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Ena, or, The Ancient Maori

Chapter XVII. The Search

page 112

Chapter XVII. The Search.

"The wind is heard on the mountain.
The torrent pours down the rock.
No hut receives me from the rain;
Forlorn on the hill of winds."

When the slave girls reached the pah with intelligence of the forcible abduction of Ena and her companions by the Ngatiraukawa, the consternation and vows of vengeance were loud and deep. Raukawa placed himself at the head of a band of expert forest-men: to his subordinates in command he allotted small companies of a few men in each. Te Rangitukaroa saw them depart: to each principal man of the search-party he gave a simple order, in accents which told how heavily this unforeseen misfortune bore upon his mind. "Go," said he, "bring back my daughter to me; return not without her."

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Addressing his son, he said, "Raukawa, the strength has left my arm, my energy has departed; no longer am I able to lead the tana to victory. Oh, that my old age should witness so much sorrow, misery, and despair! On you, my son, now hangs the hope of our people. Be brave, be strong; return not without Ena,"

The youth embraced his aged parent, and whilst the tears yet rolled from his eyes he gave his companions the order to proceed.

The men were well armed, and they eagerly departed in pursuit. Taking the path indicated by the slaves, the party followed the old bed of the stream, and soon came to places where the luxuriance of the vegetation completely covered the course of the rivulet Thus baffled, they separated with the understanding that by sundown they were to meet in the Nikau glen, a well-known spot in the recesses of the forest.

Hours were spent in a fruitless search for the unfortunate captives. The sun was very low in the sky, and in another hour night would be on the land: to continue the search after sunset would be useless, and moreover would likely be attended with disaster, as parties of the enemy might be lying in wait ready to seize any who might chance to fall into their hands.

When the search-party left Wairauki, the old chief retired to the verandah of his whare, and there sat page 114down in sorrowful gloom, his face almost hidden in the folds of his mat, his gaze fixed on space. His thoughts were of his daughter; his heart was breaking; he felt that his end was approaching, and that soon he must leave for ever behind him the scenes of his exile, the memories of his youth, the triumphs of his arms, and the love and unavailing regrets of his people. Tears rolled down the sallow cheeks of the fading warrior. His greenstone meri lay on the ground beside him; with a melancholy tenderness he regarded the weapon, as from time to time his eyes were riveted on it, the heirloom of his ancestors.

The old and the decrepit men and women of the pah came to solace the chief in his bereavement, squatting down in a semicircle before him, and observing a respectful silence. Hahaki, the tohunga, slowly approached the group, his body slightly bent forward with increasing age and the weight of late disasters. Nor was his mind free from apprehensions of the future: from the solitary meditations of his profession he plainly perceived a series of mishaps gathering around the destinies of his people. The old priest's existence was an enigma to the tribe: none ever saw him sleep. For days he would remain in close solitariness, allowing none to disturb him; none ever saw him partake of food, or perform any of the page 115offices of every-day life; he existed none knew how, and none dared to inquire: his advice was sought and carefully attended to, his displeasure was feared more than death, his fame was the theme of every tongue, his sayings were treasured up and remembered. Entering the line formed before the chief, he squatted down facing the old man, and so remained. On his head he wore an aigrette of rare white feathers; his features were almost concealed in the folds of the coarse black flax mat he wore.

Suddenly a low murmur ran from lip to lip: a messenger had arrived from Raukawa bearing the unwelcome tidings that the search was as yet unavailing. The courier, a fine, tall youth, communicated his message to the chief in the hearing of those present, while with increased mental dejection all bowed the head close to the ground.

It was a strange sight, a most melancholy scene. The sinking sun going down beyond the ocean's boundaries; his red light streaming through the wondrous fields of the heavens, and glowing over the beautiful earth; his levelled beams tinting with a bronze tinge the ghastly array of human heads that topped the tall posts of the pah fences. These heads had been removed from the bodies of the Ngatiraukawa who had fallen before the pah a few days previously, page 116and were, in accordance to the usual custom, placed in barbaric pomp in the conspicuous position referred to.

A few moments passed in painful silence, when Hahaki rose, and advancing to the chief, tenderly saluted him, and then retired to his little whare on the principal parapet of the front defences. The others followed his example, saluting their chief in silent affection and sympathetic grief, retiring with sorrowing hearts to their humble huts.

Still the old man sat in his place, silent as a statue; not a muscle moved. To all appearance he was dead; but his mind was vigorous, although his arm was shrunken with age; his heart still beat warm, although its fires were cooling in the ashes of years. Bitter was the agony which the old warrior was experiencing as the icy talons of bereavement were suddenly fixed on the snapping cords of his inmost soul; and he now knew, for the first time in his war-seared life, how sharply and how pitilessly the bonds of paternal love thrill and throb whilst undergoing the terrible ordeal of inevitable severance.

The moon rose; and still he sat in his solitude and silence. No more tidings came in from the pursuers. The night wore on; none slept in Wairauki pah. As the hours passed, the chief could hear the murmuring sounds of many voices engaged in conversation within page 117the whares. He knew that his woes were the subject of their kind and tearful watchings; still he remained in his bitter grief. The premonitory sounds of the approaching earthquake drove the inmates of the whares out into the open spaces of the pah, and loud and woeful were their cries of terror and of anguish as the earth palpitated beneath their feet Every eye was turned toward the parapet whereon the priest dwelt, and there, in the clear moonlight, could be seen against the yellow sky the gaunt figure of the tohunga. The upper and lower portions of his body were naked; a small cincture of flax tassels encircled his waist, and descended below his loins. His arms were extended; in one hand he held a few long slender reeds, in the other a human skull. Waving these adjuncts of the necromancer's art from east to west, he sought to appease the supposed demon of the earthquake, that evil genius of this ill-omened natural phenomenon. So long as the earth-wave heaved, so long the priest remained on the roof of his whare; and when it ceased, he disappeared. Sullen murmurs rose on the air as the people dispersed, and when the storm of wind and rain descended and swept over the pah in its gigantic force and awful magnitude, the hum of the voices was lost in the thunder of the tempest.

Driven at last to seek the shelter of his whare, Te page 118Rangitukaroa entered it, and passed the remainder of the night in his inconsolable sorrows.

After the men under Raukawa had scoured as much of the forest as they dared before sunset, they met at the place of rendezvous. In this sequestered locality there stood a lofty and rugged precipice, or, rather, isolated cliff. It rose from the bottom of the gully to an altitude of several hundred feet. About midway of its height, there ran a cave in the face of the cliff, which extended from right to left for a distance of fifty feet, and which penetrated the rock some twenty feet. It was open in front to its entire extent, and from floor to roof it rose to a height of ten feet. The ascent to this remarkable cave, or gallery, was dangerously steep; the lower face of the rock was entirely denuded of vegetation, but immediately above the opening the rocks were clothed with tree-shrubs and scrub of various foliage and of rare excellence of form.

The prospect of the country obtained from the interior of the cave was of great extent and of surpassing beauty. The deep glens that lay beneath, wherein many a stream of water unceasingly flowed, bringing freshness and loveliness to the myriad denizens of the primeval forest; glades of fern-land and open native grassed downs intervened, over page 119which the scanty fauna fled before the patient hunter; bleak turreted mountain crests were near, their woodless cones standing out from their well-timbered fellows in the Alpine ranges that traversed the country from north to south, forming a wild and savage picture of sombre beauty and massive splendour as the beams of the sunken sun still faintly lingered on the higher peaks. A delicate line of the far-off ocean's horizon lay like a silver ribbon between two pinnacles of grey rock that parted the distant ranges.

Raukawa's orders to his men were to keep well back in the forest, thinking that the enemy would not venture to travel too near the sea-coast; but in this he was deceived. As they relied upon a detour they made in their flight with their prey, they took the straight path homeward, whereas Raukawa's party made a series of circuitous marches, hoping thus to intercept the enemy.

The approach of night drove the wearied searchers toward the appointed meeting-place, to which they clambered, and there awaited the arrival of their several associates. The sun had long gone down ere Raukawa and the party immediately under his own eyes came in. They were the last to arrive, as they prosecuted their search for a longer time than the others, in the hope of discovering the fugitives.

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They reached the ravine down-hearted and weary; so thoroughly exhausted were they that several of them had to be assisted up the face of the rock to the shelter of the cavern, which gained, they flung themselves on the dry floor, and tried to forget their sorrow and fatigue in short intervals of sleep. Raukawa determined to remain in this hiding-place all night, and to return home when morning dawned. The earthquake and the storm passed as the terrorstruck warriors sat in silence in the friendly shelter of the rock.