CHAPTER XIV
MAGIC, BLACK AND WHITE
The gods of the old religion were good enough for Kapua Mangu, who detested the blasphemous absurdities of Hau-hauism, and he had brought Te Karearea, the backslider, to the underground haunt—known, he believed, only to himself—partly to convince him that the arms of these same old gods were still powerful, and partly for another reason.
Actuated by the first of these motives, he had produced his very strongest card at the outset of the interview, and flung at the chief the dried body of a tuatara, a large and harmless lizard, indigenous to New Zealand.
Yet this was quite enough to overthrow the nerve of a strong, clever man, and render him weak and impotent from actual fear. For in such terror do the Maoris hold all lizards, that the mere pronunciation of the word Ngara, a generic term for the whole race, makes the bravest warrior tremble.
The deep-voiced command of Kapua Mangu arrested the flight of the chief, and, as if the sight of the demon on the ground were not sufficient, the old man, with pointing finger, asked in a terrifying screech: 'Where, O Hawk of the Mountain, where is the mere of TUMATAUENGA?'
Te Karearea started, but before he could reply, the venerable mystic flung his arms above his head and chanted in his fine, sonorous voice the race-old prophecy of the greenstone club:—
'Behold! In the days to come a strange, strong race
Shall contend with the Maori.
Ah! Then shall the days be full of evil and danger
For the house of Te Turi.
'And behold! In those days of unrest and contention
One of the House of Te Turi shall give to one of the strong,
strange race
The mere of TUMATAUENGA.
Aue! Aue! Alas for the House of Te Turi.
Aue! Aue! Then shall the doom and the end
Of the House of Te Turi be nigh!
'But behold! If the stranger cleave to the race of the Maori,
If he give back of his own free will to one of the House of
Te Turi
The mere of TUMATAUENGA,
Then shall the House of Te Turi arise again from the dust.
Only thus shall the doom be averted!'
'All this thou knewest, O Hawk of the Mountain! All this I spake in thine ear, O son of the dead and gone White Mist!' declaimed the old wizard. 'Guile, not force, must win the mere of TUMATAUENGA from the Pakeha to whom Te Kaihuia gave it. Yet, if he resign the weapon of his own free will, even though he lay it aside but for a moment, and thou hast the wit to seize it, then it is thine.' His voice sank suddenly to an ordinary tone. 'But doubtless, so astute a man as Te Karearea, knowing all this, has already acted upon it. Say then, O friend,' he concluded mildly, 'where is the mere of TUMATAUENGA?'
Very slowly Te Karearea drew his greenstone club from his belt and stretched his sinewy arm across the tapu line. 'It is here,' he faltered, and almost as the lie dropped from his lips, leaped backwards with a wild yell of terror.
For the lizard, suddenly and mysteriously endowed with life, sprang straight at him, its scaly body colliding with his hand.
Te Karearea's club clattered to the ground, and his limbs, stiff with horror, held him rooted to the spot after that one backward impulse; while the lizard, its strange vitality extinguished as instantly as it had been kindled, tumbled back inertly upon the ridge.
'Liar!' shrieked the old man, shaking a warning finger in the face of the trembling chief. 'Fool! who thought to deceive the watchful TUMATAUENGA. Hear now, O stupid Hawk, the word which the gods have spoken to me.'
Te Karearea was badly stricken as it was, but his eyes bulged as Kapua Mangu poured out the whole history of the greenstone club from the moment when Te Kaihuia had handed it to George. He had spoken with none but the chief since the arrival of the Hau-haus, and yet the minutest details were known to him, and he lashed Te Karearea with his tongue until, compelled by exhaustion, he stopped and staggered back against the tree.
Now was Te Karearea's opportunity to escape, and he stooped swiftly to regain his club, keeping a wary eye upon the lizard, when suddenly he discerned around the body of the tuatara a thin cord of blackened flax, indistinguishable in the gloom, unless closely looked for. Te Karearea drew his mat across his face so that he might indulge in a quiet grin.
Presently Kapua Mangu, having got his second wind, advanced to complete the humiliation of the chief; but to his amazement, he detected a decided sneer on Te Karearea's thin lips.
'Beware, O stupid Hawk!' he yelled fiercely. 'Beware, lest I deliver you into the power of the tuatara.'
For answer Te Karearea snatched up the cord, wrenched the end from the magician's hand, and slung the lizard from him with a derisive laugh. It fell just within the circle of heads.
The chief was somewhat taken aback by this, which he certainly had not intended; but he preserved a bold front, poked out his tongue until it almost reached his chest, and rolled his eyes frightfully.
But Kapua Mangu, confronted thus by such an uncivil infidel, set up a howl of horror.
'Aue! Aue!' he wailed. 'Alas for the House of Te Turi.'
Tears ran from his aged eyes, and his gaunt body shook with a terror which was quite unfeigned.
'Hi! Hi!' exclaimed Te Karearea. 'What a fuss about nothing. I saw the cord with which you made him jump. He cannot hurt.'
'Nay, nay,' protested Kapua Mangu mournfully; 'you are a fool. It was for your sake I put the cord upon him. Had I not pulled him back when he jumped, he would have devoured you before my eyes.'
This was an entirely new view of the situation, and the self-satisfied grin faded from Te Karearea's face. The old superstitions were tugging at him once more. 'I will bring him back,' he said humbly, and took a hesitating step in the direction of the heads.
Kapua Mangu was genuinely frightened, but, being by no means certain that anything would happen, he felt compelled to regain his ascendency by thoroughly frightening the chief once more. So he drew largely upon a vivid imagination in order to restrain the foolhardy infidel.
'Stay, fool!' he shrieked. 'The spirits of the dead are angry. There is Te Pouri whom you slew, and Te Kaihuia whom you sped upon the road to Reinga. They are talking to one another. They are nodding their heads and saying: "Here comes the stupid Hawk. Let us seize him and——" Ah-h-h!'
It is impossible to describe the long-drawn, quavering scream which brought the poor wizard's ravings to a sudden close. Never was venerable sorcerer so completely taken aback, so utterly horrified at the success of his own magic.
For, as it happened, his last coherent words exactly described the behaviour of two of the heads. Incredible to relate, they were nodding at one another, and gruesome enough was the sight in that gloomy underworld. It was too much for the old tohunga, and with another yell of fear and horror, he fled from the awful scene which, as he fully believed, his own magic had evoked.
More scared by the wild talk of the wizard than he would have cared to admit, Te Karearea glanced over his shoulder at that first panic-stricken yell. Then he turned his head again, and his own blood froze.
For he, too, now saw the nodding heads and—oh, fearsome sight!—their voiceless conference at an end, the pair came rushing at him with a strange, bobbing motion, enough of itself to scare any wretched mortal. But, as if that were not sufficient, the two frolicsome heads stopped suddenly in their wild career, threw themselves back, and burst into peal upon peal of harsh, demoniac laughter.
It was the last straw. One horrified look Te Karearea cast behind him in frenzied appeal to the tohunga, and thus becoming aware of that ancient fraud, who with flapping mat and twinkling, skinny legs, raced along the back-track, he turned and rushed after the discomfited magician, who just then afforded an admirable example of an 'engineer hoist with his own petard.'
No sooner did the chief take to his heels, than a still more singular phenomenon was exhibited; for the two heads developed bodies, arms, and legs, not to speak of trousers and boots, materialising, the one into George, the other into Terence. The latter caught up the torch from the ridge, the former secured the two heads with whose personality they had made so free, and together they sped after the vanishing couple, who were much too scared to think of looking behind them.
As they passed an immense jumble of logs and broken boughs, George dropped the heads into the midst of it. 'This place may be useful to us by and by,' he said, 'and if those two return and find them lying about, they will smell a rat.'
Terence burst into a sputtering laugh. 'I thought I should have died when you squatted on your hocks and went hopping down on the chief. And the face of his mightiness! Oh, oh, oh! I shall never forget it.'
'Steady, old fellow!' cautioned George, with a responsive grin. 'It's an ill wind that blows nobody good, and the chief's scare has proved our salvation.'
Closely following Te Karearea's line of flight, they soon passed through a hole into the midst of some thick bushes. Then the cool night air blew in their faces, and overhead blazed the myriad stars of the southern sky. They were in the upper world once more.
But what was their surprise when the black mass of the stockade surrounding the pah loomed in front of them, some forty rods away. There was no doubt of it; for far below them, across the river, they could see the twinkling fires of the bivouac in the forest, while in the intense stillness the splash and scurry of the leaping water in the cañon came plainly to their ears.
'It is clear that we were all kept off the hill to-night in order that our ancient friend might introduce the chief unobserved into the secret haunt we have just left,' said Terence.
'And little did they dream that they would have an audience,' put in George. 'I know a good deal more about things than I did an hour ago. Let us go down and camp on the flat. There are worse beds than the heart of a flax-bush, and we shall be well concealed in case they are hunting for us. We are sure to have been missed from the bivouac.'
'Let us take the bearings of this opening before we go,' suggested Terence. 'How are we facing? Ah! there's the Southern Cross.'
'This rock is a good guide,' said George. 'The bushes hide the opening very completely, and I dare say it can be further disguised. I wonder if many people know of it.'
'I should think not, and I am sure that the hole by which we entered is not commonly known,' replied Terence. 'We must do our best to find it again.'
They found the track and descended the hill to the plain, hiding themselves as quickly as possible among the flax-bushes near the river road. Then George said:
'I will tell you to-morrow all that passed between Te Karearea and Kapua Mangu, and why I am regarded as such a valuable asset. Why, the chief's very existence appears to depend upon his success in making a Pakeha-Maori of me.'
'Tell all about it,' pleaded Terence.
'You cormorant! Haven't you had excitement enough for one night? Not a word—oh, just one. If I lay the greenstone club aside, even for a moment, and you are by, call my attention to it at once, please. Otherwise things may happen.'
'You mean creature! How do you expect me to sleep in peace?' complained Terence. 'I shall dream all night of you and your magic club.'
George curled himself up in the heart of a flax-bush. 'Don't tread upon me if your dreams make you walk in your sleep,' he laughed. 'I'm for bed.'
'Me too,' said Terence. 'I'm looking for a soft spot.’