by Various
V
THE TAPU-TREE
"The fish is just about cooked," announced Fred Elliot, peering into thebig "billy" slung over their camp fire. "Now, if Dick would only hurryup with the water for the tea, I'd have supper ready in no time."
"I wish supper were over and we well on our way to the surveyor's campat the other side of the lake," was the impatient rejoinder of HughJervois, Dick's big brother. "This place isn't healthy for us after whathappened to-day." And he applied himself still more vigorously to histask of putting into marching order the tent and various otheraccessories of their holiday "camping out" beside a remote and rarelyvisited New Zealand lake.
"But surely that Maori Johnny wouldn't dare to do any of us a mischiefin cold blood?" cried Fred.
"The police aren't exactly within coo-ee in these wilds, and you mustremember that your Maori Johnny happens to be Horoeka the _tohunga_(tohunga = wizard priest), who has got the Aohanga Maoris at his beckand call. The surveyors say he is stirring up his tribe to make troubleover the survey of the Ngotu block, and they had some hair-raisingstories to tell me of his superstitious cruelty. He is reallyhalf-crazed with fanaticism, they say, and if you bump up against any ofhis rotten notions, he'll stick at nothing in the way of vengeance. Asyou saw yourself, he'd have killed Dick this afternoon hadn't we twobeen there to chip in."
"There's no doubt about that," allowed Fred. "It was no end unlucky thathe should have caught Dick in the very act."
"Oh, if I had only come in time to prevent the youngster hacking out hisname on that tree of all trees in the bush," groaned Hugh. "The mosttremendously _tapu_ (tapu = sacred) thing in all New Zealand, in theAohanga Maoris' eyes!"
"But how was Dick to know?" urged Fred. "It just looked like any othertree; and who was to guess the meaning of the rubbishy bits of sticksand stones lying at the bottom of it? Oh, it's just too beastly that forsuch a trifle we've got to skip out of this jolly place! And there arethose monster trout in the bay below almost fighting to be first onone's hook! And there's----"
"I say, what on earth _can_ be keeping Dick?" broke in Hugh withstartling abruptness. "Suppose that Maori ruffian----" and a sudden fearsent him racing down the bush-covered slope with Fred Elliot at hisheels.
"Dick! Coo-ee! Dick!" Their voices woke echoes in the silent bush, butno answer came to them. And there was no Dick at the little springtrickling into the lake.
But the boy's hat lay on the ground beside his upturned "billy," andthe fern about the spring looked as if it had been much trampled upon.
"There has been a struggle here," said Hugh Jervois, his face showingwhite beneath its tan. Stooping, he picked up a scrap of dyed flax andheld it out to Fred Elliot.
"It's a bit of the fringe of the mat Horoeka was wearing thisafternoon," he said quietly. "The Maori must have stolen on Dick whilehe was filling his 'billy,' and carried him off. A thirteen-year-old boywould be a mere baby in the hands of that big, strong savage, and hecould easily stifle his cries."
"He would not dare to harm Dick!" cried Fred passionately.
Dick's brother said nothing, but his eyes eagerly searched the trampledground and the undergrowth about the spring.
"Look! There is where the scoundrel has gone back into the bush withDick," he cried. "The trail is distinct." And he dashed forward into thedense undergrowth, followed by Fred.
The trail was of the shortest and landed them on a well-beaten Maoritrack leading up through the bush.
The two young men, following this track at a run, found that it broughtthem, at the end of a mile or so, to the chief _kainga_, or village, ofthe Aohanga Maoris.
"It looks as if we had run our fox to earth," cried Fred exultingly, asthey made for the gateway of the high wooden stockade--relic of the oldfighting days--which surrounded the _kainga_.
The Maoris within the _kainga_ met them with sullen looks, for theirsoreness of feeling over the Government surveys now going on in theirdistrict had made them unfriendly to white faces. But it was impossibleto doubt that they were speaking truth when, in answer to Hugh's anxiousquestioning, they declared that no _pakeha_ (white man) had been nearthe _kainga_, and that they had seen nothing of Horoeka, their_tohunga_, since noon that day. They suggested indifferently that thewhite boy must have lost himself in the bush, and, at the same time,gave a sullen refusal to assist in searching for him.
Before the two young men wrathfully turned their backs on the _kainga_,Hugh, who had a very fair knowledge of the Maori tongue, warned thenatives that the _pakeha_ law would punish them severely if theyknowingly allowed his young brother to be harmed. But they only repliedwith insolent laughter.
For the next two hours Hugh and Fred desperately scoured the bush,shouting aloud at intervals on the off-chance that Dick might hear andbe able to send them some guiding cry in answer. But the only result oftheir labours was that they nearly got "bushed" themselves, and at lastthe fall of night made the absurdity of further search clear to them.
Groping their way back to their broken-up camp, they lighted the lanternand got together a meal of sorts. But Hugh Jervois could not eat whileracked by the horrible uncertainty of his brother's fate, and he waitedimpatiently for the moon to rise to let him renew his apparentlyhopeless quest.
Then, while Fred Elliot was speeding on a seven miles' tramp round theshore of the lake to the surveyors' camp to invoke the aid of the onlyother white men in that remote part of the country, Hugh Jervois hadmade his way to the Maori _kainga_. "It's my best chance of findingDick," he had said to Fred. "Horoeka is sure to have returned to the_kainga_ by this time, and, by cunning or by force, I'll get out of thatcrazy ruffian what he has done with my brother."
Reconnoitring the _kainga_ in the light of the risen moon Hughstealthily approached the palisade surrounding it. This was very old andbroken in many places, and, peering through a hole in it, the young mansaw a group of women and children lounging about the cooking-place inthe centre of the _marae_ or open space around which the _whares_ (huts)were ranged. From the biggest of those _whares_ came the sound of men'svoices, one at a time, in loud and eager talk. At once Hugh realisedthat a council was being held in the _whare-runanga_, the assembly-hallof the village, and he instinctively divined that the subjects underdiscussion were poor little Dick's "crime" and his punishment, past orto come.
Noiselessly skirting the palisade, Hugh came to a gap big enough to lethim squeeze through. Then he crept along between the palisade and thebacks of the scattered _whares_--very cautiously, for he dreaded beingseen by the group about the fire--until at last he stood behind the big_whare-runanga_. With his ear glued to its wall he listened to theexcited speeches being delivered within, and to sounds indicating thatdrinking was also going on--whisky supplied from some illicit still,doubtless.
To his unspeakable thankfulness the young man gathered from the chanceremarks of one of the speakers that Dick, alive and uninjured, had beenbrought by Horoeka into the _kainga_ at nightfall, and was now shut upin one of the _whares_. But a fierce speech of Horoeka's presently toldthe painfully interested eavesdropper that nothing less than death,attended by heathenish and gruesome ceremonies, would expiate the boy'soutrage on the _tapu_-tree, in the _tohunga's_ opinion.
The other Maori speakers would evidently have been satisfied to seeksatisfaction in the shape of a money-compensation from the offender'sfamily, or the paternally minded New Zealand Government. But, half-madthough he was, Horoeka's influence with his fellow-tribesmen was verygreat. The rude eloquence with which he painted the terrible evils thatwould certainly fall on them and theirs if the violation of so mighty a_tapu_ was not avenged in blood, very soon had its effect on hissuperstitious hearers.
When he went on to assure them that the _pakehas_ would be unable toprove that the boy had not lost himself and perished in the bush, theywithdrew all opposition to Horoeka's bloodthirsty demands, though thesewere rather dictated by his own crack-brained fancy than by Maori customand tradition. Presently, indeed, it became evident to Hugh
that, whatwith drink and their _tohunga's_ wild oratory, the men were workingthemselves up into a fanatical frenzy that must speedily find vent inhorrible action.
If Dick's life were to be saved he must be rescued at once! No time nowto await Fred Elliot's return with the surveyors and their men! Hughmust save his brother single-handed. But how was he to do it? For him,unarmed and unbacked by an authoritative show of numbers, to attempt anopen rescue would merely mean, in the natives' present state of mind,the death of both brothers.
"If the worst comes, I won't let Dick die alone," Hugh Jervois avowed."But the worst shan't come. I must save Dick somehow."
He cast desperate glances around. They showed him that the _marae_ wascompletely deserted now, the group about the cooking-place havingretired into the _whares_ for the night. If he only knew which of thosesilent _whares_ held Dick, a rescue was possible. To blunder on thewrong _whare_ would only serve to arouse the _kainga_.
"Oh, if I only knew which! If I only knew which!" Hugh groaned in agonyof mind. "And any moment those fiends may come and drag him out to hisdeath."
Just then, as if in answer to his unspoken prayer, an unexpected soundarose. Poor little Dick, in sore straits, was striving to keep up hiscourage by whistling "Soldiers of Our Queen!"
Hugh's heart leaped within him. The quavering boyish whistle came fromthe third _whare_ on his left, and, in an instant, he had reached thehut and was gently tapping on the door. Dick might not be alone, butthat chance had to be risked, for time was very precious.
"It's Hugh, Dick," he whispered.
"Hugh! Oh, Hugh!" and in that choking cry Hugh could read the measure ofhis young brother's mental sufferings since he had last seen him.
In a moment he had severed the flax fastening of the door, and burst into find Dick, securely tied hand and foot to a post in the centre of the_whare_. Again Hugh's pocket-knife came into play, and Dick, freed ofhis bonds, fell, sobbing and crying, into his brother's arms.
"Hush, Dick! No crying now!" whispered Hugh imperatively. "You've got toplay the man a little longer yet. Follow me."
And the youngster, making a brave effort, pulled himself together andnoiselessly stole out of the _whare_ after his brother.
But evil chance chose that moment for the breaking up of the excitedcouncil in the _whare-runanga_. Horoeka, stepping out into the _marae_to fetch his victim to the sacrifice, was just in time to see thatvictim disappearing round the corner of his prison-house. With a yell ofrage and surprise he gave chase, his colleagues running and shouting athis heels.
Hugh Jervois, hearing them coming, abandoned hope for one instant. Thenext, he took heart again, for there beside him was the hole in thepalisade through which he had crept into the _kainga_ an hour before. Ina twinkling he had pushed Dick through and followed himself. And as theycrouched unseen outside, they heard the pursuit go wildly rushing pastinside, heedless of the low gap in the stockade which had been thebrothers' salvation.
"They'll be out upon us in a moment," cried Hugh. "Run, Dick! Run!"
Hand in hand they raced down the slope and plunged into the cover of thebush. Only just in time, however, for the next instant the moonlit slopebeneath the _kainga_ was alive with Maoris--men, women, andchildren--shouting and rushing about in a state of tremendousexcitement. It was for Dick alone they hunted, not knowing he had acompanion, and they were evidently mystified by the boy's swiftdisappearance.
Presently the brothers, lying low in a dense tangle of ferns andcreepers, saw a number of the younger men, headed by Horoeka, streamingdown the track leading to the lake. But after a little time theyreturned, somewhat sobered and crestfallen, and rejoined the others,who had meanwhile gone inside the _kainga_.
Then, feeling sure that the coast was clear, the brothers ventured tosteal cautiously out of earshot of the enemy and make their way downthrough the bush to the shores of the lake. There they were greeted withthe welcome sound of oars, and, shooting swiftly towards them throughthe moonlit waters, they saw the surveyors' boat, with Fred Elliot andhalf a dozen others in her.
* * * * *
"You see they are trying to carry off the thing just in the way I toldyou they'd do," said the head surveyor to Hugh Jervois after theirdenunciatory visit to the _kainga_ in the early morning. "Horoeka, thearch-offender, has disappeared into remoter wilds, and the others laythe blame of it all on Horoeka."
"Yes," responded Hugh, "and even then the beggars have the impudence toswear, in the teeth of their talk last night in their _whare-runanga_,that Horoeka only meant to give the _pakeha_ boy a good fright becausehe had done a mischief to the very _tapu_-tree in which lives the spiritof the tribe's great ancestor."
"Well," said the surveyor, "we've managed to give the tribe's young menand elders a good fright to-day, anyhow. My word! but their faces were apicture as we lovingly dwelt on the pains and penalties awaiting themfor their share in their _tohunga's_ outrage on your brother. I'll tellyou what it is, Jervois. Horoeka has to keep in hiding for his ownsake, and these beggars will have their hands so full, with a nicelittle charge like this to meet, that they won't care to make troublefor us when we come to the survey of the Ngotu block."
"It's an ill wind that blows nobody good," laughed Hugh. "But, all thesame, Dick may be excused for thinking that your unobstructed survey hasbeen dearly bought with the most horrid experience he is likely ever tohave in his life."