War to the Knife 52

War to the Knife 52

"Is my love nothing to you?" she cried, with sudden passion. "My life,

my life--for it hangs on yours? If you die, I die also. I swear I will

follow you to the reinga, as my mother would have said. I will not

remain behind. Do not doubt of that."

 

As she spoke she moved nearer to his couch, and, throwing herself on

her knees at his side, took his hand in both of hers, and, bowing her

face upon his breast, burst into a tempest of sobs, which shook every

portion of her frame.

 

Massinger, touched and partly alarmed by her grief, tried by all the

means in his power to soothe her, smoothing her abundant hair the

while, as it flowed over him in a cascade of rippling wavelets.

 

"My darling, my darling!" he said, "I owe my life to you, and it shall

be spent in proving my love and devotion. You must not despair, you who

are so brave. I am afraid you are not an Ariki, after all, but only a

woman--the best, the bravest, the dearest, in the world. This is only a

passing faintness. We shall live to spend many a glad year together."

 

"It is I who am weak," she said, lifting her tear-stained face, and

essaying to smile as she drew back the long silken tresses from her

brow. "Something seemed at that moment to warn me that I should never

live to claim your love. I have often felt it. But, if _your_ life is

spared for long years to come, I shall not mourn. No, no! But you will

never forget your poor Erena, who loved you--loved, yes, you will never

know how much!"

 

As she spoke her last words, she rose to her feet, pressed one

lingering, passionate kiss upon his forehead, and was gone.

 

With the dawn the tohunga arrived. This important and mysterious

personage, of which one was always to be found in the larger sections

of a tribe, combined the offices of priest and sorcerer with the more

practical profession of the physician. Unquestionably, his knowledge of

simples and general surgery was far from despicable. By incantations

and spells, it was thought in the tribe that he had foreknowledge of

the death or otherwise of his patients. As a soothsayer he had now used

the powerful spell of the "withered twigs." Chanting a _karakia_, with

a sudden jerk he broke off from the tree two of equal size and length.

The piece he held in his left hand snapped off short. The longer twig

remained in his right.

 

"The pakeha will not die," he exclaimed. "My art has saved him. It will

be good for the Ngapuhi tribe, and for the maiden Erena, whose mother I

so much loved."

 

Arriving at the couch of the stricken pakeha, he looked upon him

with solemn and mysterious regard. He felt his pulse, and minutely

scrutinized the cicatrice of the newly healed wound. Meanwhile the eyes

of the girl, dilated with terror and anxiety, watched his inscrutable

countenance, as the mother of the sick child in more conventional

abodes fixes her gaze on the physician, whose words contain the issues

of life or death.

 

"Speak, O Tiro-hanga! Say whether he will die--and I also. One word

will serve for both."

 

The tohunga placed his hand upon the shoulder of the excited girl,

whose every nerve seemed quivering, as if the tension of mind and body

had exhausted the limit of human endurance.

 

"As you are, so was your mother in her youth," he said, speaking with

deep though restrained feeling in the Maori tongue; "in those days when

the tall pakeha rangatira came to Hokianga from Maketu--he whose arm

was strong as the lancewood of the hillside, and whose counsel was wise

in the day of battle. I would have killed him, though my own life was

forfeit, had I not seen that _she_ would follow him to the reinga. But

I could not cause a hair of her head to be harmed, such was my bondage

to her _mana_. And you, O pakeha, will I save, likewise, for her sake.

Comfort yourself, O Erena; the pakeha will not die."

 

"Is it so? Truly do you say it?" almost gasped the frenzied maid. "Is

there anything more that we can do? Have you the healing medicine for

him?"

 

"I will prepare the bitter draught for him--that draught which will

bring a man back to life, though the jaws of death were closing over

him," said the tohunga. "When the sun is high, a change will come upon

him."

 

"Are you sure? Are you indeed aware that he will begin to gain

strength?" she asked eagerly. "He has been so terribly weak, and was

beginning to lose heart."

 

"Did the daughter of the Toa-rangatira ever know my saying to prove

false?" asked the priest, haughtily.

 

"Oh, no--no!" she rejoined hastily. "But tell me more. Shall we be

able to carry him to the homes of his people? And shall we be happy

afterwards?"

 

"I see," said the sage--"I see the pakeha standing among his people;

he is well; he is happy; joy is in his face--in his voice. But there

is blood--blood through it. I can see no more. There is a mist--a

darkness. The future is hidden from me."

 

"A bad omen," said the girl, sadly. "You saw blood, O Tiro-hanga! But I

care not for myself, so that _he_ be safe and unharmed."

 

"Such is the woman who loves," mused the tohunga, as he stalked moodily

towards the shore of the lake--"of whatever colour or race, in the old

days as well as in this present time, when chiefs are falling like

withered leaves, and the pakeha drives the tribes to their death,

as the wildfowl on the warm lakes. And what cares she if the whole

island is delivered to the stranger, and we become his slaves? All

her thought is for the recovery of this pakeha, whom, till ten moons

since, she never set eyes upon."

 

With this moral reflection concerning the "eternal feminine," the

substance of which has been stated by less recent philosophers, the

magician of the period betook himself to the raupo whare set apart for

him, where he remained long in deepest meditation, none of the humbler

members of the tribe daring to disturb him.

 

He stayed till the close of the following day, to watch the effect of

his potion, and finding that Massinger professed himself unaccountably

improved in mind and body, directed that in three days the patient

should commence his journey to the Oropi missionary settlement, and

departed mysteriously as he had arrived.

 

* * * * *

 

The day was drawing to a close when a cry from one of the Maori

converts at the mission station of Oropi informed the inmates of the

approach of strangers. Cyril Summers and his household still clung to

their lodge in the wilderness, in spite of the disquieting rumours

that evil was abroad, that murder and outrage were still possible. As

a matter of history, it has always been stated that, even after the

official surrender of an enemy, and the disbandment of troops, guerilla

bands capable of the wildest excesses are formed, recruited from the

more desperate ruffians, whom only the stern punishments of martial

law could hold down. Accustomed to comparative licence, often tacitly

condoned in time of war, and being--to give them their due--often

recklessly daring, their offences against discipline are leniently

judged. But when the excitement and the prizes of the campaign have

been removed, the period of enforced repose often appears to the

restless warrior of either side a season especially arranged for the

payment of outstanding grudges, or the plunder of isolated homesteads.

To the malevolent and treacherous Ngarara, devoured with jealousy of

the pakeha preferred before him, it appeared as though the demons of

wrath and revenge, worshipped by his ancestors, had delivered his

rival into his hands. Infuriated at hearing of his removal and partial

recovery, he had, by means of spies and kinsfolk, kept himself well

informed of Erena's movements. Fearing that the wounded soldier would

be withdrawn from his powers of injury, he resolved upon a bold stroke,

by which he could free himself of his rival, and possess himself of the

girl, for whom he was but too willing to sacrifice life itself.

 

Hypatia, ever alert to encounter the day's labours or adventures,

had been the first to hear the announcement of the arrival. With Mr.

Summers, she walked towards the small party which, emerging from the

forest, came slowly along the path to the homestead.

 

"These are strangers," said he, looking earnestly at the _cortége_.

"Three or four women, not more than a dozen men, and some one, either

weak or wounded, carried in a litter. Who can they be? To what tribe do

they belong?" he asked of the Maori servant woman who had followed them.

 

"Ngapuhi," said she confidently. "Rotorua natives, some of them, going

to the coast with sick man."

 

"Who is the girl walking by the litter?" asked Hypatia, with quickened

interest. "She is taller than the other women."

 

"Most like Erena Mannering. Not sure; but walk like her. Half-caste she

is, daughter of war-chief. Pakeha rangatira, belong to tribe all the

same."

 

"Now, I wonder if this can be Lieutenant Massinger?" said Summers. "He

has not been seen since the Gate Pah affair. This Erena Mannering was

reported to have carried him off, when he fell fighting bravely beside

Von Tempsky. His place of refuge may have become insecure; for that or

other reasons they may wish to reach the coast."

 

Hypatia made no reply, but, walking quickly with her companion, reached

the bearers of the invalid, as the girl, signing to them to halt,

accosted Mr. Summers.

 

"You are the missionary of Oropi?" said she, in perfectly good English,

spoken with a purity of intonation not always remarked in the colonists

of presumably higher education. "We are bringing a Forest Ranger who

was badly wounded at the Gate Pah to the coast. Will you kindly allow

us to rest for a day? He is very low, and much fatigued by the journey."

 

As she spoke, Hypatia fixed her eyes, with feelings alternating between

astonishment and admiration, upon this altogether amazing young person.

Dressed, or rather draped, like the native women who formed part of

the escort, without covering to head or feet, the simple attire rather

heightened than disguised her beauty. Her free and haughty carriage,

utterly unconscious as she seemed of her unconventional attire, the

splendour of her glorious eyes, startled Hypatia, while her graceful

pose as she turned to explain the situation reminded the English girl

of the statue of Diana which she had seen in the Pitti palace at Rome.

 

As the two girls faced each other, with the half-inquiring,

half-challenging regard of the partly conscious rivals of their sex,

they would have formed a contrast, rarely met in such completeness,

between the finished aristocrat of the old world and this wondrous

embodiment of all the womanly graces, reared amid the lonely lakes and wildwood glades of a far land.