Muttering thickly, he set his fingers to the knots at my feet, and released them from their bonds. Clearly he was bound by a will not his own, and that will, while it demanded that I should remain a captive, insisted that my life should be preserved.

After an hour's delay the great canoe, with its freight of dead and wounded, got under weigh, and a quarter of an hour later I was conducted to a seat in a second canoe, already loaded with fugitives and their belongings, and we set off in the wake of the first. By this time the moon was declining, and the heavy shadows cast by foliage on page 338the river banks rendered the distinguishing of faces difficult. I knew that there were women in the canoe by the sound of their voices, and presently I discovered, by the feel of her skirt against my bound hands, that there was one on the seat immediately behind me. She was very still and silent, and I guessed, as was the case with many of the other occupants of the canoe, that she was asleep.

My custodian himself showed signs of sleepiness; every now and then his chin would fall forward on his breast, recovering itself with greater difficulty as time went by. However, he had taken the precaution of passing the end of the rope that bound me round his own body, so that I was not likely to reap any advantage from his lack of attention. The thwart was only wide enough for the two of us. Three-quarters of an hour went by, and I was myself slipping into a semi-comatose condition, when I was suddenly startled into complete wakefulness by the pressure of hands against mine. They were a woman's hands, soft and small; and in a flash I knew that Pepepe had not deserted me.

A warm breath tickled my ear: "You must swim, Little Finger."

I pressed the hands that held mine.

"Soon," breathed the voice again.

The night had grown very dark. Beside me the idiot muttered in his dreadful sleep. The swish of the paddles alone broke the silence save when at intervals the cry of the look-out in the bow carried a message to the paddlers. The few minutes of waiting seemed to spread themselves out into hours before at length Pepepe's hands again pressed mine, giving me the signal to be ready. A moment later the cords fell lightly from my wrists and my numbed arms dropped apart. A dread fear that I should be unable to use them was dispelled as the tingling blood, page 339regaining its channels, revived the starved muscles. For nearly a minute I sat quite still, till every vestige of cramp had been smoothed away; then, leaning sideways as though in sleep, I slipped over the side, and, diving beneath the canoe, struck out beneath the water for the further bank of the river.