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The Greenstone Door

Chapter XVIII The Path of True Love

page 253

Chapter XVIII The Path of True Love

"Nature is very persistent," said my father, putting aside his book and reaching out a hand for the tobacco jar. "Having once made a thing, she hates to get rid of it. The human body is full of survivals."

"If Adam was a white man——" I began.

"He was," interrupted my father, a twinkle in his eye; "that is beyond question. The pigmented skin is man's armour-plate against excessive sunlight—the greater the light, the deeper the pigment. No doubt Nature was at work for ages on the matter, but she will be twice as long in getting rid of her work. The Maori, having changed his latitude, no longer needs the pigment, but it persists. What matter a shade of colour? It is admirable in the flower and the butterfly."

"I want to fix my ideas," I said doubtfully. "Does not all mankind conjoin fairness with beauty?"

"To-day, perhaps. But it is a question whether admiration of the white man's qualities, apart from his whiteness, may not have originated the idea. Do you assert that the negro conceived a pale skin as beautiful before he had seen one?"

"It is conceivable."

"Then it is only accountable on the supposition that that also is a survival—from the original Adam. But I know what you would be at, my boy. The difference in page 254colour is only perceptible through the glass of sex. This is an excellent tobacco."

"Have you no feeling at all with regard to it, father?"

"No, Cedric. I am colour-blind." He gazed at me a moment whimsically through a cloud of smoke. "There was a time in the history of this planet when the white man was the savage and the swarthy man the person of intellect. It will come again. To be white will not then seem so admirable even to the white man. Look deep, my son. Is there nothing left beneath the brown skin of the boy who twice saved your life at the risk of his own?"

I was silent, and yet I think the hour was already past when that rebuke was deserved. I would have welcomed any argument that helped me to the serene altitude from which my father looked down on mankind.

But it was only for the first few months that I was troubled by the vague distaste which prompted me to such discussions as these. As I became once again familiar with the brown faces and resumed my old intimacy with Rangiora, the feeling of the insuperable nature of the barrier of colour faded from my mind, until at last my heart was unreservedly set on the successful issue of the loves of these two. I use the plural deliberately, for I had known Puhi-Huia too long and too intimately to remain many days in doubt as to her state of mind. For a long time no word passed between us on the subject, yet by an infinity of little signs I knew that her thoughts were continually with her lover. It was from her that I learned of certain schemes of Rangiora's, which, however ambitious, I did not doubt would be in part realised. Once free from the whare-kura, he hoped to begin work on them, and my father had promised not merely his advice, but such capital as might be needed.

The young ariki looked forward to the time when the whole of the tribal territories—while remaining in their page 255present ownership—should have yielded to the methods of the white man. Sheep and cattle were to cover the hillsides; the valleys were to brim with orchards, and the great flats laugh in harvests. The spirit for the accomplishing of such results was abroad; all that was required was a resolute leader and capital to set the work going. The tribe was to grow rich and powerful. Its members were to live in comfortable houses. They were to have cities of their own, ruled and policed—always subject to the law of the Queen—by themselves. Their schools should be the best-appointed in the Colony, and from them the most intelligent pupils should be selected and sent into the lands of the white man, to learn special trades, arts, and professions.

"It sounds like a dream," I said; "and yet, what is to prevent it? At all events, the Maori must go on or die out. The white people are pouring into the country. In less than ten years the proportions of the population will be reversed."

"Yes. And they will want land. Rangiora believes that the only way to hold it against them is to use it."

"He is wise. Many of the chiefs cannot be made to see that. They regard proprietorship as sufficient. They appeal to the treaty of Waitangi; but no treaty can stand against a law of nature. The pressure will come; they must either bring the land into use or dispose of it to those who will."

"I am glad you think Rangiora is acting rightly."

"I do think so. Of course, there are difficulties in front of him, and his father is probably the greatest of them."

"Yes. Yet I feel sorry for that old man."

"You would," I said. "Even if he ordered you to the oven—and no doubt he would like to—you would find excuses for him. You know, of course, that he is strongly opposed to an alliance between you and Rangiora."

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"I think there is something pitiable in his fallen greatness," she replied, without answering my question. "As children we scarcely dared to breathe his name in a whisper; now, no one regards him."

"His son does—as yet. I must say that, in the circumstances, Rangiora's obedience does him credit—or otherwise. What do you two expect to come of it all, if you do not put up a fight?"

"I do not expect to marry Rangiora, if that is what you mean."

"Yet, am I wrong in thinking that you would like to?"

"He has never spoken to me of love," she said evasively,

"But he has spoken to me and to our father."

She sat for a while silent, gazing in front of her, a soft light gleaming in her dark eyes. "Sometimes I have thought that the idea did not please you, Cedric," she said shyly at last.

"Do not think so any more. No man would seem to me good enough for you; but that is all. As for Rangiora, there are only three people in the world I like better, and two of them are girls."

"You know that I am half a Maori."

"No need to disparage that half with me. In five hundred years the white aristocracy of New Zealand may also take pride in claiming their descent from the Maori gods."

"I have a feeling that nothing will come of it," she said dreamily. "Always in my thoughts something stands in the way. I have dreamed of it too—a rock or a cloud or a tangled thicket."

"Is Te Huata all of these?" I asked.

"I feel that I could make friends with Te Huata—with any creature of flesh and blood; but this is a shadow, not to be appeased or circumvented."

"Come," I said encouragingly, "that is not a healthy page 257thought, and I scarcely know my cheerful little sister in this new aspect. If it were of my case you were speaking, there would be some justification for despondency," and I began to enlarge on my own troubles. "There is something real and substantial in an obstacle which is composed of the whole thickness of the planet," I concluded.

She heard me with silent interest, then laid her hand with a light caress on mine. "You will marry her, Cedric," she said. "You will spend many, many long and happy years together. I feel that as clearly as I cannot feel the other. You and Helenora will make up in joy for the wrongs and unhappiness of the past," Her voice had a strange quality of remoteness, and in her eyes was the fixed gaze of the seer.

"How long to wait, dear prophetess?" I asked softly, fearing to break the spell.

"Many stormy years yet. But it will be. It is sure…. God has promised me."

"Puhi!"

Her voice fell almost to a whisper, and in it was a suggestion of terror. "He will take you out of the burning city. Only you. He will not let my father come."

I put my arm round her and turned her face to mine. "Puhi!" I exclaimed, looking into her misty eyes and shaking her softly. "Puhi! What is if?"

She shivered, and the light of consciousness returned to her gaze. "It is the matakite,"1 she said.

"Nonsense! There is no such thing."

"Then I do not know what it is. This is the third time I have looked into that glass."

"What glass?"

"Well, it is shadowy, with moving reflections," she said vaguely. "I know about the shadows and what they

1 Matakite = second sight.

page 258are doing. But one cannot describe it as one can real things."

"No," I agreed; "that is just it; they are not real. They are fancies bred of being too much alone. Come, put on your hat, and we will go for a spin on the river. As for this love affair, I propose to take a hand in it. I am not afraid of the Great One any longer."

This must have occurred some time towards the end of winter, for it was not very long afterwards that I heard that Rangiora's days of pupilage were over, and that he had come with honour out of the college. I was consumed with curiosity to learn from his lips the sequel of the story he had told me in the cave, and, after waiting several days in the expectation of seeing him emerge from the forest trail or run his canoe ashore on the river bank, I made up my mind to pay him a visit myself.

Since the occasion of the assembly which had so nearly ended disastrously for me, I had not set foot in the Great One's pa. Change, I was told, had been at work there also. The old glories of Pahuata were gone, never to be recalled. As elsewhere, the villagers had descended from the heights to the plains, building for themselves new, but, I am afraid, less substantial and ornamental dwellings among their growing crops. Aloft, amid the ruins of his fortress, surrounded by his band of wizards, a handful of slaves who clung to him rather from habit than either fear or affection, and a few ancient men of the tribe, the Great One dwelt in solitary state, waiting the summons of the Hour to Be. Around him were the hundred dismantled homes of his seceded people, and the closed, ochre-painted doors of the departed dead. So, sitting in the chill, sunless air of that spring morning, his great cloak of dog-skin around him, his back to the whare—almost in the very place in which I had last seen him, almost in the very attitude page 259in which he had doomed me to the oven—I saw him again.

Warned of my approach, a few women and girls—all that was left of that turbulent crowd which had overwhelmed me on my last visit—cried their welcomes.

"Welcome, friend of my son," he said, as I stood before him. "You have been long in coming. It is many days since the storm died away."

"So many that I have forgotten, chief," I replied.

"It is well said. The way to the kainga is open—and the way of return. This is your home."

I was agreeably surprised, and knew not to what influence, unless it might be the friendship of Rangiora, to attribute this change of manner, if not of the heart that underlay it.

"The chief's words are full of kindness," I responded. "Yet the house of the Thumb stands open, and the desired guest does not come."

"That is a thing understood between us," he replied. "Suffice it for this time that the White Chief is not, as the rangatiras of the tribe, to regard only the foot of the pa and not its head."

"Pleasant in my ears are the words of the ariki. It is a true saying that the heart of the Thumb is with the Maori nation."

Te Huata raised his brows in assent. "For myself," he said, "I regard not the white men who come and go. I know not their Queen or her Governors. The Thumb only do I know, and with him is the compact between me and the people of his race."

His words made little impression on me at the time, but I was to recall them later and find in them a dread significance.

"But enough," he broke off. "The speech of the old has no charm for young ears. Go then: your friend awaits you."

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But it was Tuku-tuku, the Spider's Web, who next claimed my recognition. I gathered from her face that she was moved by the sight of me, doubtless recalling that moment when the lives of myself and her son hung in equal, balance. She was not content, as the chief had been, to take my hand, but put her face to mine in the greeting of the hongi.

"Alas, Little Finger!" she said in a low, moaning voice. "The young trees have sprung up and the old are beginning to wither."

"Not for a long time yet, Tuku-tuku," I responded cheerfully. "The kauri1 still rises above the clouds, and, the tree-fern shines green in his shadow."

She laughed with pleasure at my pretty speech, and her intelligent eyes regarded me kindly. "Are the boughs of the young trees still interlocked?" she asked.

"Yes," I replied, putting a hand on Rangiora's shoulder. "Lay an axe to one, and the other will fall also."

"It is good. You two are of the young generation. With them is the word. Let there be peace between the white skin and the brown skin for ever."

In response to my desire, Rangiora led me round the village, and mutually we recalled the tragic incidents of my last visit.

The whare-kura was in excellent repair, and, to my surprise, the storehouse used as an armoury, so far from showing evidences of wear, gave signs of recent renovation and enlargement.

"For what is the building used now?" I asked, "that such care is taken of it."

"Guns," said he.

I came to a dead stop and regarded him questioningly.

"The law against the sale of arms to the natives has

1 Kauri = Dammara australis.

page 261been repealed," he reminded me. "It is a fancy of the Great One to collect them."

"I doubt if the act of the new Governor was a wise one." I said, with a feeling of uneasiness. "Yet it surely shows how peaceful is the intention of the white man."

"To forbid their sale to the Maori was a wrong," said Rangiora: "to permit it is a foolishness."

Whether or no I agreed with the first clause, I was at one with him on the second. "What object does the Great One set himself in their collection?" I asked.

"Surely none but the old one."

"Yet he received me kindly and spoke with favour of the Thumb."

Rangiora was silent awhile. "Little Finger," he said at last, "my father is no madman. Sometimes I ask myself if perhaps his sight may not be clearer than ours. Yet verily I believe if he held all white men in equal honour with the Thumb, this building might fall to pieces with the rest."

"His mind has truly changed then?" I asked. "It is difficult to believe, remembering the past, that no malice lurks in his heart."

"Yet it is so. My mother, who reads every thought in his mind, has told me that the spring is clear. The Thumb is a chief of the Ngatimaniapoto. There may be anger between brothers, but presently' the mud sinks and the water clears itself."

Even then I failed to grasp the true meaning of the changed relations between my foster-father and the ariki.

On the outskirts of the pa, past the last decaying habitation, a fresh incident of my boyhood recurred to me. Here, in company with Pepepe, had my young blood chilled at the fearful apparition of the village undertaker, ancient, ragged, emaciated, daubed with paint, insane. There had used to be a track down to the whare, but now rank page 262weeds cumbered the way, and a couple of bare poles alone denoted the spot where the wretched hovel had stood.

"Where is she?" I asked in a whisper.

"There," he replied, and pointed a finger to where the growth was densest. "Come away; it is an evil place, for there she still lies uncleansed of her trade. One morning a slave, bringing food to the edge of the track, found that of the day before still untouched. No man has been there since."

We wandered from the village to a quiet nook in the hill, out of the wind, overlooking a scene of great extent and beauty, wood and water fading into a remote horizon. And here I questioned Rangiora as to his manner of leaving the whare-kura. I had fancied in him a desire to avoid, or at least a reluctance in speaking on, the subject, and now, as I put my direct question, his face shadowed, and for a long time he made no reply.

"If you have repented confiding in me," I said at last, "we will speak of other things."

"It is not that, my brother," he answered quickly; "but I fear what may be your judgment on me for that which I have done. Bitterly and unceasingly do I repent my action, yet if it were to do again, I know not but my choice would be the same."

"Tell me."

"Little good came to me from my last term in the school, owing to the distraction of my mind over that which lay in front of me. I questioned Te Atua Mangu, who at first would answer me nothing, but a few days before the close of the term he took me aside and revealed the thing that was to be done. It was a grandson of Te Paoa they had chosen, a youth of high descent by both parents, and against him I was to cast the death-spell. Truly, my friend, my heart turned to water, but I hardened my face and spoke. 'It cannot be, Black One,' I said, page 263'for this of your teaching have I not learned, to weave the spell of death.' 'Have no fear, O son,' he answered me; 'the gods will strike through your speech.' 'Is there no other test that will suffice, my master?' I asked him. 'For you,' he replied, 'there is no other.' 'Consider well if that be so, Black Spirit,' I said; 'for it is not in my heart to slay the grandson of Te Paoa.' Then his face grew dark and he questioned me if I would disobey the commands of the priests. 'I will appeal to the ariki that I be relieved of the test,' I told him; 'for it is a thing not in my power, and if it were in my power it is not in my will.'

"So he left me, and I sent word to my father, putting the case before him. Deep was my disquietude till the message of the ariki arrived. 'Obey the priests, son,' were his words, 'for the thing you tell of is within my knowledge and approved. Yet if your heart be not uplifted to this greatness, think no more of the daughter of the Thumb, but take the wife of your people I have chosen, and the way shall be made easy for you.' Alas, Little Finger, I was in the jaws of the shark, and must needs lose a limb! Tell me, then, how your wisdom would have directed you in such case."

"I should have walked out of the school and left my education uncompleted," I answered him.

"That thought also occurred to me, but I saw the face of my father, the Great One, he whom the tribe has deserted. He sat up here among the ruins, sad and alone, and his face was turned towards Te Reinga."

I could not but sympathise with his filial feelings in an aspect of the matter which had not occurred to me. "How then did you decide?" I asked.

"For long it seemed to me better that the grandson of Te Paoa should die than that I should marry the maiden my father had chosen, but as the dread hour approached, page 264it was borne in upon me that by no desire could I bring myself to the casting of the death-spell. It was then, my brother, that light came to me in the darkness. I looked and perceived that the gate of life stood open, and through it, from the world of spirits, came the ray that dispersed the clouds. Yet once more I sent a message to my father, and in it I told him that by no manner of means could I bring myself to the performance of the test. To my mother also I wrote, asking that she plead for me with the ariki.

"It wanted then but a few hours to the time of trial, and down sank my spirits as the moments passed and no answer came to me. I had made all things ready, and my eyes were on the open gate, when a priest brought to me a letter from my mother. One thing she had achieved for me. With regard to the maiden of high descent, I might have my desire; with regard to the other, the ariki was to have his: so would a way of escaping the test be found for me. Truly the shark's jaws had met in my body and the half of me was torn away. There was left to me just the hope that the mind of the ariki might turn towards Puhi-Huia as it had turned towards her father."

"I marvel that it has not done so already," I said. "One would have thought that after all these years he would have recognised that there lay his son's opportunity for greatness."

"The mind of the ariki is dark to me in this matter," said Rangiora. "Sometimes I have thought that he had no true desire for the maiden of high lineage, and but urged her upon me to try me."

I recalled Puhi-Huia's prophetic despondency, and a dull but scarcely personal resentment gathered in my mind. "Then it is the daughter of the Thumb, and not the grandson of Te Paoa, who is to be the victim," I remarked.

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"Say not so, Little Finger," he replied gravely. "The Queen may drop a tear for the soldier who falls: his is the wound, and the pain of it."

I could not but be touched by this evidence of the state of humility to which love had brought the proud descendant of the gods, and inwardly I vowed that no effort of mine should be spared to bring about an alliance between my comrade and my foster-sister.