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

addition to intellectual companionship, in the presence of this high-souled, devoted maiden, whom he did not hesitate to say the providence of God had sent to them in their distress. [Pg 303] As a school-friend of his wife's, a closer companionship and more sympathetic intimacy was established than could have been possible with any other inmate. Would but this wretched war end, and a lasting peace be established, he felt as if their future lot might be one of almost unalloyed happiness.

As for Hypatia, her fearless, eager spirit, scornful of obstacles and inglorious ease, rejoiced in the difficulties of the position. After a laborious day's work, during which she astonished the Maori handmaids by the energy which she threw into her household tasks, working in common with them, and eagerly possessing herself of the vernacular, she pored over Maori grammars and dictionaries with an ardour not inferior to that which had secured her the unique academical distinctions of her year. She learned the history, the language, the manners and customs of the singular people among whom she dwelt, with a rapidity which astonished Mr. Summers, and caused him to remark to his wife that he had been wont to consider the scholastic triumphs of her friend somewhat exaggerated, but was happy now to recant and apologize. Never before had he seen a woman in whom were allied extraordinary mental powers with such unflagging industry, steady application with such brilliant conceptions. Sufficiently rare among men, the combination was almost unknown, in his experience, among women students.

"You have left out her beauty and her simplicity of manner, my dear," said his wife, as she smiled up at her husband's earnest face. "You generally remark these attributes first, you know."

"True—most true," he said, relaxing his countenance. "These I had forgotten. They make the [Pg 304] sum-total of high gifts in her case still more surprising. For the most part beauties are neither clever nor studious. Nor are the studious women beautiful. Nature, in a fit of absence of mind, has split the ingredients while fashioning her favourites, and given Miss Tollemache a double allowance of good looks with all the talents."

"Leaving some poor girl high and dry with neither," said Mrs. Summers. "You do see that occasionally. Watch her there; she does not look like the top mathematician of her year."

Nor did she, perhaps, to a superficial eye, as she sat outside the detached building which served as a kitchen, peeling potatoes, or rather scraping them, native fashion, with a shell; afterwards placing them in a wooden vessel shaped like a canoe for future culinary treatment, the while in animated conversation with Miru, a good-humoured, round-faced native girl, whose peals of laughter were evoked from time to time by her wonderful Maori sentences.

"Yes," said Cyril Summers, "there she sits, suitably dressed, yet looking like a society girl at a South Kensington cookery class, perfectly at her ease with Miru, who worships her, and yet doing the work that is set before her thoroughly and efficiently."

"She takes the deepest interest in our converts, too," said Mrs. Summers. "'One ought to prefer our white heathen, of course,' she said to me the other day, 'but I must confess they seem to me unutterably inferior in manners, dignity, and truthfulness to this race. Their ingrained selfishness and coarseness always revolted me, in spite of my sense of duty. Now, these people have all the simplicity and directness of nature. [Pg 305] Such courage, too! What tales we hear from the front of their contempt of danger! They are, or rather have been, cruel; but so have all nations in the barbaric stage. We don't hear of anything but straightforward fighting now, and that is easy to understand when one looks around on this beautiful country.'"

"Yes, indeed. I suppose it must have come sooner or later. Yet when you contrast the old peaceful mode of living—which I used to admire when we first came here, and were not afraid to visit their kaingas—with the present, one cannot but grieve. It was the most perfect embodiment of the fabled Arcadian life that could be imagined. The palisaded pah, at once a fortress and a town, serving the purpose of the feudal castle of the Middle Ages, to which the inhabitants retreated in time of war; the fields and gardens so neatly cultivated, the groups of women and children, the young men and girls of the tribe, the gossip, the laughter, the games and exercises, of which they had a great variety; then our canoe trips on the broad Waikato, or short boat excursions from the coast settlements;—such pictures of natural rural contentment, as superior to the ordinary life of common Europeans as can be conceived."

"But then their wars—cruel and remorseless. Think of Rauparaha and Hongi! Think of the wholesale massacres, the cannibal feasts, the torturings, the burnings!"

"No doubt. All these things were done in their unregenerate days, but after the advent of that great and good man, Marsden, in 1830, and the establishment of missionary stations, these horrors gradually lessened and were in process of dying out."

[Pg 306]

"How do you think that can be? Were there not still tribal wars and ruthless massacres?"

"A state of conquest, succeeded by retribution, could not be expected to cease suddenly. But you may notice that as the old cannibal chiefs and leaders died out, they in many instances recommended the missionaries to their sons and successors. Then the Christianized chiefs, like Waka Nene and Patuone, never relapsed into heathenism, but fought for us and with us to the end."

"Certainly that showed their power to assimilate civilization, when once introduced."

"Then, again, one remarkable result of the progress of religious teaching was their abolition of slavery. The Maoris were large slaveholders in proportion to their numbers. They made profitable use of captives in agriculture and the laborious work of the tribe. They pleased themselves also by feeling that they had thus degraded their enemies. In the case of chiefs and high-born women it was held to be an unspeakable degradation, personal and political. When one considers the difficulty of inducing civilized nations to forego such privileges, one is lost in amazement that a people but lately redeemed from barbarism should act so humanely at the bidding of a handful of missionaries. It was to forego an ancient institution which contributed so largely to their pride and profit; for slaves were valuable alike in peace and war."

Following up her researches and explorations in Maori lore, Hypatia was daily more excited by the wondrous revelations which the library of fact and fiction furnished. A procession of warriors, orators, poets, priests, and patriots passed before her eager [Pg 307] vision. Conquerors who, like Timour and Zenghis Khan, marched from one extremity of the island world to the other, slaying and enslaving, devouring and torturing, extirpating the weaker tribes—a devastating wave of conquest.

Individuals, again, of such force of character and fixity of resolve that they committed themselves to the hazard of strange vessels, voyaging over unknown seas in order to reach the wondrous isles at the world's end, whence came these strong white strangers, who bore such rich and rare, even terrible commodities, to the children of Maui. Among these strong-souled envoys the historic Hongi, who dissembled successfully, while honoured in the midst of kings and courtiers, until he procured possession of the first firearms, after which he cast away the veneer of civilization, and stood forth a second Attila, the remorseless destroyer of his race. Not less, in peace or war, the warrior and diplomatist, the Napoleon of his time, the terrible Waharoa; risen from a slave's hard fate and toilsome life through the mistaken lenity of his captors, he exhibited his talents by devastating the lands of neighbouring chiefs, and his gratitude by almost obliterating the tribe which had protected him in youth and set him free to commence his march of doom!

Strange to say, those remorseless despots, red with the blood of their countrymen, and unsparing of the lives of women and children, protected the missionaries. Scorning to change their ancient faith, they yet threw no impediment in the way of their successors becoming Christians in name and faith, or loyal allies of the white strangers.

The names of women, too, this earnest student [Pg 308] found profusely associated with heroic deed and resolve, such as have rendered individuals of the sex celebrated, nay, immortal, since the dawn of history. Parallels were there for all the legendary heroines. In the revival of "Hero and Leander," it was the Maori maiden, and not the lover, who dared the peril of the midnight wave, and, more fortunate than he, survived to form a happy union and earn the immortal fame which still illumines the name of Hinemoa—that name still celebrated, even though the fairy terraces of Tarata charm the traveller no more, and the magical fire-bordered lake, even Rotorua, be whelmed in a cataclysm.

Mr. Summers was kept accurately informed by his native converts of the progress of the war. He heard details of the siege of Orakau in which the little household was more than usually interested, from the fact of Henare Taratoa and other converts being in the enemy's ranks.

"Poor Henare!" said Mrs. Summers; "he was our most promising scholar—gentle, brave, chivalrous, the very embodiment of generosity. He no doubt believes that he is fighting for his king and country now that they have set up this fetish of Potatau. It seems very hard, after all the trouble we took with him and the others."

"And why should he not fight?" asked Hypatia, with raised head and flashing eyes. "And—