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Chapter VIII The Triumph of Love—and of Darkness

As Te Atua Mangu thus indirectly accepted the equally indirect challenge of the missionary, he turned towards the blighted tree and, with a movement of his arm, indicated that all should retire from its neighbourhood. The command was quickly obeyed, the priests moving off with dignified steps, while such of the chiefs as considered themselves in danger from the spreading branches or the falling shadow, lost no time in seeking a safer restingplace. In a very few moments the magician was alone. His first act was to throw from him his cloak, when it was seen that, with the exception of a small apron of coarse flax, he was naked. With slow steps he began to encircle the tree, moving spirally towards it until at last he reached the trunk. From this point he stepped outwards in a straight line, arriving at length on the circumference of his circle, his face towards us and his eyes looking—or so it seemed to me—directly into mine.

All this time his lips had been moving, but, with the exception of an occasional hissing whisper, I could hear nothing. Now, however, as he came to a standstill, these indistinguishable sounds grew and took to themselves the articulateness of speech. It seemed to me that I caught here and there the sound of a familiar word, yet always in a strange, incomprehensible connection. Were a snake endowed with the gift of speech, in some such hissing and page 101whistling voice might he speak; and as the eyes of a snake, glittering and piercing, were the eyes that looked into mine and held me constrained, fascinated, and incapable of movement. How long this lasted I have no idea, though I know it was long enough for the growing up in my mind of a belief that if it continued many moments longer I should die. I had surely reached the limit of endurance, when, with a sudden flick of his hand, he released me.

"Behold!" he cried, and pointed a long forefinger to the tree.

Believe me or not, I tell you what my own eyes saw. It was green—yes, from the first branch to the last—with all the vigour and luxuriance of its prime, and beneath it, in place of the network of lights and shadows, was a pool, a blot of inky blackness.

"Makutu! Makutu!"¹ cried the assembled chiefs, springing to their feet and scattering in all directions over the square. I was dimly conscious of the missionary's eyes, round and incredulous; of my father, stroking his chin and reflectively watching the excited crowd; of many persons passing and hustling me as they went; of a voice raised in sharp command; and then—with gaze back on the wondrous miracle of the rejuvenated tree—of hands laid suddenly and with violence on my two shoulders. With a start I came to myself and looked quickly around.

I was in the grasp of the guard.

"Thumb," it was the voice of the ariki I heard, "said I not to you years ago that in the day you brought more pakeha to the village you should go to the oven?"

"Some such threat you made, O Great One," returned my father, "but——"

My father stood speechless. So suddenly had the position come about—whether in accordance with some prearranged plan or springing in savage completeness on the opportunity—that he might well be pardoned if he were for the moment at a loss how to act. Between him and me stood the guard, armed and ready for any emergency. Our own party was almost weaponless; moreover its members were scattered, and thus did not even provide the advantage of consolidated, if ineffective, resistance. The single word "Patu"¹ from Te Huata's lips would have ended the matter then and there, and presently an opening in the crowd permitted me to discover the reason why it remained unspoken. Tuku-tuku had intervened on my behalf. Her lips were at the ear of her lord, and though he did not refuse to listen, I took but little hope from the glare in his sombre eyes.

It was at this moment, while my fate hung in the balance, that Rangiora, for the first time, deliberately turned his eyes upon me. During the early part of the discussion he had lain face downwards on the grass, idly plucking the shoots and taking, apparently, no interest in the proceedings. Later on, when Te Atua Mangu had begun his incantations to the gods, he drew himself into a sitting posture and moved backwards on his hams, until he was on the side of the ariki most distant from the tree, and here, so far as I know, he had remained until the moment of which I speak. At last, however, he rose, scanned me deliberately, yawned, stretched himself, and retired with an air of boredom into the whare.

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Never shall I forget the shock of misery and disillusionment which came over me as I watched what I conceived to be this heartless desertion. Yet it had one good effect: it stung my pride. Cold anger took the place of the helpless fear with which I had hitherto met this crucial moment of my life, and, stiffening my muscles, I resolved, since resistance was out of my power, to meet death with the calmness fitting to one of my race.

"Do not continue to hold me, friends," I said, turning to my captors. "Kill me or release me. Have you no fear that your fingers will fall off at the joints and your hands wither at the wrists, that you handle the Little Finger of Te Waharoa in this fashion?"

Heaven knows what instinct in extremity it was that inspired my brain to speak these words, but, as the event proved, none could have been better chosen. The two young toa¹ dropped my arms, as though they had suddenly become red-hot. I waited for no better opportunity, but, darting through the legs of the guard and dodging a spearthrust with every breath I drew, I made as directly as I could for the spot where I had last heard my father's voice. But I was not to escape so easily. There were many famous runners among Te Huata's young men, and time and again I had to sheer away from my objective, with the result that I drew ever nearer to the seat of the Great One. He had spoken the word now. "Patu! Patu!"² he cried, while from his eyes flashed lightnings of wrath. Yet as i darted breathlessly hither and thither, dodging between the legs and under the arms of my would-be captors, feeling the tips of their fingers on my body at every other moment, I became aware that my friends vastly outnumbered my enemies. From all sides came cries of encouragement.

Yet however great their sympathy, it did not go to the length of actively espousing my cause. Do what I would, every moment seemed to bring me nearer to the spot I most sought to avoid. But it was not, I think, until I espied the claw-footed wizard rise, mere in hand, to join the number of my hunters, that I lost heart. Him I dreaded above all created beings, and it was no longer with quick eye and, defined purpose, but in sheer mad panic, that I turned and, with a blood-red light in my eyes and a loud buzzing in my ears, dashed, as the stag at the hill, straight on my fate, as personified in the figure of the ariki.

Then, at that supreme moment, my purblind eyes caught sight of Rangiora again. His figure danced and brightened and grew dim, yet it was truly he, and no figment of a distorted imagination. No longer bored and indifferent, but with eyes full of fire and passion he gazed upon me. On his shoulders was a cloak of white dog-skin, a royal mantle composed of the tails alone, and very splendid and noble he seemed to me, even in that moment of despair. I could see his lips moving, but no word reached my consciousness; nevertheless, I swerved towards him. He was my last hope. If he could not save me, at least it was something to die in the arms of a comrade.

But now I had eyes no longer for the young warriors at my heels, and, even as I changed my direction, I was aware of a grip of steel on my shoulder and, whether the result of a push or a blow, I lay an instant later at the feet of the ariki.

I had done all that there was in me to do, and, being no longer capable of terror, or indeed of any other emotion, I lay still and waited the death-blow. The seconds passed, and still I lay there unharmed. A strange silence had page 105fallen on the multitude. I could hear a voice, dimly reminiscent of my father's, yet new and terrible to my ears. What it said I could not hear for the beating of my heart and the gasping of my exhausted lungs. But at last the power of thought returned to me. Wonder filled my mind. I lifted my head and looked into the face of the Great One. His eyes, lit with blood-red lights, were staring into the distance beyond, and on his face was an expression of rage and fear so awful that it looked rather like some devilish carving than the countenance of a human being. Instinctively my eyes followed the direction of his concentrated gaze, and there I saw a scene so strange that without further thought of the danger in which I had so recently, and perhaps still, stood, I rose to my feet and stared with all my vision.

In the centre of the guard, holding them arrested at a distance of a few yards by the threatening of his upraised hand, stood my father. In his right hand was a heavy pistol, and—his temple against its muzzle—stood Rangiora, clothed in his cloak of dog-skin, his head erect, his eyes calm and steadfast. No hand of violence rested upon him. He stood there, as my heart plainly told me, in the cause of a friendship that passed the love of woman, offering his life for mine.

What had occurred was this. Seeing no better means of saving me in my desperate situation he had entered the whare, seized the loaded fire-arm, and placed it, together with his own body, draped in the royal cloak, as became one of his proud lineage, in the hands of my father. The rest was no affair of his. Between his own father and the white trader lay the issue. No wonder the crowd stood spellbound and silent; no wonder if with bated breath and beating hearts they waited the outcome of an act of heroism the like of which they might never hope to behold again. For myself, I can say without boast that all thought page 106of my own safety was swept from my mind in face of the terrible peril of my comrade. In my father's eyes gleamed a relentless purpose, and, scarcely daring to breathe, lest any act of mine should precipitate the climax, I stood as one petrified, still within reach of the ariki.

"Speak then, Te Huata," said the voice I had heard before, and now I knew that it was really my father who had spoken; "as surely as we both live, you shall pay me blood for blood."

Whether, in the madness of his rage, Te Huata might not have persisted in his deadly purpose, must remain a matter for conjecture; but at that moment a hand fell on my wrist and, looking up, I found Tuku-tuku beside me.

"Come," she said, and never taking her eyes from the figures of my father and her only son, led me towards them.

A sigh of relief burst from the pent bosoms of the observers, as step by step we drew near to the couple in the centre. With satisfaction I observed the sinking of the weapon that threatened my comrade's life, and with joy I reached him and cast my arm over his shoulder. White or brown or black, what mattered it to me! I knew then, as I know to-day, that no brighter spirit ever inhabited a tabernacle of human flesh.

But while we two thus rejoiced in each other's safety, my father—after a few gentle words to Tuku-tuku—had turned again, his anger nothing abated, on the ariki.

"Well for you, O chief," he cried, "that in the breast of your son beats the heart of a hero. Had the boy come to harm, learn from me that your own bloodthirsty soul, and not that of this noble youth, would have followed him to Te Reinga."

Te Huata made no answer. His fierce eyes were fixed on my hunters, who, having been forced to remain paralysed witnesses of the scene I have just described, now stood embarrassed and irresolute, awaiting his commands.

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"Away, weaklings!" he cried. "It is fitting that women and children should rule over a race whose warriors are without skill in arms. As for you, pakeha," he continued, turning his gaze on my father, "your lives I have given you. Also it has seemed fit to my son to redeem the boy who was already dead. Truly his gods watch over him. Twice has he been covered from the sharp weapon of Death. Now begone, all of you, and trouble me no more."

But my father made no motion to obey. In his face continued the look I had never seen there before, and I think, only once since. It was plain that he, infinitely slow to anger, was angry now. His features were set inflexibly, and his grey eyes were dark and cold and terrible. By this time a fresh disposition had come to the gathering. The great square no longer existed, and practically the whole of the village was assembled in the marae. The ariki alone still held his original position. Beside him on one hand were the priests, on the other most of the principal chiefs of his hapu, and as the moments went by I could see the dispersed guard gradually reassembling in a dense mass to the rear of the chief. On our side, some four or five yards distant, stood in the forefront Mr. Hall, my father, and myself, while behind us—mustering probably a hundred all told—were the familiar faces of my fellowvisitors. It must be understood that very few minutes had elapsed from the moment when I was seized by the guard to that at which I have now arrived, probably three or four at the outside; yet they sufficed for the complete division of the previously mingled villagers and the bringing of them into a perilous state of opposition. Such, then, was the position of affairs when my father, yielding to the great wrath that possessed him, turned his terrible eyes on the ariki and answered his curt command to begone.

"Chief," he said, "hear my words. If I go now, I go page 108for ever. Long and patiently have I borne with you, and for what? Have I sought to become possessed of your lands? Have I bartered my goods for women or slaves, or for heads, or the ancestral relics of your tribe? No man can say so. My hands are clean of any offence against you. They have been gift-bringers. Fruit trees border your plantations; mine was the seed. In a few years foodplants of all kinds will cover these wild acres: but for me they had had no existence. I have brought you peace, for I have made successful attack on you impossible. I have supplied you with implements of industry, turning your labours into child's play. And for these things, what return do you make me? I come to-day into your pa, bringing with me a teacher of that religion which many believe to be the final flower of our civilisation, and assuredly to such as you I could bring no gift more needful than the gospel of love—and how do you receive me? Before my eyes I have seen my son hunted, as he were a leprous dog. A child, moreover, whose adversities, and the evil he has suffered at the hands of your race, should have rendered him for ever sacred to the Maori nation. Is that treatment to give to the son of the heroic defender of Te Kuma, the white man who scorned to fly or surrender, but gave his life for the people, of your blood, with whom he had made his home? Not on you, O ariki, would I waste such words; but here are a multitude of ears, and my speech shall sink into many hearts, to your undoing. But for your ear what follows. These things I demand of you: Freedom to come and go unquestioned through all the territories of the Ngatimaniapoto; to have my good faith acknowledged, so that, bring with me whom I will, white man or brown or black, he also shall pass unmolested, for it shall suffice that I am answerable for his deeds; the right of a voice in your councils on all matters affecting the well-being of the tribe, and more especially in councils of war, whether the quarrel page 109be with men of my own blood or of yours. Such shall be the privileges you accord to me. On my part I will guarantee these things: To protect you against the greed of men of my race; to be your voice in their councils; and to lift your children to the knowledge of the new world in whose dawn we stand. No harm shall spring upon you in the darkness; no treachery shall work your undoing in the daylight. I will be your eyes and ears; the man on the watch-tower; the scout far afield. So shall your tribe endure and pass onward into the light co-equal with the pakeha."

He paused, and in the murmur of approval that followed, the ariki could not but have heard the footsteps of the inevitable.

"These are grave matters," he resumed, "and should not be determined on the instant. Seven suns shall go by, and on the eighth, at this hour, I shall come for your answer. In the meantime the missionary bids me say that he will remain at my house, where such of you as desire to join the Christian faith may find him."

"And be not led away by false prophets in league with the Father of Evil," interjected Mr. Hall. "Behold, the tree is again withered."

His words were true. Nothing of its green luxuriance remained. As it stood at first, sere and decaying, so was it now. But even so, the last word lay with the priest of the ancient faith.

"So often as I bid it, so often will it return to life," said Te Atua Mangu. "Does the missionary know how long afterwards lived those whom his Christ raised from the dead?"

"Well, well," said my father impatiently, for the hot mood was still upon him. "Mr. Hall deals not in such trickery. It is in your savage hearts he proposes to work his miracles. Come to him at my whare, and he promises page 110that there shall grow up in you a new spirit, beautiful and destined for eternity."

"Is this the word of Te Moanaroa?" asked Te Huata, turning his fiery eyes on the chief.

"Behold, O Great One, how the matter stands," replied Te Moanaroa, mildly. "No consent have I given to this, nor refusal. Let those who wish test the matter and report. Many pleasing things have come to us from the pakeha. The ariki may remember how, on the first coming of the tobacco, a common fellow was selected to partake of the food. 'Excellent!' said he. But by and by, ah! how egregiously sick he was. Then said the chiefs: 'Well, indeed, that we did not eat of the pipe smoke!' Nevertheless, the man tried again and once again, and he was no more sick. Good! It was a food for the chiefs. So with this religion. It may not rank with tobacco. It may not rise above the common people. Yet it is well that the things of the pakeha be tested each as it arrives."

Te Moanaroa wiped the sweat from his face, for exertion of any kind made him perspire profusely, and glanced at my father out of the corner of his eye.

But the Great One sat unmoved. The knowledge that his power was dying ate into his vitals. Even his wife and child were against him. Chiefs looked coldly on his policy, and only a handful of priests stood by him. Exasperated to the verge of insanity, his slow mind moved cloudily through the darkness, seeking some way back which might be seductive to his people. He hated the cold, white glare that came over life with the advent of the pakeha. He hated the never-to-be-entirely-dismissed feeling of inferiority to the white-faced interloper. Oh for the comfortable old days when no doubt and unrest disturbed the well-ordered lives! Oh for the return of the time when every autumn brought the excitement of war, page 111the glories of the stricken field, with its flaming whares and multitudinous dead! Meat! His stomach hungered for the sweet-tasting ancestral food. Suddenly an idea came to him, and he raised his drooping head. Let those who would go on into the pallid light; for him the homely darkness. He would revive the ancient custom here and now. So would he answer the missionary, with his bark of new religions. An evil gleam came into his eyes, and the canine teeth stood momentarily forth.

Some such train of thought must have passed through the mind of the ariki ere he turned and, beckoning to him the captain of the guard, gave him an order in a low voice. I saw the man start and hesitate and slipped my hand into my father's, determined that this time no ruse should part us. But it was not on us that his new thought was bent. The man, after some further whispered speech with the ariki, moved off, and selecting a companion, the two of them slipped away into the crowd.

A few moments later the air was rent by a piercing scream. My blood curdled in my veins, for even my innocent ears could not mistake the sound of the deathcry. For a minute or more we all stood stricken dumb, knowing not what to think, and many of us, no doubt, preparing ourselves for the worst, when the crowd parted and the two warriors returned, bearing a burden to the feet of the Great One. The body was that of a girl. She had been knifed downwards from the throat, as I had often seen done with the village pigs, and her life-blood still gouted from the wound. Shuddering, I looked at the face. It was that of the fair slave-girl who had smiled at me as she passed down to the spring in the early morning.

"See!" said Te Huata. "Thus do I answer you, you and your friend the priest, whose gods listen not to him. Let the women and children, and the men who have never known war, follow in your footsteps; let them yield to the page 112pakeha their lands, the labour of their hands, their women, their children and their children's children, born and reared in slavery: I remain with my forefathers; their gods suffice me; I will maintain their customs. Away with it! To the priests the heart! Let the ovens be made ready!"

These words were followed by a confused murmur, in which I seemed to read a reflection of my own horror and disgust. So strong, indeed, were the expressions of disapproval around me that I cannot doubt but if the victim had been one of our party, weaponless as we were, an attempt would have been made to avenge her. Even as it was, it was perhaps fortunate that we were unarmed, for many a hand went clutching to its girdle, and our numerical weakness could only have led to the heating of many ovens in place of one.

But this rage was only for the instant; in the next, as with one accord, the visitors turned and fled in terror from the pa. In vain our chiefs sought by word and example to allay the ignominious panic. In vain my father and the missionary stood their ground and lent their persuasions to the efforts of Te Moanaroa; nothing could stay the rout, and, with what dignity we could muster, we finally followed in their wake.

The sun was sinking over the shoulder of Pirongia. Looking back from the great gateway, I could see the villagers scattered in knots over the square, excitedly discussing the events of the day. A denser throng marked the spot where lay the poor victim of the Great One's spleen. The ariki himself had retired and the door of his whare was shut.