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V.

The sun had begun to descend towards the horizon, as, with each pair of bearers alternately relieving the others, they plodded on. Up and up the narrow overgrown path, along the ridge, past beautiful spots unnoticed by the panting carriers, or by the weeping mourner. They reached at last a small glade, covered with short undergrowth but still having the marks of long-ago habitation. At the end of the glade stood a small native house, with its back against the cliff which towered a hundred feet above in sheer precipice. The front of the house was adorned with curious carvings, but not with the curves and spirals or the grotesque figures of Maori sculpture. The gable and side-posts were painted red, and the little sliding door was closed. In front and round the house was a low fence, formed apparently more for sport than use, for it consisted of light sticks placed crosswise, like a series of the letter x encircling the building. The bearers stopped and laid their burden on the ground.

"Take him to the house!" cried Nelly, "do not put him on the damp ground."

The men pointed to the little fence of sticks, which they evidently considered as prohibitive, and shrank back, page 35Listen!" they said. "Listen."

Nelly listened intently, and she heard a strange sound, a sound as if the house was one great hive. Droning, rising, falling, went on the murmur within, as if some monotonous but ponderous machinery was whirring heavily round.

"I will enter," she cried, "you cowards, you foolish things, more timid than children."

She herself at another time would have been timid enough, and would have shrunk from exposing herself to an unknown danger in a place so wild and with her savage companions, but she was nerved by the half-wifely, half-maternal feeling of protection, and desperation for the sake of her unconscious sweetheart lying there.

"Do not go," said Mini, "we will call the old man forth." Then, raising her voice, she cried, "O Ancient One, come forth and speak!"

No answer came. The men raised their voices also with hers, and emboldened with the sound of their own shoutings in the quiet place, called out again and again. "Come forth, O father, come forth!" Then they waited. Nelly could bear the suspense no longer, and was about to step forward over the crossed sticks of the little fence, when suddenly the vines and hanging trailers that clothed the base of the precipice at the side of the house were drawn apart, and the figure of a man stood before them. He was an old, old man, bent and bowed downwards with the weakness of extreme decrepitude. His eyes were unseen, for the white eyebrows, heavy as the moustache of the ideal cavalry-man, had bent themselves over in a great arch until they almost touched the sunken cheeks. A snowy beard flowed upon his breast and over the mat of silky flax which hid the shrunken form. One naked arm, sinewy page 36still beneath its withered skin, held aside the branches as he stood with bowed body but with head thrown back to peer out beneath his long eyebrows at the visitors. The young men drew back startled and silent; even Nelly was awed by the strange apparition, coming, not from the house as she expected to see a person approach, but almost, it seemed, from out the solid rock.

"Who calls?" the old man said. "Who comes to shout and wanton in a place made sacred?"

The men answered nothing, but Mini replied to the strange creature. "We have come, O Ancient One, bearing a wounded white man for the help of your skill. A sting-ray has pierced him with its spear, and this lady entreats your assistance to save her husband's life."

"I have never looked on the face of one of the white strangers," said the venerable man, "They are a fairy people, I am told, and full of strange witchcraft. If he is a fairy he cannot die. I am nearing the end of my days. Leave me in peace."

Nelly rushed across the small intervening space and threw herself at the old man's feet. "Oh!" she said; "you are old, and wise with the knowledge of many years; doubtless you know the remedy for the poison of the fish's spear. Did not the Celestial Maiden come down to earth for the love of One whose help you may some day need? So I would leave heaven itself for the sake of that dear dying man lying neglected there. Help me! help me!"

The elder peered curiously into her face—the face of one of a race to his dim eyes so strange and unfamiliar. Little wonder was it that he mistook her for one of the fairy people, for her distress and abandonment had added new expression to her beauty. Slowly the old man crept across the tiny clearing till he stood beside the litter, the page 37natives drawing back as he advanced. He bent down and touched the wound, on which the blood, which had ceased to flow, was blackening as it dried on the white skin. Then his glance travelled upwards to the face, which lay in a pallid calm like the mask of death itself. At that moment a ray of the sun, which was just about to dip into the sea, pierced through the lattice-work of the forest boughs, and fell upon the brow of the sick man, whereon the double scar showed red against the whiteness. Like a flash the body of the old man straightened itself, and his breath came quick and long. He raised his hands and murmured words to himself, but did not recover his bent position. A new life, a sudden blazing up of the spirit within, seemed to animate his shrivelled body with a vitality that quickened his whole frame. Turning to Nelly, he said:

"He is safe with me; be shall live for many years. Leave him in this place."

"Whither shall we take him? said one of the men. "May we step over the crossed sticks?"

"No," said the elder; "would you dare to violate the holiness of the Humming-House? Listen to me, you children: You shall know whither to go,"

Thus saying, he lifted his arm, and began to repeat in monotonous recitative the words of a charm. To Nelly's horror—a horror to which she did not dare to give expression by any sound or comment—she saw the light in the eyes of the natives pass into a dazed and fixed look such as one recognizes in the eyes of a somnambulist. It was the Rotu incantation, harmless to Nelly, who, perhaps by birth, and certainly by education, was unprepared by superstition to yield to the mesmeric influence so potent upon her dusky friends. The old man said to the natives:

"Lift the litter and follow me."

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To Nelly and Mini he said, "Wait tall these return, then go to your homes and wait till you hear the steps of a man made strong again."

Nelly pressed a last farewell kiss on the cold forehead of her lover, but did so with a heart renewed with hope. The little procession passed within the barrier of vine leaves, and was hidden within the unknown recesses of the cliff. Mini sat with her head buried within her shawl. Nelly, almost prostrate with the long-sustained tension of her nerves relaxed at last, stood quietly weeping on the shoulder of her kind-hearted brown-skinned sister, until the little party again appeared. Then they all quickly retraced their steps along the descending ridge, until they gained the boat in the dusk of evening, and Mini attended her girl friend back to her home.