THE AGED CHIEF.

It was dawn when I opened my eyes and saw Kahikatea stooping to get through the doorway, so as to stretch his limbs outside, where there was no danger of knocking down articles stuck up among the rafters. Soon afterwards I joined him in front of the hut.

“Ha!” he said, greeting me with a smile full of early morning freshness, “I always turn out before the sun gets up, so as to see the lovely colours on the hills—look!”

He pointed to the roof-tree, the very tip of which was glistening like velvet in the first crimson flush of sunlight. The wooded hill beyond was bathed in splendour, and the birds were gliding down umbrageous slopes, chasing the early dragon-flies and filling the place with song. The storm of the preceding night had left no trace, and Nature had emerged all fresh and smiling. Kahikatea walked about enjoying it, while slowly the sunlight crept lower and lower down his roof-tree until it flooded on to the top of his log hut, and finally touched his own head before it reached mine.

“It’s glorious living all alone in the bush,” he said; “I get more solid satisfaction out of it than out of London, or Paris, or New York, or Sydney, or—hello! there’s my korimako—my little bell-bird—he always turns up as soon as the sun gets on to his fuchsia tree.”

I followed his outstretched finger and saw his fellow poet of the sunrise brushing the dewdrops from among the flowers and scattering them around as he trilled out a rain of melody quite as liquid as the many-tinted shower that fell upon the moss beneath.

“His song is sadder than it used to be,” said Kahikatea; “the bees get most of his honey now, and he is doomed to extinction.”

I had almost made up my mind before that this man was a poet, and one who could be trusted to catch Nature’s higher meanings from her birds and flowers and trees, from her dawns and sunsets, and her mid-day hush, when the bell-bird, assuming the rôle of a solemn, mysterious clock, strikes one in the lofty, silent spaces of the bush. Now, as I watched his face under the influence of the morning and the korimako’s music, I conceived a picture of his nature which has remained with me to this day—the picture of a clear-souled poet, who could dream and yet act, who was mad and yet sane.

The sun was not far above the horizon when we made a start for Te Makawawa’s pa. Through the silent grove of palm ferns, along the well-worn path that I had discovered the night before, and finally by ways that were new to me, I followed my tall friend down out of the bush to the sea, where the silver-crested waves were rolling in upon a grey gravel shore.

After traversing this for some distance we struck inland to avoid a steep rocky promontory, with bluffs, against which the spray was dashing high. Then, after several hours’ tramp through flax swamps, along precipitous ridges, over flooded streams, and through open dells, where all the rarest ferns in the world seemed to be growing together, we reached a broad river, and, following it down to the sea, saw ahead of us, on the summit of a high and bold cliff, the palisading of Te Makawawa’s pa.

“It’s a difficult place to get into,” said Kahikatea. “There are precipices on three sides of it, and the entrance here at the bottom of the hill is not particularly obvious. It must have been a fine stronghold in the early days.”

We raised a peculiar whoop in vogue among the Maoris, in order to signify that visitors were approaching; then, receiving the answering cry of welcome: “Haeremai! Haeremai!” we began the ascent of the hill. At the entrance of the first palisaded enclosure we were met by numerous dogs, which barked out of all proportion to their meagre size. At the second palisading, which enclosed the pa proper, we saw an aged chief come through a private opening. It was Te Makawawa himself, and as he drew near I recognised the tohunga Maori of the order called ariki, which designates the chief, the priest, and the seer.

“Welcome, O Kahikatea,” he said, addressing my friend in the Maori tongue. “Welcome, O Pakeha stranger,” he added, turning to me; “the pa of Te Makawawa is the home of the stranger who comes with my friend the Forest Tree.”

“Prop and mainstay of the children of Ira,” said Kahikatea—and I was surprised at his fluency in the native tongue—“well I know that thou art the ariki who reads things that are hidden from other eyes. We have come with a strange word to speak before you, O tohunga—a word that you alone can make plain.”

Te Makawawa waved his hand with a stately grace, and, inviting us to follow, led the way into the pa. Conducting us through fenced lines dividing the houses of the tribal families, he at length reached his own elaborately carved dwelling, almost on the brink of a great precipice which overlooked the sea. He ordered his servants to place clean mats on the ground in the portico, and he—a rangatira of the old school, stood with well-simulated humility until such time as we should invite him to be seated. We gave the customary invitation, and Te Makawawa seated himself opposite to us.

Then, when the food baskets had been placed before us and we had eaten, we sat in silence, the chief, according to custom, waiting impassively to hear the object of our visit, and we, also according to custom, deeply considering the words we should use. As Kahikatea had undertaken the duty of spokesman I was free to observe more closely the face of the aged chief. He was beardless, his hair was quite white, and his bold, high forehead, coupled with his piercing black eyes, gave evidence of great power and ability. His whole face was tatooed in a way to denote the highest rank: he had evidently been a great man among his people—an ariki, in whose veins ran the blood of the Great River of Heaven. He was nearly ninety years old, so I subsequently discovered, but his age was not written in his eye nor yet in his proud and erect bearing.

My eyes wandered to the sea below, sparkling in the pathway of the sun, and holding the little wooded islets in a setting of silver breakers. Now and again the long rising swell of the Great Ocean of Kiwa came in with a weird sigh, moaning about the cliffs on the coast below. Sea birds, uttering plaintive calls, circled overhead and again swooped down over the face of the cliff. It was a strange spot wherein was about to be unfolded a stranger tale.

“O wise tohunga,” said Kahikatea at length, “I have dreamed a dream, and have come to ask you what it means.”

“The wind has whispered some hidden word in the branches of the Kahikatea,” said the old chief; “lay that hidden word before me, that I may hold it in my hand.”

“My word is a dream which I will tell—a dream on a night when the moon was full. It seemed to me that I climbed a great mountain wall by a high plain yonder towards the setting sun——”

He paused, for he had seen, as I had, a passing movement on the old chief’s rugged face.

“Do you know of such a mountain wall, O Te Makawawa?” pursued Kahikatea.

A long silence ensued, and we both watched the aged chief’s face, while his eyes rested on the ground. He seemed debating in his mind whether he should answer; but at length, with a craftiness through which I thought I saw the truth, he raised his eyes and said:—

“I have myself in dreams wandered astray in a forest at the foot of a mountain wall, by which I know that my death is waiting for me there. Your words, O Kahikatea, carried me back to my own dream—did you ask me a question?”

This was artful. He had evidently made up his mind that he knew nothing of such a mountain wall, at all events not until he had heard more.

But my friend did not repeat his question. I think he saw with me that the old chief had been startled, but had extricated himself gracefully, and that, now he was on his guard, we should have no further clue.

“I was saying,” Kahikatea went on, “when I saw that the spirit of your ancestor was speaking to you, that I climbed up a mountain wall, I know not how, for it seemed to me that no man could have passed that way before. In my dream, as I stood on a great platform at the summit of the wall against the sky, a thin crust of rock beneath my feet gave way and I fell into a narrow cavern. Not being able to get out again I groped my way along and found that it communicated with a passage cut in the rock, narrow, but high, as if it had been made by, and for, giants. I followed this passage, winding in and out in the darkness of the rock, and at length came out again on the summit of the wall.

“Then my feet were guided to a funnel-shaped chasm, down which—by means of a long, stout pole, which I slanted from ledge to ledge again and again across the narrow chasm—I made a perilous descent. At last I felt a solid floor beneath my feet, and, moving cautiously, made my way across a dark cavern towards a faint light showing round a buttress of rock. When I gained this point, O thou prop of the tribes, I saw a sight which startled me—even in my dream.”

He paused, and I wondered what he was coming to. Te Makawawa’s piercing eyes were fixed upon my friend in a penetrating scrutiny as if he would read his inmost soul. But his own rugged, tatooed face betrayed no thought, no feeling.

After a silence Kahikatea continued:

“It was a form of beauty that I have never since been able to banish from my mind. There, standing in an open space on the floor of a cavern of white marble, with the moonlight flooding in upon her from an opening in the rock, was a figure, white and dazzling. For a long time I stood gazing at the most beautiful face and form it has fallen to my lot to look upon. It was a woman in the first years of womanhood; her arms were raised towards something she could see in the western sky through the opening; a thin robe covered her form, and a breath of wind had swayed it gently against her limbs. But, O chief, mark this: her hair, which fell in rippling folds over her outstretched arms, was white and glistening, and, though the expression on her face was that of one who sees a vision of joy, her eyes were colourless. Her form was full of yearning—of pursuing prayer towards the glory of her vision, but she moved not. I drew nearer and stood before her. Then I saw that this woman was an image in marble, lifelike, beauteous, wonderful; but stone—cold stone!”

Again he paused, and I watched the face of the aged chief. It was calm and unmoved, but his eyes blazed like polished obsidian reflecting the sun. He spoke never a word, and Kahikatea continued:

“While I gazed in wonder at this radiant image—in my dream, O chief—I heard a step behind me, and, before I could turn, a stunning blow on the head felled me. Then I no longer knew light from darkness. My dream ended there for a time, but when again I emerged from darkness I was lying on my back on the bank of a stream at the foot of the mountain wall a thousand feet below, my clothes wet through, and my body stiff and sore with bruises. That is my dream, O chief. My words to you are ended.”

Te Makawawa sat silent and thoughtful, considering his reply. While he was doing so it occurred to me to add my story to Kahikatea’s statement, for I now understood why my friend had been startled at my mention of the word “sculptress.”

“I also have a word to lay before you, chief,” said I.

“Proceed, O Friend of Kahikatea,” he replied.

Then I narrated to him the history of the woman—how it had become a matter of great moment that news of her should be obtained. How I, through my knowledge of the Maori tongue, had been sent to look for her, and how, finally, it seemed to me that what the wind had whispered to the branches of the Kahikatea was connected in some strange way with the woman, for was she not wise in the matter of cutting figures out of stone? In conclusion, I handed him the fragment of wood. He inspected it carefully, and then asked the meaning of the words.

“They mean,” said I, watching his face intently, “that a woman named Miriam Grey was taken prisoner eighteen years ago by a certain Te Makawawa, that she is near a mountain and a tableland—the meaning here is washed away—and that she was still alive three years ago. O chief, my words, too, are ended.”

Silence again ensued, which remained unbroken for a long space, during which time an artist might have caught the aged chief’s expression exactly, for it remained unaltered. I knew that if he did not speak soon he would not speak at all, and we should go back the way we came, not very much wiser than when we started. I employed the time wondering how much he knew. Was he considering the terms of his reply, or was he quietly making up his mind as to whether he should reply at all? At length he raised his eyes and encountered those of my friend.

“O Kahikatea,” he said solemnly, “like Tawhaki of old thou knowest the ‘way of the spider,’ and, like him, thou hast seen Hinauri, the Daughter of the Dawn. I can speak of what I know to one with whom the Great Tohungas of the Earth have spoken. But with thee, O Friend of my friend the Forest Tree,” he added, turning to me, “I will not speak except on a condition which I will lay upon the ground before you.”

“Lay thy condition upon the ground, O wild white crane among tohungas—lay thy condition upon the ground before us, that we may look at it and take it up or not as it seems good to us.”

“It is well,” he replied. “Lo! the beginning of my word to you is this: I am growing old; my foot is already searching for firm places among the snows that encircle the summit of Ruahine; I see those who are not present, I hear those who do not speak; any day I may look into the eyes of the green lizard that will summon me to Reinga. But before I descend by the sacred Pohutukawa root that leads to the Abode of Spirits I would undo a wrong that I did—an evil deed, cruel and unfair beneath the eye of Rehua.

“That is the beginning of my speech to you, and this is how it runs on. Hearken, Pakehas! You, O Friend of Kahikatea, the Forest Tree, seek a woman concerning whom, if you agree to my condition, the spirits that linger by night may speak to me: Te Makawawa, whose heart is in his face before you, seeks a white-faced child whom he cannot find, for he knows not the speech of the Pakeha.

“Hear the end, O Friend of my friend, the Forest Tree—the end is for you. When the child is found I myself will teach you concerning the woman. The tongue of the Maori is known to you as well as the tongue of the Pakeha; therefore, you can search among the races of the South for the white-faced child. If this bargain seems good then I will speak to you and to the Forest Tree. And when the child is found I will commune with the spirits of my ancestors about the woman.”

“And if I find the child, O chief,” I said, “will you swear upon the sacred tiki that you will find the woman?”

Te Makawawa turned a withering glance upon me.

“The Friend of the Forest Tree speaks the Maori tongue, but surely he does not know the Maori heart——” he began, but Kahikatea broke in upon his words.

“It is enough,” he said. “The word of Te Makawawa is good; it will not snap like the kohutukutu’s branch. Let my brother Wanaki say whether he will accept the condition.”

I am obstinate by nature, and somewhat cynical, but from Kahikatea’s manner I guessed that old Te Makawawa, notwithstanding his remark to the effect that the spirits of his ancestors would enlighten his ignorance, already knew more about Miriam Grey than we should ever find out unless we accepted his own terms. Having turned this over in my mind I said:

“I forgot that the word of the ariki was sworn upon his own heart, which is sacred. I call back my words, O chief, and I agree to your condition. Now speak and answer the words of Kahikatea about his dream, and my own words about the woman.”

“It is well,” he said with dignity, drawing his mat closer around him. “My heart flows out to both of you; to you, O Dreamer of dreams, and to you, O Seeker in the dark, I will speak words straight from my breast, but in hearing them know that they may not be repeated to other ears while I live. That is understood between us.”