The Makutu'd Child.

The first-born son of the Comptons came into the world with the first light of a midsummer morning. Harata knew, even at that moment. “My work is done,” she said to herself. She freed her mind of her witch's work; a calm possessed her soul like the placid face of the deep. She coiled up in her blankets, and slept for a day and a night.

When the infant was placed in Laura's arms by the nurse she wept with the relief and joy of the new mother. She tried to hold it up, but the nurse, saying, “You're too weak yet,” took it and held it before her.

The mother gasped, closed her eyes, looked at it again and fell back. She shrieked, “It's the tiki! Take it away.”

The horrified nurse called Compton. “Look,” she said. “Your wife has fainted. She says it's the tiki. Whatever does she mean?”

Too well Compton knew, when he stared at the newly-born. The tiki it was! It was greenstone Panirau done in the flesh. The head, seeming too large for the body, lolled on one side, the end of the tongue protruded, the feet were curled under it, the tiny hands were held across the body. Certainly all very new babies look like that he thought, except for that helpless head twisted to one side. But he understood all now—more than he could ever tell his wife. He knew of Harata's secret powers. This was her revenge for his trickery. His son—his only son.

Laura would never forgive him. That accursed tiki! Yet his next thought was an evil satisfaction that he had had his way and added to his gains.

Laura, hysterical, raving against her husband, refused to look at the child again. Soon, however, she calmed down and at the nurse's entreaties nursed the grotesque little thing. Presently she was kissing it and crying over it, murmuring pet names. Compton, relieved, told the nurse, “The youngster will grow out of it. If he doesn't the doctors will put it to rights.”

* * *

The little Compton did not “grow out of it.” The doctors said it would not do to interfere with Nature; they seemed chiefly interested in the child as a kind of scientific exhibit; an example of the power of ante-natal suggestion. Compton had told them of the tiki incident—withholding half the truth.

The boy grew to manhood. He carried for life that tiki-like twist of head. His mother died while he was still a boy, mourning always over the one she loved more than any other creature in the world. There was a lovable quality in the gnome-like boy. Even old Harata, muttering her karakia, would have undone the harm she wrought, but that was beyond her powers. She outlived them all. The boy who was beloved by everyone who knew him, the more because of his deformity, died in his young manhood, a student and recluse.

Compton himself was not long in following the others. He may have repented of his ways. The only indications that he did was the fact that he sold every scrap of greenstone in his safe and all the Maori articles scattered through his house. He did not give that museum money to charity, or to the churches. And whatever became of it, it is certain that Harata was not a beneficiary. She did not even receive that miserable five pounds in gold money that she so contemptuously returned to Compton. He was not the man to be troubled by twinges of the commercial conscience.