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

The hour before dawn, when "deep sleep falls upon men," found the whole household wrapped in that slumber which was the natural outcome of an anxious and exciting day. But the quick loud bark of an angry dog, subsiding into a sustained suspicious growl, and joined to a woman's scream from the camp of their native adherents, told Cyril Summers that the enemy was at hand. A confused murmur of voices, the trampling of feet, with the ordinary indefinable accompaniments of a body of men, aroused the sleepers with startling suddenness.

Mrs. Summers and Hypatia, like women on a sinking ship, displayed unwonted courage. Dressing themselves and the wondering children in haste, they joined Mr. Summers in the living-room of the cottage at the same moment that it was filled by an excited crowd of the wildest natives which any of the party had ever seen.

The leader, a ferocious-looking Maori, whom Mr. Summers had no difficulty in recognizing as Kereopa, advanced with threatening air towards him; but, seeing that the missionary had no weapon, nor apparently the wish or means to defend himself, he halted abruptly. Behind him stood a crowd of natives, the [Pg 377] greater part of whom had advanced into the room, while others could be seen through the open door between the cottage and the outbuildings. Looking more closely in order to discover if by chance there were among them any of his former servants, Mr. Summers saw, to his horror and disgust, a white man. This renegade, dead to every feeling of manhood, a deserter from his regiment, was one of those abandoned wretches to be found in all new countries, who, associating with savages, encourage them in outrage and rapine. Outcasts from their race, aware that a speedy death by bullet or halter awaits them on capture, they have always been noted as the most remorseless foes of their own people.

Feeling, however, that by interrogating the man he might procure more accurate information than from the dangerously excited chief and his followers, he addressed him.

"What is the meaning of this intrusion at this hour? Ask Kereopa if he has not made some mistake."

The renegade, apparently pleased at being civilly addressed, translated the question, and repeated it to the chief, who in a loud and threatening voice replied—

"Tell the Mikonaree that I, a prophet of the Pai Marire, have received authority from the angel Gabriel to kill or take into captivity all the pakehas, with their wives and daughters, as did the Israelites with the Amalekites."

"Have I ever done you harm? Have I not taught your people to grow the bread-grain, the potato, the vegetables on which they grow strong and healthy?"

"What have you done—what have the white men done?" shouted the wild-eyed chief, now working [Pg 378] himself into an insane fury. "You have taught us your prayers and stolen our lands. You have given us the grain and taken the fields. Where are our brothers, our sons, our chiefs? Slain by your soldiers, after robbing them of their lands—even Waitara and Tataraimaka. They are cold in the ground on which they planted and feasted, but which now only serves them for graves."

"Surely you would not kill people with no arms in their hands. Which of our missionaries has ever fired a gun even in defence of his life?"

"The priests of your people do not fight, but they act as spies; they have betrayed our plans to the pakeha general. They will all be killed, like Volkner, to show the world that we shall have no spies, no false prophets, no priests of Baal, amongst us. Prepare to die, even as Volkner died, whose head, with that of the pakeha Boyd, is with us. Let their hands be tied."

At once several eager warriors sprang forward, by whom the women and the missionary were seized. Their hands were bound behind them with strips of the native flax, which effectively rendered them helpless captives.

"You will die when the sun goes down," he said, indicating Cyril Summers. "Call on your God to help you. The rope is ready, and the tree on which you will hang, as did Volkner. But all are not here. Where is the wounded pakeha, and the Ngapuhi girl Erena?"

"They have gone; they went yesterday."

"Which path was theirs? If you deceive me, great suffering will be yours before you die."

[Pg 379]

"They went into the forest; that is all I can say. The God in whom I trust will save me from cruelty at your hands."

A native at this time said some words in the Maori tongue which seemed for the time to allay the wrath of the raging wild beast into which Kereopa was transformed.

"It is well. Their tracks will be found; Ngarara is a keen hunter when the prey is near. He is pursuing the Ngapuhi girl Erena, whose heart the pakeha soldier has stolen from him. He will cut his heart out of his breast and eat it before her eyes. I will give her to him for a slave. All the pakeha women shall be slaves to the men of the Pai Marire when the day of deliverance shall come. Hau-Hau, Hau-Hau, Hau-Hau!"

Here the countenance of the half-insane savage became changed into the likeness of a ferocious beast, as he yelled out the war-cry of the sect, which was immediately caught up and re-echoed, dog-like, by every individual in the maniacal crowd. With eyes almost reversed in their sockets, with tongue protruding, with the foam flying from his lips, and every human feature lost in the bestial transformation, he resembled less a human being than a monstrous demon from the lowest pit of Acheron.

Mrs. Summers fainted, the children screamed piteously, and Cyril made one step forward, as if, even with his fettered hands, he essayed to do battle with the destroying fiend. He was immediately seized by two powerful natives, who had been standing near him, and forced back to his former position. Realizing his utter helplessness, he groaned aloud as he [Pg 380] saw Hypatia bending over his wife's drooping form, while she adjured her to preserve her presence of mind for the sake of the terrified children and her unhappy husband.

"We shall need all our strength to carry us through this ordeal," she said. "We need it for prayer and faith, which, even in this dark hour, will save us."

As she spoke, the brave spirit of the devoted wife and mother recalled her to life and consciousness. She gazed on the strange surroundings of their once peaceful home, and after giving vent to her emotions in one wild burst of tears, resumed her efforts at composure.

Fortunately for the overwrought feelings of the captives, a diversion at this critical moment was effected through an unusual noise beginning among the natives clustered beyond and around the open door. A cry, whether of warning or triumph, came from the forest path; gradually it swelled into greater distinctness, until it resolved itself into the well-known shout of triumph which proclaimed the capture of an enemy of note. It was then seen, by the full dawn light now breaking through the masses of gloom, to proceed from a body of men emerging from the forest. The leaders of the party were dancing and singing with an exuberance which betokened victory and triumph. When the whole body debouched from the wood, it was seen to have in its midst a litter borne by four men, beside whom walked a girl with haughty and defiant mien. She looked more like a barbaric queen than a captive taken in war, as her fettered wrists showed her to be. Her attendants had been similarly treated, with the exception of the bearers, who were so closely surrounded that their [Pg 381] escape had been considered improbable. By the time they had reached the open space behind the cottage, the whole party, including Kereopa, had quitted the room, and joined in the tremendous volume of triumphant yells and cries which rent the air.

"Let the pakeha wahine come forth and look upon their friends," said Kereopa, with devilish malice. "They will see how the prophets of the Pai Marire obey the message of the angels, how the sword of the Lord and Gideon is made sharp for the evil-doer, and how the convert from the Ngapuhi is rewarded in the hour of victory."

Fearful of further violence, Cyril Summers had partially supported his wife, followed by the shuddering children, to the porch, around which in happier days he had pleased himself with training a clematis. Hypatia stepped forward with wide eyes, as expectant of instant tragedy. Almost unheeding of her own danger, and the fearful position in which all were placed, she could not repress her interest in Massinger, as with almost equal eagerness she looked at Erena. He lay back on the rude pillow which had been placed below his head, deathly pale, and only exhibiting consciousness through his heaving breast and the movements of his eyes. But when she turned her gaze upon the dauntless form of Erena Mannering, all womanly jealousy was obliterated by the glow of admiration which the girl's regal bearing and fearless spirit evoked in her. She moved among the fierce crowd of half-doubtful, half-bloodthirsty Hau-Haus with the air of a princess among pariahs. Upon those who pressed closely to her side she from time to time bestowed a glance of scorn and menace, accompanied [Pg 382] by a few words in their own tongue, from which they shrank as from a missile. Her eyes blazed as they were turned upon Kereopa, who with sneering smile approached her, pointing to the half-inanimate form of Massinger.

"The pakeha is sick; the pakeha is tired," he said with affected regret. "It is wrong that he was carried so far. His wound must be unhealed. The Pai Marire grieve. He will not stand the fire well, tomorrow. There will be a haka too, in honour of Ngarara's marriage, which he must first witness."

"Dog of the Hau-Haus!" said the indignant maiden, with all the scorn and wrath of a line of chiefs shining from her storm-litten eyes. "Speak you to a war-chief's daughter of the Ngapuhi as to a slave-woman? What false tohunga have ye, that thy doom and that of thy herd of swine is concealed from thee? See thy future fate, as in that darkening cloud, coming nearer and yet nearer!" As she spoke, she pointed to a thunder-cloud which, after the mists of the morning, had gathered size and volume, and was now moving with the course of the dawn-wind towards them. Such was the majesty of her mien, such the tragic earnestness of her tones, as she stood, like a priestess of old, denouncing wrong and oppression, that the crowd, deeply superstitious as is the race, turned instinctively towards the approaching phenomenon; and when the thunder rolled, and the jagged fire-stream issued from the ebon, a shuddering sound was audible, which showed how deeply fear of the supernatural was rooted in the native mind. "Behold!" said the fearless, inspired maiden, as she raised her hand and pointed to the sky, "the Atua [Pg 383] of the Storm has spoken! Beware how you touch a hair of our heads. Shed the blood of these pakehas, who have never done your nation aught but good, who are now helpless in your hands—torture this sick soldier—and not a man here will be alive when the moon is dark!"

As Erena uttered the words of doom, she paused for a moment, while the audience gazed around, as if waiting for some physical manifestation in answer to her words. Kereopa preserved his expression of malicious unbelief, as though willing to torment his captives with all the dreadful uncertainty which might comport with a treacherous delay. Glancing at him for a moment with unutterable scorn, she left her position, and, moving to the side of the litter, gazed into the face of the sick man with anxious tenderness.

But it was evident that the natives generally had attached more meaning to her words than could have been expected. She