"War to the Knife;" or, Tangata Maori by Rolf Boldrewood (100 best novels of all time TXT) 📕

"But travel, high companionship, ambition, the Parliament of England,—noble-sounding words! What boundless fields of enjoyment and exertion! Were not these enough to fill your heart?"

"Possibly. But all suddenly my life lost its savour; hope died, ambition vanished; existence revealed itself merely as a pilgrimage through a desert waste, haunted by lost illusions, and strewed with withered garlands. For a while I thought to end it, but a convalescent stage succeeded. I arranged my affairs and sold my place, resolved to seek a cure for my soul's unrest beyond the narrow bounds of Britain."

"Sold your ancestral home! How could you do such a thing? And what possible reason could you have had for such a mad step, as I have no doubt your friends called it?"

"That was the exact word they used. But I had made my choice. All things habitual and familiar had become distasteful—finally insupportable. I chose this colony as the most distant and interesting of England's possessions; and here I am, an exile and a wanderer in a new world, but"—turning to Erena—"honoured with the friendship of the best of guides and most charming of comrades."

She heard almost as one not hearing; then, suddenly fixing her eyes, bright with sudden fire, upon his countenance, said—

"May I be told the reason of this breaking away from all you held dear? You said I was a comrade, [Pg 220] and, believe me, no man ever had a truer. Was it a——"

"A woman? Of course it was a woman. When is man's life eternally blessed or cursed except by a woman? When is he hindered, injured, ruined, and undone by any event that has not a woman in it?"

"And she was beautiful, clever, high-born?"

"All that and more; I had never met with her equal. She was an acknowledged queen of society. She had but one fault."

"She did not love you?" said the girl, hastily, while her tones vibrated with suppressed excitement.

"Not sufficiently to link her fate with mine for the journey from which there is no retreat. She admitted approval, liking, respect—words by which women disguise indifference; but she believed that she had a mission in life, a call from heaven to go forth to the poor and afflicted, to elevate the race—a sacred task, for which marriage would unfit her."

"You pakehas are strange people," she said musingly. "And so she would not be happy because she desired to teach, to help the poor, the common people! And if she failed?"

"She would have wasted her own life, and ruined that of another."

"Life is often like that, so the books say—even the Bible. 'Vanity of vanities!' Either people do not get what they want, or find that it is not what they hoped for. Yet I suppose some people are happy—generally those who know the least. Listen to that girl singing. She is, if any one ever was."

They had been descending the hill, when at an angle of the narrow path they came upon a young [Pg 221] native woman, sitting at the door of a cottage which bore traces of European construction. A child stood at her knee, while she was busied about her simple task of needlework. The midday sun had warmed, not oppressed, the atmosphere, and there was an air of sensuous, natural enjoyment about her air and appearance as she looked over the river meadows where the tribe was employed. Her face lighted up with a smile of recognition as she saw Erena and her companion.

"Good morning, Hira. Where is Henare? You are all alone here?"

"Oh, he is at some road-work," she answered cheerfully, "but he always comes home at night. He gets good wages from the contractor."

"What a nice cottage you have!—weather-boarded, too. Who built it?"

"Oh, Henare and another half-caste chap sawed the boards and put it up. He likes living here better than in the kainga, and so do I. We can go down there when we want to."

"Good-bye, then. I have been showing this pakeha gentleman the pah.—Now, those people are just sufficiently educated to be happy and contented," said Erena. "He is a steady, hard-working fellow, and, as roads are beginning to be made, he is able from his pay to build a cottage and live comfortably."

"Education is a problem. If it leads people to think correctly on the great questions of life, it is—it must be—an advantage; but if, through anything in their condition, it produces envy and discontent, it is an evil, with which the nations have to reckon in the future."

[Pg 222]

"I sometimes wish I had not been educated myself," she said with a sigh. "I seem to have all manner of tastes and hopes most unlikely to be realized. Whereas——"

And just at that moment the lilt of the girl on the hillside came down to them, joyous with the magic tones of youthful love and hope. It furnished an answer to her questioning of fate, immediately apparent to both.

"Do not doubt for an instant!" exclaimed Massinger, touched to the heart by the girl's saddened look, and realizing the justice of her complaint. "You were never born for such a life. Nature has gifted you with the qualities which women have longed for in all ages. Your day will come—a day of appreciation, fortune, happiness. Who can doubt it that looks on you, that knows you as I do?"

In despite of her boding fears and the melancholy which so often depressed her, she was not proof against this confident prediction. Her youth's hey-day and nature's joyous anticipation protested alike against a passing despondency.

"It may be as you say. Let me hope so. Do not the bright sun, the blue sky, the dancing waves, all speak of happiness? And yet, and yet——But here comes your schooner, rounding the point. Our time of friendship is over. I wonder when we shall meet again?"

"When indeed?" thought her companion. But, determined in his heart that this should not be his last interview with this fascinating creature, so subtly compounded of the classic beauties of the wood-nymph [Pg 223] and the refinements of modern culture, he answered confidently—

"Before the year is out, surely. This war, if so it may be called, must only be a matter of months, perhaps weeks. The tribes, after a skirmish or two, can never be mad enough to defy the power of England. I must make a Christmas visit to Hokianga, if indeed we do not meet in Auckland before the spring is over, at the ratification of peace. There are sure to be festivities to celebrate the event, and you must dance with me at the Government House ball."

"Without shoes and stockings?" she said laughingly—"though I dare say I could manage them and the other articles. But we must not deceive ourselves. Months, even years, may not see the end of the war. May we both be living then, and may you be happy, whatever may be the fate of poor Erena!"

That trim little craft, the Pippi, tight and seaworthy, was anchored near the wharf when they returned. Certain cargo, chiefly kauri gum and potatoes, had to be taken in, and the passengers were informed that towards sundown her voyage would be resumed. No time was lost, therefore, after lunch in sending their luggage on board, strictly limited as it had been to the requirements of the march. Warwick, who as paymaster had been giving gratuities to the native attendants who had come on from Rotorua, reported that they were more than satisfied, and would not forget the liberality of the pakeha. They would take the chance of returning to their hapu, where they had first been met with.

[Pg 224]

"It is as well to leave friends behind us," he said. "There will be all kinds of bush-fighting for volunteers such as you and I may be, and native allies often give warning when white ones would be useless. They may counteract that scoundrel Ngarara, who will do us a bad turn yet if he can."

"By the way, what became of him at Rotorua?"

"Oh, he cleared out. The kainga became too hot to hold him after the chief's dismissal. He will join some party of outlaws. They will be common enough when real business begins."

The chief walked up with Mannering from the kainga, and joined the party at lunch in order to say farewell. Massinger was much impressed with the calm dignity and courteous manner of this antipodean noble. Apparently unconscious of any incongruity between his national surroundings and those of his entertainers, he might have posed as a British kinglet during a truce between the Iceni and the world's masters.

"A friend of mine dined with the Reverend Mr. Marsden at Parramatta in 1814," said the host, "where he met Hongi Ika with his nephew Ruatara. That historical personage had recently returned from England, where he had been, if not the guest of a king, favoured with an audience, and in other ways enjoyed social advantages. My friend said none of the swells of the day could have conducted themselves with greater propriety or shown a more impassive manner."

"All the time Hongi had blood in his heart. He deceived the good Mikonaree," said the chief. "His thought was to destroy Hinaki and his tribe, the [Pg 225] Ngatimaru, as soon as he could buy muskets. Yet he did not take Hinaki by surprise, for he told him to prepare for war, even in Sydney. Then Totara fell, and a thousand Ngatimaru were killed. But the times are changed. The Queen is now our Ariki; for her we will fight, even if the Waikato tribes join Te Rangitake. The Ngapuhi and the Rarawa have taught the Waikato some lessons before. They may do so again."

With a fair wind, light but sufficient to fill the sails of the Pippi, they swept down the river, which, increasing in volume near the heads, showed an estuary more than two miles in width. Not far from where the breakers proclaimed the presence of a bar, and opposite a point of land historically famous for tribal orgies, stood the ancient settlement of Waihononi. A substantial pier, available for reasonably large crafts, also a store and hotel, showed the proverbial enterprise of the roving Englishman. Fronting the beach stood Mr. Waterton's dwelling, a handsome two-storied mansion, surrounded by a garden which, even while passing, Massinger could note was spacious and thronged with the trees of many lands. An orchard on the side nearest the ocean was evidently fruitful, as the vine-trellises and the autumn-tinted leaves of the pears and apples showed. An efficient shelter had thus been provided against the sea-winds and the encroachment of the sand-dunes. These had been planted with binding grasses, including the valuable "marram" exotic, so wonderful a preventative of drift. Ability to protect as well as to form this outpost was not wanting, as evidenced by the presence of [Pg 226] half a dozen nine-pounders, which showed their noses through the otherwise pacific-appearing garden palisades.

Owing to certain mercantile arrangements, the departure of the Pippi was delayed for a day; a consignment of Kauri gum had not arrived. This was too valuable an item of freight to be dispensed with; and the Rawene dates of sailing not being so rigidly exact as those of the P. and O. and Messageries Maritimes, the detention was frankly allowed. Time was not of such extreme value on the Hokianga as in some trading ports. Mr. Waterton expressed himself charmed with the opportunity thus afforded of entertaining any friend of Mannering's. Massinger was equally gratified with the happy accident which permitted him to meet another of New Zealand's distinguished pioneers. So, general satisfaction being attained—rare as is such a result in this world of accidental meetings and fated wayfarings—a season of unalloyed enjoyment, precious in proportion to its brevity, opened out unexpectedly.

"I should have been awfully disgusted," was his reflection, as he found himself inducted into a handsome upper chamber, from the windows of which he beheld a wide and picturesque prospect, the foaming harbour bar, and the aroused ocean billows, "if I had lost this opportunity. The delay in land-travelling might have been serious, but, as the Maoris are not yet a sea-power, a day's passage more or less cannot signify." So, having dressed with whatever improvement of style his limited wardrobe permitted, he allowed the question of the sailing of the Pippi to remain in abeyance, and joined his host below.

[Pg 227]

Of that most interesting and delightful visit, it would be difficult to describe adequately the varied pleasures which thronged the waking hours. Lulled to sleep by the surges, which ceased not with rhythmic resonance the long night through; awaking to seek the river-strand, where the white-winged clustering sea-birds hardly regarded him as an intruder; the well-appointed and compendious library in which to range at will; the walks; the rides through forest and vale; the fishing expeditions, in one of which Massinger, proud in the triumph of having hooked a thirty-pound schnapper, discerned the snout of a dog-fish uprising from the wave. Then the evenings, prolonged far into the night, with tale and argument, raciest reminiscences of lands and seas from his all-accomplished host—quarum pars magna fuit—author, painter, sailor, explorer; such truly Arabian Nights' Entertainments Massinger had never revelled in before, and never expected to enjoy again.