Читать книгу: «War to the Knife», страница 8

"And how about a guide? Warwick may not care to undertake the task in the face of – what may happen."

"In that case" – and as she spoke, her inmost soul seemed to look forth in high resolve through the lustrous eyes, now informed with the mystic fire of the sybil – "I will ensure you a guide who knows the secret paths even better than Warwick."

Massinger said no more. The countenance of Warwick wore a look of mingled doubt and admiration, after which he ordered the attendant natives to make the usual arrangements for a camp.

"We shall need no fire, that is one thing," he said, turning to the Englishman.

"How is that?" he inquired.

"Nature is good enough to contract for the cooking here, which is the least she can do before she blows them all up some fine day. Just watch these people directly."

As indeed he did, much marvelling.

First of all, two of the women cleared a space, about three feet long and two wide, in the warm earth; into this they placed a layer of stones, which they covered with leaves. Upon this were placed the pork, the kumeras, and some pigeons shot on the way, all of which were rapidly and satisfactorily cooked. The evening meal, so miraculously prepared, as it seemed, having been concluded, Erena retired with her female attendants, pleading the necessity for a night's rest to prepare them for the opening day of the Great Exhibition. The two men walked up and down, smoking the meditative pipe. But long after his companion had retired to rest, Massinger lay awake, unable to sleep amid the strange, almost preternatural, features of the locality, while the anticipation of a war between his countrymen and this stubborn and revengeful people taxed his brain with incessantly recurring thoughts.

What would be the first act in the drama? He thought of isolated families of the settlers, now living in apparent peace and security, abandoned to the cruelty of a remorseless enemy. Would the horrors of Indian warfare be repeated? Would a partial success, which, from their advantageous position, and the absence of any large body of regular troops, the natives were likely to gain, be avenged by merciless slaughter? In either case, what bloodshed, agony, wrongs irrevocable and unspeakable, were certain to ensue! What would be the outcome? He thought of the farmsteadings he had seen, with neat homesteads, garnered grain, contented hardy workers, their rosy-cheeked children playing amidst the orchards. Were these to be left desolate, burned, ravaged, as would be inevitable with all outside the line of defence? Then, again, the populous kaingas, with grave rangatiras and stalwart warriors; the merry chattering wahines, sitting amid their children when the day was over, much like other people's wives and children, enjoying far more natural comfort than the British labourers' families – were they also to be driven from their pleasant homes, starved, harried, pursued night and day by the avenger of blood? Like the heathen of old, dislodged by the chosen people with so little mercy? The carefully kept kumera plantations, so promising for another season, were they to be plundered or destroyed? The lines from Keble returned to his memory —

 
"It was a piteous sight, I ween, to mark the heathen's toil —
The limpid wells, the orchards green, left ready for the spoil."
 

Was all this murder and misery to take place because the representatives of a great nation differed with a quasi-barbarous, but distinctly dignified, lord of the manor about the title to an area of comparatively small value when compared with the millions of acres of arable and pasture still for sale, undisputed?

A contention as to title by English law ousted the jurisdiction of magistrates in an assault case. Why should not this paltry squabble about an insignificant portion await an authoritative legal decision? No people apparently understood the deliberate verdict of a Court better than these Maoris. Delay, even protracted delay, would have been truly wise and merciful in view of the grisly alternative of war. Such a war, too, as it was likely to be!

However, though Erena and Warwick were confident of a fight, no official notice had yet reached them. It might yet be avoided, and so hoping, after hearing with increasing distinctness all manner of strange and fearful sounds, above, around, beneath, our traveller fell asleep.

The morning proved fine. As Massinger left his couch, the half-arisen sun was reluming a landscape neither picturesque nor alluring. Wild and wondrous it certainly was; upon such the eyes of the pakeha had never before rested. The elements had apparently been at play above and below the earth's surface, which showed signs of no common derangement. Rugged defiles, strangely assorted hillocks of differing size, colour, and elevation. A scarred volcanic cone poured out steam from its base upward, while, between the whirling mists, igneous rocks glinted, like red-hot boulders, in the morning sun. Near this strange mountain was a lake, the glittering green of which contrasted with the darkly red incrustations heaped upon its margin. Looking southward, a sense of Titanic grandeur was added to the landscape by a vast snow-covered range, on the hither side of which, he had been told, lay the waters of the historic Taupo – Taupo Moana, "The Moaning Sea."

CHAPTER VII

Strolling back to camp, his movements were quickened by observing that the rest of the party had finished the morning meal, and were only awaiting his arrival to commence the first day's sight-seeing. After a council of war, it was finally decided to remain in the valley for the rest of the day, making for Taupo and Rotomahana on the morrow.

"In this valley of Waiotapu," said Warwick, "you have a good idea, on a small scale, of Rotomahana and the terraces. The same sorts of pools are on view; you have also the feeling of being on the lid of a boiling cauldron, and can realize most of the sensations belonging to a place where you may be boiled alive or burnt to death at any moment."

"A romantic ending," replied Massinger; "but I don't wish to end my New Zealand career in such a strictly Maori fashion. What is one to do, to avoid incensing the Atua of this very queer region?"

"Be sure to follow me or Erena most carefully, and do not step away from the path, or into any water that you have not tried. One traveller did so, and, as it was at boiling heat, died next day, poor fellow! So now, let us begin. Do you see this yellow waterbasin? This is the champagne pool. For the champagne, watch this effect." Here a couple of handfuls of earth were thrown in. Thereupon the strange water commenced to effervesce angrily, the circles spreading until the outermost edges of the pool were reached. "The outlet, you see, is over that slope, and is known as the Primrose Falls. But we must not linger. Beyond that boiling lake, with the steam clouds hanging over it, lies a terrace, gradually sloping, with ripples in the siliceous deposit, finally ending in miniature marble cascades."

"All this is wonderful and astonishing, but it is only the beginning of the play. I shall reserve my applause until the last act. I have been in strange places abroad, but never saw so many different sorts of miracles in one collection. What are those cliffs, for instance, so white and glistening?"

"The Alum Cliffs, sparkling with incrustations of alum. You notice that they rise almost perpendicularly from the hot-water pools? In contrast, the colour of the surrounding earth varies from pale yellow to Indian red and crimson. Some of the crystals you see around are strongly acid. The pools are all sorts of colours: some like pots of red paint, others green, blue, pink, orange, and cream."

"Evidently Nature's laboratories. What she will evolve is as yet unknown to us. Let us hope it will be more or less beneficial."

"It is hard to say," replied Warwick, musingly. "There is a legend among the Maoris that, many generations since, this valley, now so desolate, was covered with villages, the soil being very productive; that the inhabitants displeased the local Atua, upon which he ordered a volcano in the neighbourhood to pour forth its fiery flood. An eruption followed, which covered the village many feet deep with the scoria and mud which, in a hardened state, you now see."

"Highly probable. I can believe anything of this sulphur-laden Valley of the Shadow. And did the mountain disappear also?"

"No! there he stands, three thousand feet high, quite ready, if one may judge from appearances, for another fiery shower. Let us hope he will not do it in our time. In the mean time, look at this Boiling Lake. Is not the water beautifully blue? And what clouds of steam! It is much the same, except in size, as the one above the Pink Terrace."

The day wore on as they rambled from one spot to another of the magical region.

"It is a city of the genii," said Massinger, as he watched the guide apply a match to one of a number of metallic-looking mounds, which promptly caught fire, and blazed until quenched. "Where in the world, except a naphtha lake, could one find such an inflammable rest for the sole of one's foot? I believe the place is one-half sulphur, and the other imprisoned fire, which will some day break forth and light up such a conflagration of earth, sky, and water, as the world has not seen for centuries. See here" – as, driving the end of his walking-stick into the crumbling earth, it began to smoke – "it is too hot to hold already."

The sun was low, as the little party, having lunched at a bungalow specially erected for tourists, took the homeward route.

"There is one more sight, and not the least of the series," said Warwick, as they approached a curious soot-coloured cone, from which, of course, steam ascended, and strange sounds, with intermittent groanings, made themselves heard.

"The powers be merciful to us mortals, who can but believe and tremble!" ejaculated Massinger. "What demon's kitchen is this?"

"Only a mud volcano," answered Warwick. "Let us climb to the top and look in."

The mound, formed by the deposit of dried mud, some ten or twelve feet high, was easily ascended. Open at the top, it was filled with a boiling, opaque mass of seething, bubbling mud. Ever and anon were thrown up fountain-like spurts, which turned into grotesque shapes as they fell on the rim of the strange cauldron. A tiny dab fell upon Erena's kaitaka. She laughed.

"It will do this no harm; but it might have been my face. A mud scald is long of healing."

"What an awful place to fall into alive!" said Massinger, as he gazed at the steaming, impure liquid. "Is it known that any one ever slipped over the edge?"

"More than one, if old tales are true," said Warwick; "but they were thrown in, with bound hands, after battle. It was a choice way of disposing of a favourite enemy. He did not always sink at once; but none ever came out, dead or alive."

"Let us go on!" said Erena, impatiently. "I cannot bear to think of such horrors. I suppose all nations did dreadful things in war."

"And may again," interposed Warwick. "These people were not worse than others long ago. The Druids, with their wicker cages filled with roasting victims, were as well up to date as my Maori ancestors. Luckily, such things have passed away for ever."

"Let us trust so," said Massinger, feelingly.

Erena made no answer, but walked forward musingly on the track which led in the direction of the camp.

"Though narrow, it appears to have been much used," he remarked.

"It is an old war-path," replied the guide. "When the Ngapuhi came down from Maketu on their raids, they mostly used this route. I am not old enough to have seen anything of Heke's war in '45. It was the first real protest against the pakeha. The natives were beginning to be afraid, very reasonably, that the white man would take the whole country. If the tribes had been united, they could have defied any force then brought against them, and driven your people into the sea."

"And why did they not make common cause?"

"The old story. Blood-feuds had embittered one tribe against another. Chiefs of ability and forecast, like Waka Nene and Patuone, his brother, saw that they must be beaten in the long run. They allied themselves with the British. They had embraced Christianity, and remained faithful to the end, fighting against the men of their own blood without the least regard to their common origin."

"I need not ask you," said Massinger, "on which side your sympathies are enlisted."

"No! it goes without saying," answered the guide. "I have had a fair education; I have been about the world, and I cannot help recognizing the resistless power of England, against which it would be madness to contend. I should never think of joining the natives in case of war. A war which is coming, from all I hear. At the same time, I cannot help feeling for them. Amid these woods, lakes, and through these mountains and valleys, their ancestors roamed for centuries. No people in the world are more deeply attached to their native land. Think how hard for them to be dispossessed."

"And have you an alternative to offer?"

"None whatever, if war breaks out. It is idle to expect that New Zealand, able to support millions of civilized people, should be abandoned to less than a hundred thousand savages; for such, with exceptions, I am afraid I must call them. As for justice and mercy in dealing with conquered races, these are mere words. Force is the only law, as it has ever been. What mercy did the Maoris show to their conquered enemies? They slew, enslaved, tortured – and worse! They exterminated weak tribes, and took their lands. They have little ground for complaint if a nation stronger in war applies the same measure to them."

"I congratulate you," said Massinger, "upon the logical view which you take of the question. But is there no way of reconciling the interests of the colonists and the children of the soil?"

"Certainly. If they are cool enough on both sides to adjourn this paltry dispute about the Waitara block until it can be settled by legal authority or arbitration, war might be avoided. No people are more obedient to law, when they properly understand it. They are naturally litigious, and enjoy a good long-winded lawsuit. If they were convinced that they were getting fair play in an arbitration, which I should recommend – and there are available men, like Mannering or Waterton, who understand thoroughly the people and their customs, and are trusted by both sides – I believe they would cheerfully abide by an award."

"Then as to the sale of lands, disputed titles, upset price, and so on?"

"I believe that they are getting justice from the present land tribunals apart from political pressure, which would weaken in time; and if they do not get it from England, I do not know, speaking from experience and reading, from what other nation to expect it. There must be delay and litigation, but they will be satisfied in the end."

"And if not, and war breaks out?"

"Then there will be bloodshed to begin with, murder, outrage; all things which lead to unpardonable crimes on both sides; blood-feuds which will last for generations."

"A man like you might do much good in the legislature. Why do you not come forward, when inferior people of my own nation, from what I hear, degrade our parliamentary system?"

"The time is not yet," he answered. "We shall soon have other matters to think of. When we get back to Auckland there will be very little political business for some time to come."

Onward, and still onward. Fresh marvels of scenery seemed hourly opening before them. In pride of place, Tongariro, fire-breathing Titan, with volcanic cone, encircled by his stupendous mountain range. As they gazed, the ceaseless steam-clouds, now enveloping the summit, now wind-driven sportively, as if by a giant's breath, exposed to view the darkened rim of the crater.

To the right of Tongariro, more than five thousand feet in height, they saw the heaven-piercing bulk of Ruapehu (eight thousand nine hundred feet), cloud-crowned, lava-built, but girdled with ice-fields at a lower altitude; and at the base, arising from gloomy forests, valleys seamed and fissured, precipices, ravines, and outlined terraces.

"What a land of contrasts!" said the Englishman. "The sublime, the dread and awful, the idyllic and peaceful rural, seem mingled together in the wildest profusion; fire and water conflicting furiously in the same landscape. Nature appears to have thrown her properties and elements about without plan or method."

"A strange country! – a strange people!" exclaimed Erena. "Is that what you are thinking of? Surely you cannot expect an ordinary population amid scenes like these. I fear that we resemble our country in being calm as the sleeping sea, until the storm of passion is aroused."

"And then?" queried he.

"Then, if we feel injured, cruel as the grave, merciless, remorseless. So beware of us! We make bad enemies, I confess; but, then, we are always ready to die for our friends."

"I am numbered, I trust, among that favoured class, am I not?" he continued, as he gazed at the girl's face, wearing as it did a sudden look of high-souled resolve.

So might have looked, so posed, the daughter of Jephthah; so, scorning fate and the dark death, stood Iphigenia as she awaited the blow of doom.

The expression of her face changed; a wistful, half-pleading look came into her eyes.

"Why ask?" she said softly. "You know that you are; that you always will be."

And now, after a passage across the pumice-strewn levels, lo! Taupo the sacred, Taupo-Moana, the moaning sea.

There was no thought of unsatisfied expectation as Massinger gazed upon the glorious sheet of water, over which the eye wandered until the darksome shadows of Kaimanawa and Tankaru dimmed its azure surface – the vast mountain range, from which, on Tongariro, a mathematically correct cinder-cone sprang upwards, like the spire of a gigantic minster.

On the other side, the peak of Tauhara, 3600 feet in height, stood out in lone majesty. The twin Titan, Ruapehu, bared his enormous shoulder to the unclouded sky. The day was wonderfully fine, having the softened atmospheric tone peculiar to the later summer months of the northern island. Then gradually a delicate haze crept over the horizon, shading the stern outlines of the dark-browed Alp. The foot-hills seemed to have approached through the clear yet tinted lights of the fading day.

"When have I seen such a panorama before?" thought Massinger. "What vastness, what sublimity, in all its component parts! Then, as columns of steam rose in the far distance, completing the weird and abnormal effects of the unfamiliar vision, speech, even exclamation, appeared to fail him.

"Yonder stands the pah of his Majesty, King Te Heu Heu, the head chief of all this district," interposed Warwick. "We must send forward a herald and pay our respects, or our visit may not be so successful. He has a queer temper, and is as proud as if he had been sent from heaven. There is his castle."

"Warwick is right," said Erena, coming up at this juncture and arousing herself from the reverie into which she, too, appeared to have fallen. "This is his kingdom, and we must do tika. We can rest for to-night, however, and give Te Heu Heu the second proper warning, so that he can receive us in state. I wish you could have seen the real Te Heu Heu, however."

"Why so? and what was his special distinction?"

"Something truly uncommon, personally. You would then have carried away an idea of a Maori Rangatira – one of the olden time. A giant in stature, he must have resembled old Archibald Douglas in 'Marmion' – 'So stern of look, so huge of limb.' He lived in a valley some distance from here, among the hills you see yonder. But life in these regions has always been uncertain. One fine night – or perhaps it was a stormy one, for there had been a deluge of rain – the soil about here in the valley, even the rocks, they say, became loosened and came down in a kind of avalanche. It filled the whole valley, covering up Te Heu Heu, his people, his wives and children, numbering in all some seventy souls. They were never seen alive or heard of any more. There was a lament composed by his brother to his memory. I remember a verse or two.

'Lament for Te Heu Heu

 
'See o'er the heights of dark Tauhara's peak
The infant morning wakes. Perchance my friend
Returns to me clad in that lightsome cloud.
Alas! I toil alone in this cold world; for thou art gone.
 
 
'Go, thou mighty one! Go, thou hero!
Go, thou that wert a spreading tree to shelter
Thy people, when evil hovered round.
Ah! what strange god has caused so dread a death
To thee and thy companions?
 
 
'The mount of Tongariro rises lonely in the South,
While the rich feathers that adorned thy great canoe, Arawa,
Float on the wave. And women from the West look on and weep.
Why hast thou left behind the valued treasures
Of thy famed ancestor Rongo-maihua,
And wrapped thyself in night?'
 

There are as many more verses," said Erena, "but I have forgotten them. They all express the deepest feeling of grief – almost despair – as, indeed, do most of the Maori love-songs and laments. The grief was by no means simulated in the case of relations. I know myself of several suicides which took place immediately after funerals or disappointments in love."

"There is strong poetic feeling, with a high degree of imagination, in the native poems and orations," said Massinger. "It is a pity that these recitations should die out."

"The Te Heu Heu we refer to was a remarkable man," said Warwick. "Standing as near seven feet as six, he looked, I have heard people say, the complete embodiment of the Maori chief of old days – terrible in peace or war; and, arrayed in his cloak of ceremony, with the huia feathers in his hair, and his merepounamou in his right hand, was enough to strike terror into the heart of the bravest."

"Didn't he refuse to sign the Treaty of Waitangi?" said Massinger.

"Of course he did. It was just like his pride and disdain of a superior. 'You may choose to be slaves to the pakeha,' he said scornfully to the assembled chiefs, as he turned away; 'I am Te Heu Heu!'"

The pah, or fortress, of the present chieftain was one of considerable strength and pretension, covering an area of nearly five acres. Reared upon a promontory which prevented assault, except by water, on three sides, it was well calculated to defy all manner of enemies in the good old days before breechloaders and artillery. The whole area was walled in, so to speak, with excessively strong palisades, the only entrance being by heavy sliding gates. This historic keep possessed all the natural advantages of the sites selected for the purpose, with the important addition of unlimited water-supply. Scarcity of the indispensable requisite, rarely possible to secure on the summit of a hill, often led to the surrender of the castle when besieged for sufficient time to exhaust the water-store. One of the ancient Maori romances, indeed, describes the dramatic incident of a beleaguered garrison, including the aged chief, at the point of death from thirst. The youthful leader of the besieging force, touched by the beauty of his daughter, the far-famed Ranmahora, relieves the veteran's suffering, and naturally receives the hand of the maiden, after which peace is ratified, amid general congratulations.

Te Heu Heu's pah might be considered to be almost impregnable, having in addition to the trenches and galleries, double and treble lines of defence, which in other days proved so formidable to regular troops. Besides these were lines of pits, lightly covered over and thus used to entrap enemies. Also, another series used for storing provisions. When understood that these well-planned and scientific strongholds were constructed by a barbaric race with but stone and wooden implements, one can but wonder at the patient industry, joined to a high order of intelligence, displayed in their formation.

Sunrise all goldenly reluming a wonder-world! The calm waters of the lake stretching beyond the limit of vision as they gazed upon the sea-like expanse; the dread mountain kings crowned with eternal snow, girt with fire, ringed with ice-fields, based on primeval forests! Mortal man surely never looked upon so strange a scene – so crowded with all the elements of beauty, terror, and sublimity.

"Well worth the voyage," thought Massinger – "the dissevering of familiar ties and associations – but to have enjoyed this intoxicating experience!" How poor, how narrow the life which contented his compatriots! – which contented him before the Great Disaster, when his flight to this Ultima Thule appeared the welcome resort of a man careless of the future, if only relief might be gained from the intolerable anguish of the present.

Now how different were his feelings! The hard fare, the toilsome march, the hourly novelty, the certainty of adventure, and the approach of danger, seemed to have changed not only his habits of thought, but his very nature. As he reflected upon the exhaustless field of enterprise which seemed opening around him, he almost shouted aloud with the joy of living and the anticipation of triumph.

Warwick had made an early visit to the potentate, who was, as he well knew, monarch of all he surveyed in the region of Taupo Moano. He had enlarged upon the rank and wealth of Massinger until a cloud was cleared from the mind of the chief, not unreasonably disposed to connect the arrival of an unknown pakeha with designs upon his hereditary lands.

When assured that his visitor was only moved by curiosity to behold the wonders of which all the world had heard, as well as to pay a visit of ceremony to the great chief Te Heu Heu, he became mollified, and expressed his desire to converse with the Rangatira Pakeha, who had come across the sea to behold the great lake Taupo and the wonder-mountains. Tongariro and Ruapehu.

At the hour of midday, therefore, Massinger, accompanied by Warwick and Erena, presented himself before the chief, who, standing in front of a wharepuni of unusual size, with elaborate carvings upon its massive doorposts, received him with perfect dignity and self-possession. The remainder of the party had been left with the camp-stores and belongings, it not having been thought necessary to include them in the interview.

The chief relaxed his stern features as Erena approached, and said a few words in his native tongue to her, which she answered with quiet composure. He then turned to Warwick, who appeared anxious to explain their position, and mentioned the name of Waka Nene, which produced a distinct effect upon the chief's manner and demeanour.

"You are on the path to Rotomahana," said he. "It is a far journey to see the boiling fountain and the white steps of Te Tarata."

Massinger, through the guide: "I have heard much of these strange things. I have seen pictures of them. We have no hot lakes or burning mountains in my country."

"Then you will see them and go away; you are a strange people. You do not want to buy the land? No? I would sell you some if you would live here."

It was explained to the chief that the pakeha desired land that would grow corn. The land around Taupo was good to look at, but not for farmers. He thought he would buy land near Auckland.

"Does the pakeha know that there is much talk of war in the land? The Mata Kawana at Waitemata is deceived by bad men. He is paying Teira for land which is not his to sell. If the Mata Kawana takes it by force, there will be blood – much blood. Te Rangituke will not suffer the land of his people to be taken. Akore, akore!"

"This pakeha does not come to fight; he wishes to live on land near the Maoris. He will pay them money and buy the land."

"The pakeha is good; his word is strong. I should much like him to live here. Let him ask Erena in marriage from her father, and his days will be many."

"The pakeha does not desire to marry just at present, even if Erena would accept him. His heart is in his own land. He wishes to see all the country before he settles down."

"That is well. The bird flies all round before he perches. But if the tribes dance the war-dance, on account of this trouble about the Waitara, what will he do then? The first taua of the Ngatiawa that he meets will kill him."

"The pakeha is brave. He can shoot a man afar off. He will go back to Waitemata or die. He has also a letter from Waka Nene."

"That is good for the Arawa and the Ngapuhi, but the Waikato will not regard it. It may be that the white man's Atua will keep him from harm."

With which sentiment the audience terminated.

With the exception of the world-famed terraces, no spot on earth was so rich in strange and wondrous surroundings as this great lake of unfathomable depth, a thousand feet above the sea, sleeping amidst its volcanic blocks of quartzose lava and huge masses of pumice-stone. To the north-west they gazed at the wooded ridges of Rangitoto and Tuhua, and, three thousand feet above the sea, the bare turreted pyramids of Titerau, towering in pride, as might, on the castled Rhine, the ruined fortress of a forgotten robber-baron. White pumice-stone cliffs gleaming in the sun bordered the eastern shore. Behind the sombre forest ranges, pyramidal monoliths, piercing the heavens at yet greater altitudes, gave to this amazing landscape the fantastic aspect of a dream-world.

"When shall we awaken?" said Massinger, as he and Erena, lingering behind their guide as they strolled towards the camp, became conscious that the day was declining. "This is the newest land of enchantment. I feel like a lotus-eater, removed from the world of everyday life. I could almost be tempted to cast in my lot with this careless-living race, wandering here till life grew dim, and the distinctions between what our fathers used to call right and wrong faded into uncertainty. I can imagine some men doing it."

"But not you. Oh! do not talk in that reckless fashion. Another might waste his life among these poor ignorant people; but you have a man's work yet to do in the world – a name to make, a family to remember. But" – as he smiled at her vehemence – "you are only joking; you are laughing at the poor Maori girl, who thought for a moment that you were in earnest. Let us walk faster; it will soon be dark, and we have some distance still to go."