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

of his hapu upon the scene. "Angel of God was there none" to whisper that loved daughter's name, darling of his heart, apple of his eye, that she was? Was there no mysterious spirit-warning such as, if tales be true, has often, through invisible sympathetic chords, eliminated time and space? Did not the traditional second sight, inherited from Highland ancestors, and of which he and Erena claimed their portion, prove faithful in that dread hour? Long afterwards—in years when he could talk calmly of his loss, dwell upon her courage, her beauty, and extol her intellectual range—he confessed to his closest friend and comrade that he had felt, from the time he turned aside to Opotiki, an overshadowing, inexplicable gloom and despondency. He was convinced in his own mind that (as he said) some dreadful deed had taken place, or was even then about to happen. Therefore he was hardly surprised, after hours of feverishly fast travelling, to find Mr. Volkner's mutilated corse beneath the willow tree which he had himself planted. Mr. Grace, after being in hourly expectation of a violent death, had been rescued by Captain Levy, one of the survivors of the crew of the Jane, and put on board H.M.S. Eclipse, Captain Fremantle.

Burning with wrath, and maddened with the doubt as to whether Erena and Massinger might not even yet be within the region traversed by the Hau-Hau scouts, Mannering made a forced march, halting neither by day nor night, rendered still more furious [Pg 400] and despairing by the freshness of the trail, leading straight for the Oropi mission station. Kereopa had sworn, as rumour had it, that he would kill the third Mikonaree pakeha and carry off his wife and children as a prey, before proceeding to join the Kingites in the sack and plunder of Auckland.

It was midnight when the mission was reached. An unwonted stillness reigned; no dog barked, no voice was heard from the native camp—an unusual state of things within his experience, the wakeful Maori being always ready for converse at any hour of the night. The mission house itself was partially closed only, but silent and deserted. The trim garden was trampled over. The shrubs and fruit trees had been broken down. The keen eyes of the Maoris discerned a spot where the ground had been disturbed. A short search exhumed more than one body, on which bullet and tomahawk had written the history of the engagement. The furniture in some rooms was intact, in others recklessly broken up. A handkerchief, a shoe, a neck-ribbon, told of recent occupation. One article of female Maori headgear, a plume of the beautiful huia, the distracted parent recognized as an ornament of Erena's.

Meanwhile, like questing hounds, the Ngapuhi warriors traversed the surrounding thickets with all the keenness of a savage race. Imprints and signs, so faint as to be almost invisible to the white man, told all too plainly to them the history of the occupation of the Hau-Haus, the arrival of Ropata and his men, the fight (if such it could be called) and finally the departure of the whole party, including the family, the victorious contingent, and the prisoners, in full march for Tauranga.

[Pg 401]

Hoping against hope, yet with a cruel doubt eating at his heart, Mannering sat with his head between his hands for a stricken hour, before he gave orders for his troop to be in readiness to march, when the Southern Cross pointed towards dawn. Long before the stars had paled, he strode fast and eagerly at the head of his faithful band, on the well-marked Tauranga track.

It was past midday when they arrived. The place was astir, the streets were filled. There was murmur of voices, and that indescribable feeling in the air as of woe, or death imminent. Such was the conviction which smote the strong soul of Allister Mannering as, with his warriors ranked in battle line, he joined the throng, evidently converging towards a lofty cliff, which reared itself above the harbour.

An enclosure in which shrubs were in luxuriant growth now came into view, and marble columns showed themselves amid the dark green foliage. It was the cemetery.

The truth flashed across him. He had been afraid to ask. Was it, could it be, the funeral procession of his darling daughter—of Erena, the bright, beautiful, fearless maiden, whom he had so lately seen in the pride of her stately maidenhood and joyous youth? Lovely and beloved, was it possible that she could be now, even now, before his haggard eyes, borne to her tomb? He gazed on the little band of mourning girls who carried the flower-decked coffin. The native attendants of the missionary family walked behind with Mrs. Summers and Hypatia, while Cyril Summers, in full canonicals, with another clergyman, the army chaplain, preceded the cort�ge.

[Pg 402]

Behind them, again, came a company of the 43rd with their officers, another of the 68th, and the Forest Rangers, with Von Tempsky at their head. Also Messrs. Slyde and Warwick, who had been granted special leave for that day only by the army surgeon, looking weak and pale after their enforced seclusion.

Then came the native allies, the Arawa, the Ngapuhi, the Ngatiporu, all stern and warlike of appearance, proud to do honour to the maiden whose mother was of their race, with the blood of chiefs in her veins, whose descent could be traced back to the migration from Hawaiki.

Those who knew of the love, so deep, so passionate, which subsisted between the daughter and the sire, could partly realize the dull despair, the agonizing grief, which filled his heart at the moment. But none of the ordinary signs of sorrow betrayed the storm of anguish, the volcanic wrath and stifled fury, which raged within. His stern countenance preserved a rigid and awful calm. His voice faltered not as, walking forward when the cort�ge halted, he respectfully made request that the coffin-lid should be raised.

"Let me look upon the face once more," he said, "even in death, that I shall never see again on earth."

His request was granted. He stooped, and raising the cerecloth, gazed long and fixedly on the face of the dead girl. Then moving forward, he signed to the clergyman to proceed with the service, remaining uncovered until the last sad words were, with deepest feeling, solemnly pronounced.

As the irrevocable words were spoken, and the clay-cold form, which had held the fiery yet tender soul of Erena Mannering, was lowered into the grave, [Pg 403] a tempest of sobs, cries, and wailing lamentation, until then repressed, burst forth from the Maoris in the great gathering. Then Mannering slowly turned away, and after dismissing his following, accompanied Mr. Summers. From him he learned the full particulars of the Hau-Hau invasion—of their captivity, their fearful anticipation of death by torture, the sudden appearance of Ropata and his warriors, their miraculous escape, and the death of Erena in the very moment of deliverance.

"She gave her life to save that of the man she loved," said Mannering. "Her mother, long years since, did the same in my case. She is her true daughter. It was her fate, and could not be evaded. She had the foreknowledge, of which she spoke to me more than once."

Roland Massinger, on the way to recovery, but too weak for independent action, still lay in the military hospital.

Mannering, as he stood beside his couch, and gazed on his wasted features, looked, with his vast form and foreign air, like some fabled genie of the Arabian tale.

"She is gone," said the sick man, as he raised himself and held out the trembling fingers, which feebly grasped the iron hand of his visitor—"she is gone; she died in shielding me. I feel ashamed to be alive. I cannot ask your pardon. I was the cause of her death."

The rigid features of the father relaxed, as he watched the grief-worn countenance of the younger man, and noted the sincerity and depth of his despairing words.

"My boy," he said, "you have played your part nobly, as did she; and you have, by a hair's breadth, [Pg 404] escaped being buried beside her this day. She died for the man she loved, as only a daughter of her race can love. There must be no feeling but affection and respect between us. I mourned her mother as do you her daughter. Poor darling Erena! Oh, my child—my child!"

Mannering's freedom from ordinary human weakness deserted him here. He threw himself on his knees by the side of Massinger's bed, who then witnessed a sight unseen before by living eyes—the strong man's tears as he abandoned himself to unrestrained grief. Sobs and muffled cries, groans and lamentations of terrible intensity, shook his powerful frame. Weakened by his wound, and compelled to thus relieve his intolerable anguish, Roland Massinger's tears flowed fast in unison, as for a brief interval they mingled their sorrow. Then raising himself, and regaining the impassive expression which his features, save in familiar converse, ordinarily wore, the war-chief of the Ngapuhi bade adieu to the man whom he had looked forward to acknowledging with pride as the husband of the darling of his heart, the idol of his latter years.

"Fate has willed it otherwise," he said. "You may have happy years before you in your own land, with perhaps a wife and children to perpetuate your name and inherit your lands. I wish you such happiness as I know she would have done. Her generous heart would so will it, if she could speak its promptings from 'the undiscovered country.' In her name, and with her authority, knowing her inmost thoughts, I say—May God bless you and prosper you in the future path! In this life we shall meet no more."

[Pg 405]

Kereopa and Ngarara had escaped; but Ropata, who had started as soon as he delivered up his Hau-Hau prisoners, was hot on their trail. Kereopa, in spite of his keen and eager pursuit, fled to the Uriwera country, where he found shelter for a time, but led the hunted life of the outcast until it suited his protectors to betray him. Forwarded to Auckland, he was duly tried, convicted, and hanged.

Ngarara had a shorter term of comparative freedom. One morning, shortly after the attack on the mission, a small party of the Aowera appeared at Whakarewarewa, the main body of the tribe being encamped on Lake Rotorua. A bound prisoner was in their midst, on whose movements they kept watchful guard. It was Ngarara! A sub-chief, having been apprised of the capture, arrived with leading warriors. One glance at his stern features assured the captive that he had no mercy to expect. Contrary to Maori usage, he did not disdain to beg for it.

"I tried to kill the pakeha," he said. "What harm was there in that? He stole the heart of the girl I loved; who, but for him and his cunning ways, might have loved me. I would have given my life for her. Other men have killed pakehas—Rewi, Rawiri, even Te Oriori; why should I be the sacrifice?"

The chief listened with an air of disgust, but did not deign to reply. Meanwhile an order had been given, and the party marched on, taking the prisoner with them, preserving a strict silence, which evidently impressed him more deeply than any other treatment. In about three hours they arrived at the mission station of Ngae. Here a feeling of misgiving appeared to arise in the captive's mind, and he muttered the [Pg 406] word "Tikitere" with an accent of inquiry. But no man answered or took notice of his speech.

But when they reached that desolate and awful valley, and saw the mud volcanoes and steaming springs in furious motion, his courage failed him. He saw the hissing, bubbling lakes separated by a narrow ridge, aptly named the Gate of Hell, standing on which the traveller shudders, while breathing sulphuretted hydrogen and beholding the turbid waves on either side—the while the tremulous soil suggests the enormous power of the central fires, which at any time might rend and ruin all around with earthquake shock and suddenness.

He knew also, none better, of the dread blackness of the inferno, in which the sombre billows of a tormented sea of boiling mud are heaving and seething continually.

As with careful steps his guards half dragged, half carried him across the treacherous flat, seamed with fissures, where death lay in wait for the heedless stranger, he appeared to comprehend fully the fate that awaited him. He yelled aloud and struggled so wildly, even despite his bonds, that, at a motion of Ropata's arm, two stalwart natives stepped forward to the aid of their comrades as he neared the fatal abyss.

"Dog of a murderer, coward and slave besides," said the chief, as, halting on the brink, the guards awaited his signal—"a disgrace to the tribe which never was known to flee! Did Erena show fear when the bullet pierced her breast? Did the pakeha soldier shriek like the night owl when thy traitor's bullet struck his back—his back, I say, and he with thee in the same battle against the Ngaiterangi at Peke-hina? Did the [Pg 407] pakeha girl, the white Rangatira, or the Mikonaree cry for