"War to the Knife;" or, Tangata Maori by Rolf Boldrewood (top 10 novels of all time .txt) 📖

"Only a mud volcano," answered Warwick. "Let us climb to the top and look in."

The mound, formed by the deposit of dried mud, some ten or twelve feet high, was easily ascended. Open at the top, it was filled with a boiling, opaque mass of seething, bubbling mud. Ever and anon were thrown up fountain-like spurts, which turned into grotesque shapes as they fell on the rim of the strange cauldron. A tiny dab fell upon Erena's kaitaka. She laughed.

"It will do this no harm; but it might have been my face. A mud scald is long of healing."

"What an awful place to fall into alive!" said Massinger, as he gazed at the steaming, impure liquid. "Is it known that any one ever slipped over the edge?"

"More than one, if old tales are true," said Warwick; "but they were thrown in, with bound hands, after battle. It was a choice way of disposing of a favourite enemy. He did not always sink at once; but none ever came out, dead or alive."

"Let us go on!" said Erena, impatiently. "I cannot bear to think of such horrors. I suppose all nations did dreadful things in war."

"And may again," interposed Warwick. "These people were not worse than others long ago. The Druids, with their wicker cages filled with roasting [Pg 145] victims, were as well up to date as my Maori ancestors. Luckily, such things have passed away for ever."

"Let us trust so," said Massinger, feelingly.

Erena made no answer, but walked forward musingly on the track which led in the direction of the camp.

"Though narrow, it appears to have been much used," he remarked.

"It is an old war-path," replied the guide. "When the Ngapuhi came down from Maketu on their raids, they mostly used this route. I am not old enough to have seen anything of Heke's war in '45. It was the first real protest against the pakeha. The natives were beginning to be afraid, very reasonably, that the white man would take the whole country. If the tribes had been united, they could have defied any force then brought against them, and driven your people into the sea."

"And why did they not make common cause?"

"The old story. Blood-feuds had embittered one tribe against another. Chiefs of ability and forecast, like Waka Nene and Patuone, his brother, saw that they must be beaten in the long run. They allied themselves with the British. They had embraced Christianity, and remained faithful to the end, fighting against the men of their own blood without the least regard to their common origin."

"I need not ask you," said Massinger, "on which side your sympathies are enlisted."

"No! it goes without saying," answered the guide. "I have had a fair education; I have been about the world, and I cannot help recognizing the resistless power of England, against which it would be madness [Pg 146] to contend. I should never think of joining the natives in case of war. A war which is coming, from all I hear. At the same time, I cannot help feeling for them. Amid these woods, lakes, and through these mountains and valleys, their ancestors roamed for centuries. No people in the world are more deeply attached to their native land. Think how hard for them to be dispossessed."

"And have you an alternative to offer?"

"None whatever, if war breaks out. It is idle to expect that New Zealand, able to support millions of civilized people, should be abandoned to less than a hundred thousand savages; for such, with exceptions, I am afraid I must call them. As for justice and mercy in dealing with conquered races, these are mere words. Force is the only law, as it has ever been. What mercy did the Maoris show to their conquered enemies? They slew, enslaved, tortured—and worse! They exterminated weak tribes, and took their lands. They have little ground for complaint if a nation stronger in war applies the same measure to them."

"I congratulate you," said Massinger, "upon the logical view which you take of the question. But is there no way of reconciling the interests of the colonists and the children of the soil?"

"Certainly. If they are cool enough on both sides to adjourn this paltry dispute about the Waitara block until it can be settled by legal authority or arbitration, war might be avoided. No people are more obedient to law, when they properly understand it. They are naturally litigious, and enjoy a good long-winded lawsuit. If they were convinced that they were getting fair play in an arbitration, which I should recommend— [Pg 147] and there are available men, like Mannering or Waterton, who understand thoroughly the people and their customs, and are trusted by both sides—I believe they would cheerfully abide by an award."

"Then as to the sale of lands, disputed titles, upset price, and so on?"

"I believe that they are getting justice from the present land tribunals apart from political pressure, which would weaken in time; and if they do not get it from England, I do not know, speaking from experience and reading, from what other nation to expect it. There must be delay and litigation, but they will be satisfied in the end."

"And if not, and war breaks out?"

"Then there will be bloodshed to begin with, murder, outrage; all things which lead to unpardonable crimes on both sides; blood-feuds which will last for generations."

"A man like you might do much good in the legislature. Why do you not come forward, when inferior people of my own nation, from what I hear, degrade our parliamentary system?"

"The time is not yet," he answered. "We shall soon have other matters to think of. When we get back to Auckland there will be very little political business for some time to come."

Onward, and still onward. Fresh marvels of scenery seemed hourly opening before them. In pride of place, Tongariro, fire-breathing Titan, with volcanic cone, encircled by his stupendous mountain range. As they gazed, the ceaseless steam-clouds, now enveloping the summit, now wind-driven sportively, as if by a [Pg 148] giant's breath, exposed to view the darkened rim of the crater.

To the right of Tongariro, more than five thousand feet in height, they saw the heaven-piercing bulk of Ruapehu (eight thousand nine hundred feet), cloud-crowned, lava-built, but girdled with ice-fields at a lower altitude; and at the base, arising from gloomy forests, valleys seamed and fissured, precipices, ravines, and outlined terraces.

"What a land of contrasts!" said the Englishman. "The sublime, the dread and awful, the idyllic and peaceful rural, seem mingled together in the wildest profusion; fire and water conflicting furiously in the same landscape. Nature appears to have thrown her properties and elements about without plan or method."

"A strange country!—a strange people!" exclaimed Erena. "Is that what you are thinking of? Surely you cannot expect an ordinary population amid scenes like these. I fear that we resemble our country in being calm as the sleeping sea, until the storm of passion is aroused."

"And then?" queried he.

"Then, if we feel injured, cruel as the grave, merciless, remorseless. So beware of us! We make bad enemies, I confess; but, then, we are always ready to die for our friends."

"I am numbered, I trust, among that favoured class, am I not?" he continued, as he gazed at the girl's face, wearing as it did a sudden look of high-souled resolve.

So might have looked, so posed, the daughter of Jephthah; so, scorning fate and the dark death, stood Iphigenia as she awaited the blow of doom.

[Pg 149]

The expression of her face changed; a wistful, half-pleading look came into her eyes.

"Why ask?" she said softly. "You know that you are; that you always will be."

And now, after a passage across the pumice-strewn levels, lo! Taupo the sacred, Taupo-Moana, the moaning sea.

There was no thought of unsatisfied expectation as Massinger gazed upon the glorious sheet of water, over which the eye wandered until the darksome shadows of Kaimanawa and Tankaru dimmed its azure surface—the vast mountain range, from which, on Tongariro, a mathematically correct cinder-cone sprang upwards, like the spire of a gigantic minster.

On the other side, the peak of Tauhara, 3600 feet in height, stood out in lone majesty. The twin Titan, Ruapehu, bared his enormous shoulder to the unclouded sky. The day was wonderfully fine, having the softened atmospheric tone peculiar to the later summer months of the northern island. Then gradually a delicate haze crept over the horizon, shading the stern outlines of the dark-browed Alp. The foot-hills seemed to have approached through the clear yet tinted lights of the fading day.

"When have I seen such a panorama before?" thought Massinger. "What vastness, what sublimity, in all its component parts! Then, as columns of steam rose in the far distance, completing the weird and abnormal effects of the unfamiliar vision, speech, even exclamation, appeared to fail him.

[Pg 150]

"Yonder stands the pah of his Majesty, King Te Heu Heu, the head chief of all this district," interposed Warwick. "We must send forward a herald and pay our respects, or our visit may not be so successful. He has a queer temper, and is as proud as if he had been sent from heaven. There is his castle."

"Warwick is right," said Erena, coming up at this juncture and arousing herself from the reverie into which she, too, appeared to have fallen. "This is his kingdom, and we must do tika. We can rest for to-night, however, and give Te Heu Heu the second proper warning, so that he can receive us in state. I wish you could have seen the real Te Heu Heu, however."

"Why so? and what was his special distinction?"

"Something truly uncommon, personally. You would then have carried away an idea of a Maori Rangatira—one of the olden time. A giant in stature, he must have resembled old Archibald Douglas in 'Marmion'—'So stern of look, so huge of limb.' He lived in a valley some distance from here, among the hills you see yonder. But life in these regions has always been uncertain. One fine night—or perhaps it was a stormy one, for there had been a deluge of rain—the soil about here in the valley, even the rocks, they say, became loosened and came down in a kind of avalanche. It filled the whole valley, covering up Te Heu Heu, his people, his wives and children, numbering in all some seventy souls. They were never seen alive or heard of any more. There was a lament composed by his brother to his memory. I remember a verse or two.