CHAPTER IX.NOTHING TO EAT.As the shock of the earthquake subsided, and Beauty rallied from his terror, his pace began to slacken. If Edwin had not tied himself and Cuthbert so securely in the cart, they might have been thrown out when Beauty ran away. So the knots which would not be untied proved their protection; and now they found themselves trotting leisurely through verdant stretches, dotted with ti tree and blue-gum, and overgrown with toi and flax and rushes. Before them rose the great gates of the avenue leading to the central station-house. The white front of Feltham's mansion gleamed through the tall stems of the trees which surrounded it; whilst beyond and around them were the sheds and walls, the pools and bridges, comprising stock-yards and shearing-places, where thousands of wild cattle and tens of thousands of wilder sheep were washed and dipped, and counted and branded, year after year.The ingenious arrangement of pool and paddock and pen by which this gigantic undertaking is safely accomplished looked to the boys like a wooden village.Beauty drew up at the friendly gate of his own accord, attracted by the welcome sounds of human life as stockmen and shepherds hurried out to their morning work. Half the hands were off to the hills; the remaining half found in consequence the more to do. The poor terrified cattle had suffered considerably. Sheep were cast in every ditch. Cows had gored each other in their mad terror; and broken fences told of wild leaps and escaped bulls to be sought for in the neighbouring bush.The boundary rider, whose sole duty is to parade the vast domain and give notice at headquarters of unwary gaps and strays, had been spurring hither and thither, delayed by the gloom of the morning and the herds of wild bulls which had broken in, while the tame had broken out. With demolished fences, and frightened sheep dying around them by hundreds, the little fugitives in Oscott's hut had been forgotten.But when the boundary rider saw a cart at his master's gate, blue with volcanic mud above, and dripping from below with the slime of the sea, he thought of the family from the hills waiting somewhere for the breakfast he was to have carried in his saddle-bag. His circuit was but half completed. "I shall find them yet," he said to himself, as he galloped up behind the cart. He saw the dangling rope, and the white faces of the two boys huddled together in a state of complete exhaustion. He tied his horse to the gate, and jumping into the cart, rattled Beauty up the avenue to his master's door, which stood wide open to all comers. For every hour brought fresh rumours, and fresh parties of fugitives who had fled precipitately from their homes when the storm of mud began.He took his knife from his pocket and cut the rope which tied Edwin and his brother to the cart. Some one ran out with a cup of coffee, which he poured down their throats, and then the boys began to revive. He wanted to take them in-doors and put them to bed. But the relief-party had already sent down so many sufferers from the hills every bed was full of children, women, and even men, who had been dug out of the muddy stream in which they were suffocating.As soon as Edwin could speak, he added his story to the others, entreating the men who turned their heads to listen, as they hurried in and out, to send some food to his sisters, who were left alone in Oscott's hut. As for the sailors, the feeling among Feltham's people was decided: any one not from the hills must be left to take care of himself.Just then a horseman, covered with mud and foam, came spurring towards the house, shouting to the crowd around the door,—"I've come for every man on the ground, by the master's orders. Leave everything. Bring your spades, and follow me. The nearer we get to Tarawera the thicker lies the mud. Our government station at Rotorua is buried beneath it, church and all. Te Ariki and Maura are nowhere to be seen. The low whares in the Maori pahs are utterly destroyed. Wherever the roofs have been strong enough to uphold the weight of the falling mud, the inhabitants are alive beneath them now. Come to the rescue—come!"The last hoarse words were scarcely audible. The boundary rider took the unfinished cup from Edwin's lips and passed it to the man, and the boy was glad that he did so.A cry of "Spades! spades!" rang through the increasing group of listeners, which seemed to gather and disperse with equal rapidity. Mrs. Feltham made her way through the midst to the bell-tower, and rang a frantic peal to call all hands together. Horses were saddling; men were mounting; others were hurrying up to learn the meaning of the hasty summons. Edwin drew his cart aside under the trees to watch the departure.Mrs. Feltham reappeared on her doorstep with knife and loaf, trying to fill every pocket with bread before each one rode off. She could not make her intention understood. The men, in their impatience to be gone, would hardly stop to take it."Oh," thought Edwin, "they forget they will want it all to give away."He leaned over his brother. "Cuth, take the reins." But Cuth's numbed hands let them drop. Edwin twisted them round his arm, and with a nod and a smile made his way to Mrs. Feltham.His voice was so weak and faint she could not hear what he said, but the ready hand was offering to pass on the great hunches of bread she was cutting, and she kept him at work, little dreaming how he had to turn his head away again and again to resist the impulse to take a bite by the way. As he took the last crust from her, and saw that it was the last, a sudden faintness overcame him, and he dropped on the stones at her feet."I am so very, very hungry," he said piteously."Why did not you tell me that before the basket was empty?" she retorted. "You must remember, my boy, every bit of food for man and beast must be buried under this dreadful mud for miles and miles. I may have a famishing army round me before night, and how am I to feed them all? Not a crumb must be wasted. If you are so hungry, go into the kitchen and clear up the scraps on the men's plates. I would turn all the flour in the granary into bread, and feed you every one, if I had only hands to make it and bake it. Stop," she went on; "though you are a boy you could be of some use. You could wash and boil a copperful of potatoes and pumpkins; that would be something to set before the starving cart-loads I hope and trust they will be successful in saving.""No, ma'am," answered Edwin. "I must go back to my sisters. I have left them alone with a lot of rough sailors."His "no" was round and resolute.She took out her purse, saying almost coaxingly, "Here is a week's wage for a day's work.""I am very sorry, Mrs. Feltham, but I really can't stay," he persisted.She turned away with an impatient gesture and went in-doors."She takes me for some unlucky beggar," thought Edwin, crawling round to the kitchen door, glad to avail himself of the somewhat ungracious permission to look out for the scraps. "It is dog's fare," thought Edwin, "but it is more to me than her gold." He found a piece of newspaper, and walked round and round the long breakfast-table, collecting into it such morsels as he could find. Of most of the dishes the hungry young shepherds had made a clean sweep. Still there were some unfinished crusts of bread, a corner of Melton pie, a rasher of bacon burned in the grilling. On the dresser he discovered a bone of mutton, evidently laid aside for the hounds. He would not touch the sugar in the basin, or take a peep at the contents of the cupboards, feeling himself on his honour. The sounds within convinced him Mrs. Feltham and the rest of her household were hard at work transforming the hospitable mansion into a temporary hospital, for the reception of the poor unfortunates who might be dug out alive but scarcely uninjured."O Cuth, we haven't been the worst off by a long way!" exclaimed Edwin suddenly, as the brothers sat together in their cart, enjoying their bone of mutton, quite in the doggie line, but, as Cuthbert averred, feeling themselves, as they ate, like new-made men.Then they turned Beauty homewards. Yes, that queer little shanty was a kind of home. It was still dark as in a London fog, but the shocks of earthquake were less, fainter and farther apart.Half-way down the road they met the party of sailors, walking barefoot on the edge of the grass. They did not recognize the boys, but stopped to ask the way to the central station."We have just been there to beg for food," said Edwin, feeling it quite "infra dig" to acknowledge the condition in which they reached Mrs. Feltham's gate. "But," he added drearily, "we could not get it. Not enough for you all."Then he hurried on to explain the tidings from the hills and the general stampede to the rescue."Turn back," urged the captain, "and give us a lift.""Lend us the cart," added Arthur Bowen. "If any harm should come to it, grandfather will pay you for it; and as for the horse, he will get a good feed of corn in Feltham's stable. I will see after him."Edwin was not sure he ought to trust the horse and cart with strangers, but the prospect of a good feed of corn for Beauty went a long way; for he had nothing for the horse to eat but the winter grass around the hut. Down he jumped."If there are so many men at this station," the sailors were saying, "maybe they can find us an old pair of shoes; and if strong arms are in request, we are ready to take our turn."They shook hands all round."Good-bye, my lads, good-bye. It was a brave act to back that cart into the sea, and you'll take a sailor's blessing with you to your home, wherever it is. If there is anything washed ashore from the little craft, you'll store it up high and dry until another coaster calls to fetch it away."The promise was given on both sides. Edwin would find his Beauty safe at Feltham's, and the captain his wreckage piled against the back of Oscott's hut, although they might both be miles away when the two were reclaimed.Edwin took Cuthbert's hand in his and walked on in grave silence. One thing was clear—nobody would have time or thought to care for them. They must just look out for themselves."It is playing at Robinson Crusoe in earnest, we four in that little hut," said Cuthbert. "He did lots of things to make himself comfortable, but then he was a man.""It won't be for long," added Edwin. "I hardly think we shall see father to-night, but he may be back to-morrow. If we could only find something to eat. Whero and his mother lived on nuts and berries after the muru, but then it was autumn."They sank again into silence. The barking of the boundary dog warned them they were near the hut, and when it died away to a low growl they distinguished a faint, soft murmur of singing."Oh, hush!" they exclaimed. "Oh, listen! It is the girls; that is Audrey."It put fresh life into the weary feet as they heard it clearer and clearer—"Hark, hark! the lark at heaven's gate sings.""Heaven's gate," repeated the boys: it was the only word they could distinguish."Heaven's gate. It is a word to comfort us, for that is never shut," added Edwin, as they stumbled against an uprooted ti tree. The long, tapering stem, with its waving plume of feathery leaves, barred their progress. Cuth was about to climb over it, for the hard brown trunk at its base was six feet round; but Edwin ran off to examine its leafy crown, where the cabbage which gave the tree its name should lie hidden.He parted the yard-long leaflets, and felt a something tall and crisp growing up in their midst.A shout of glee brought Cuth to his assistance. They pulled the pliant boughs to this side and that, and perceived what looked to them like a coil of white ribbon, as thick and as long as a man's arm. Was this the cabbage of which they had heard so much, for the sake of which the lordly tree was so often cut down and destroyed?They tore off one of the ribbon-like flakes and tasted it.Cuth declared it was like eating almonds, only not so hard."But how can we cut it without a knife?" cried Edwin, munching away at the raw flakes in his fingers, and pronouncing them a right good feed for them all, if they could but cut the cabbage out.There might be a knife in the hut, who could say. Away they rushed to explore, guided through the tangle of flax and rushes by their sisters' voices.The girls were sitting on the bed of fern in an abandonment of despair, scarcely daring to believe their own ears when the refrain of their song was caught up and repeated—"With everything that pretty is,My ladies sweet, arise.""O Edwin, Edwin!" they exclaimed. "We thought you too had vanished.""We could not bear ourselves," said Effie, "so we took to singing. We feared we were left to starve on our bed of leaves, like the 'Children in the Wood,' and we were afraid there was not a robin redbreast anywhere here to cover us up.""Oh, but there is a robin blackbreast," retorted Edwin; "a true-born native, all the fitter for the undertaker's work. Only it is not going to be done to-night, Dame Trot." He took the wee white face between his hands, and felt so strong, so vigorous, so determined to take care of it somehow. "I am not going away again, Effie." He pulled the newspaper parcel out of his pocket and tossed it into Audrey's lap. "Beggars' crumbs!" he laughed. But her cold, nerveless fingers seemed incapable of untwisting the paper."Hands were made before forks!" cried Cuthbert, pushing in between his sisters, "and I've often heard that pie-crust is made to be broken, like promises. I can spy a bill-hook in the corner, a little too big for cutting up a pie, but just the thing to chop the cabbage out of a ti tree."Edwin spun round and shouldered it in triumph."There goes smash to the promise: he is off again as fast as he can go. And now for the second breakage. You must not mind my dirty pads for once, Audrey," Cuthbert went on, pulling the pie into two pieces and making his sisters eat.The slender store in the newspaper would be soon exhausted. Cuthbert, like a provident commissariat officer, was anxious to make the most of it. He laid aside the bacon to eat with Edwin's cabbage, and piled up the mutton-bones for their solitary neighbour, the boundary dog, who, like themselves, had been breakfasting on broken promise.Audrey had recovered herself in some measure by the time Edwin returned with his spoils."Who'll buy? who'll buy?" he shouted; "yards upon yards of vegetable ribbon, white and delicate enough to make the wedding favours for the queen of cooks.""Oh, don't talk about cooking," put in Cuthbert; "it is so nice, let us eat it as it is."So down they sat, breaking off flake after flake until they were satisfied. As hunger diminished speech returned, and Audrey, who had scarcely uttered a word whilst Edwin went over all they had heard and seen at Mrs. Feltham's, became suddenly animated. A thought had struck her, but she hesitated to propose her plan too abruptly."Dears," she said earnestly, looking round at the other three, "father will not come back to us perhaps for a day or two; it may even be a week. Think of our own escape. Think if one of us had been buried in that awful mud. How should we be feeling now? Whilst there is another life to be saved father will not come away—no, not for our sakes, and we must not wish that he should."Even Effie answered, "Oh no, we must not.""Then," continued Audrey, still more earnestly. "what are we going to do?""That is a poser," retorted Edwin. "The storm brought down the ti tree, and that gave us the cabbage. The gale is dying. We had better take a walk round and look about us. We may find something else. Heaven's gate is open still, Audrey. We must bear this as patiently as we can, and help will come.""Yes, dears," she answered, "if you can be patient here a little longer, I think there is something I can do to help us all.""You, Audrey?" exclaimed her brothers; "you are as white as a sheet. Let us do; we are twice as strong as you are.""Strength is not everything," she returned quietly. "There are some things which only a girl can do. Now this is my plan. If Edwin will walk with me to the central station, I will ask Mrs. Feltham to let me help her. I will go for so much a day, and then at night when she pays me I may persuade her to sell me some flour and meat and tea, food enough for us all, dears.""Go out like a charwoman, Audrey!" exclaimed Edwin, in amazement. "Is that what you mean?""Well, yes," returned Audrey, in a considering tone, "it certainly would be the same thing, if you like to call it so.""'Of old men called a spade a spade,'" grumbled Edwin. "I like to give things their plain names, and then we know where we are.""If little Mother Audrey goes out charing, Cuth will poison himself, and then there will be no more food wanting for him. That Mrs. Feltham looked as cross as two sticks," declared Cuthbert."Just listen to these proud young gentlemen," retorted Audrey. "Erne, my dear, I turn to you to support me.""I'll do as you do," returned her little sister, laying her head on her shoulder."Not quite so fast, Dame Trot," interposed Edwin. "But if Audrey marches home at night with a bag of flour on her back, you must make it into Norfolk dumplings. Cuthbert and I, it seems, are good for nothing but to eat them.""You ridiculous boys, why can't you be serious?" said Audrey, adding, in an aside to Edwin, "Erne is too ill to exist on your vegetable ribbon, even if we boil it. Well, is not my plan better—""Than robin blackbreast and the burying business? Of course, you have shut me up," he answered.So the decision was reached. Audrey untied her bundle. Combs and brushes, soap and towels, a well-worn text-book, a little box of her own personal treasures, all knotted up in one of Effie's pinafores. What a hoard of comfort it represented!"That is a notice to quit for you and me, Cuth," remarked Edwin. "We'll take the boundary dog his bones, and accommodate our honest charwoman with a pailful of sea-water to assist the toilet operations."The storm had died away as suddenly as it rose, and the receding waves had left the shelving sands strewn with its debris—uprooted trees, old hats, and broken boards, fringed with seaweed. A coat was bobbing up and down, half in the water and half out, while floating spars told of the recent wreck. A keg sticking in the sand some feet below high-water mark attracted the boys' attention, for Edwin was mindful of his promise to the sailors. As they set to work to roll it up, they came upon the oysters sticking edgeways out of the sand, and clinging in clusters to the rocks. With a hurrah of delight they collected a goodly heap. Here was a supper fit for a king.CHAPTER X.THE MAORI BOY.The bath of sea-water which Edwin had provided in the shepherd's pail did more than anything else to restore poor Effie. When the arduous task of opening the oysters was at last accomplished, by the aid of a great clasp nail and a splinter of stone, the abundant and nourishing meal which followed did them all so much good, Cuthbert and Effie declared they did not mind being left alone in the hut half as much as when father left them by the charcoal fires. They all wanted Audrey to wait until morning, but her answer was resolute."No, dears; the chance might be gone. It is just when the men come back from the hills Mrs. Feltham will want me. They may come in the middle of the night. Nobody knows when, and if I am there, at least I shall hear what they say. Perhaps they will have been with father, and bring us a message."This reconciled them all to her departure. Then she hurried away with Edwin by her side, for fear the dark wintry day should close before she reached her destination.Edwin guessed the distance to be about four miles; but they were in poor order for walking, and were reduced to halting by the wayside continually. Yet, as the snail got to the top of the wall at last, so they reached the avenue gates. Here they agreed to part. There was no more danger of Audrey losing herself, and both were uneasy at leaving Effie and Cuthbert alone so long.During the walk they had talked over everything, which Audrey declared was the greatest comfort imaginable. Edwin did not want to go up to the house to fetch his Beauty."I shall come for him to-morrow," he said; "then I can tell you how Effie is, and we shall hear how you are getting on."The shades of night were gathering as Edwin turned away; but he could not lose the white line of well-made road by which he was returning even by starlight, yet he was afraid of encountering any of the wild cattle, which he knew were roaming at will among the groves and coverts which surrounded him. He found himself a stick, and trudged along, whistling to keep his courage up.It was a danger to which he was altogether unaccustomed; for there is no four-footed creature native to New Zealand bigger than a rat, and in the primeval forest which surrounded his home the absence of all animal life is its marked characteristic. But here the many horses and bulls which had strayed from the early colonists had multiplied in the bush and grown formidable, not to speak of the pigs which Captain Cook let loose on the New Zealand shore, and which now, like the rabbits, overrun the island. The sound of grunting in the midst of a flax-bush or the bleat of a bell-wether was enough to startle him.The hoar was gathering white on the grass and sparkling like diamonds on shrivelled fronds and gloomy evergreens, when he heard the barking of the boundary dog, which told him he was nearing the hut, and his weary feet jogged on at a quicker pace.The barking grew still more furious. A battle was going forward. Instead of turning off towards the sea to find the hut, Edwin ran on to the point of the road where it entered another sheep-run. As it was the public coast-road, there was no gate. The dog was stationed there, with a chain long enough to command the whole breadth of the road, to keep the sheep from straying on to their neighbour's ground, and well he did his work. He seemed to know in a moment to which side the adventurous rover belonged who dared to intrude on his beat, and sent him home with a resolute bark and a snap of the wool just to show how easily biting could follow. But the cry which succeeded the onslaught of the dog, the cry which made Edwin turn aside, was so like the cry of a child that it shot a fear through him Cuthbert might have been tempted to pay the dog another visit, and having no more bones to give him, the hungry brute had seized poor Cuth instead.As Edwin came up he could just distinguish a small figure on the other side of the boundary vainly endeavouring to pass. It must be Cuth, he argued, because there was nobody else about; so he shouted to him to stand still until he came up. But instead of obeying, the small figure darted forward once more, and a fearful yell told Edwin the dog had seized him at last.He sprang towards them, and grasping the dog's collar with both hands, exerted all his strength to pull him off. Strong and savage as the hairy hermit had become from the loneliness of his life, he had all a dog's grateful remembrance of a kindness, and recognizing the hand which had flung him the welcome bone earlier in the day, he suffered Edwin to choke him off without turning on him."Run!" cried Edwin to the boy he had delivered; "run beyond his reach whilst I hold him."He had no need to repeat his exhortation. The shrieking boy fled like the wind. It was not Cuthbert; Edwin knew that by the fleetness of his hare-like speed. He did his best to soothe and coax the angry dog, keeping his eye meanwhile on the retreating figure.As the distance between them increased, Edwin let the dog go. The fugitive changed his course, and was circling round to regain the road. Then Edwin started at right angles, and so got between him and the hut, where Effie and Cuthbert were probably asleep."They will be so frightened," thought Edwin, "if he runs in for refuge. For poor little Eff's sake I must stop him."So they came up face to face in the open ground beyond the black shadow of the boundary, and eyed each other in the starlight."Whero!" exclaimed Edwin."Ah, you!" cried the Maori boy, holding out both hands. "To meet you is good.""Come in with me and rest," continued Edwin. "Are you hurt? It was madness to try to pass the boundary dog in the dark. He might have torn you to pieces."Out spoke the young savage, "I would have killed him first.""No, no," interposed Edwin. "He is set there as a sentinel to keep the sheep from straying; he only did his duty.""I," repeated Whero—"am I a sheep, to be made to fear? All the goblins in Lake Taupo should not turn me back to-night. I heard men saying in Tauranga streets the sacred three had shot forth the lightning that made all faces pale last night and laid the tall trees low. Are not they the men from whom I spring who are sleeping the death-sleep in their bosom? Last night they awakened; they are angry. The thunder of their voices is louder than the cannon of the pakeha. Why are they calling? I know not; but I answer I am theirs. I leaped out of the window of my school, and ran as the water runs to the sea. No one could catch me, for I thought of my father and mother; and I said in my heart, 'Will the anger of the majestic ones fall upon the son of Hepé, or upon those who have despoiled him?'"Edwin drew his arm within his dusky friend's. "It is not the dead men's bones which are buried on Tarawera but the hidden fires which have burst from the mountain which have done the mischief. Our house went down in the shock of the earthquake, and we fled from it for our lives to the sea.""I took the coast-road," continued Whero, "for the coach was turned back. Trees lay everywhere in its path; and no man knows more than I have told you."Edwin trembled for Whero, for he remembered how the men had said the low whares of the natives were completely buried."Wait with us," he entreated; "wait for the daylight."As he began to describe the strangeness of the disaster which had overwhelmed the district, the ready tears of the Maori race poured down in torrents from Whero's eyes.Edwin led him into the hut; and finding Cuthbert and Effie fast asleep, the two lowered their voices, and sitting side by side in the starlight, went over again the startling story until voices grew dreamy, and Edwin became suddenly aware that the eager listener reclining at his elbow was lost in forgetfulness. Then he too laid down his head and gained a respite from his cares and fears in the deep sweet sleep of healthy boyhood.Effie was the first to awaken. A solitary sunbeam had made its way through the tiny window, and was dancing along the opposite wall. The rest of the hut was in shadow. She did not see Edwin with Whero nestling by his side, for the long fern fronds rose in heaps around her; but she heard a sound from the road, and called joyously to Cuthbert,—"Get up; there is somebody coming."Cuth tumbled to his feet; Edwin started upright. They were rushing to the door, when Whero lifted a black hand and commanded silence. His quicker sense of hearing had already told him of men and horses near at hand.Effie eyed him in mute amazement. "Look," she whispered at last, pointing to Whero's head, "there is a big boy-rat rustling in the leaves.""Hush! listen!" cried her brothers."Is it father?" she asked, in a flutter of fear and expectation.The boys ran out, elate with a similar hope. But Edwin saw in a moment there was only a party of shepherds returning for supplies. They scarcely waited to listen to his eager questions."Can't stop," they shouted. "But the worst is over. All are going back to their farms. You will have your own people coming to look you up before long. You are safest where you are for the present."Their words were intended to reassure the boys—Edwin was certain of that; but their faces were so grave, they seemed to contradict the comforting assertion that the worst was over."I must hear more," cried Edwin. "I'll run after them and ask if any one has seen father."The tired horses were walking slowly; one or two seemed to have fallen lame, and all were covered with mud."We shall soon overtake them," thought Edwin; but Whero outstripped him in the chase. The shepherds looked back. One amongst their number halted, and shouted the inquiry, "What now?""Did you reach the lake in the hills? How is it there?" burst forth Whero."Up among the natives?" answered the shepherd, not unkindly. "Nobody knows. We did not get beyond the road, and we found enough to do. The mud fell so thick every door and window was blocked in no time, and many a roof fell in with the weight. Everything around the mountain lies buried deep in mud."The shriek, the howl in which poor Whero vented his alarm so startled the shepherd's horse it galloped off at a mad rate towards the mansion, just as Edwin came up, pale and panting. But Whero's English was scattered. He could only reiterate the man's last words, "Deep in mud; buried, all buried deep in mud," and then he ran on in Maori.Edwin and Cuthbert looked at each other in despair. It was impossible to understand what he was evidently trying to explain."You wooden boys!" he exclaimed at last, as he turned away in disgust, and raced off like a hare towards the mansion.Cuthbert was wild to follow, when a large merino ram bounded out of a group of palm trees and knocked him over."Go back to Effie," urged Edwin, "and I'll watch by the roadside, for somebody else may pass."But Cuthbert could not find his way alone, and the brothers retraced their steps. As they drew near the hut, the loud barking of the boundary dog was again heard. Somebody might be coming by the coast-road, somebody who could tell them more.It was the boundary rider from the neighbouring run, waiting and watching for the appearance of his neighbour, to ascertain if any tidings had yet been received from the lonely mountain wilds. All knew now some dread catastrophe had overwhelmed the hills. Confused rumours and vague conjectures were flying through the district beyond the reach of the muddy rain. Earth-slips and fallen trees blocked every road. The adventurous few who had made their way to the scene of the disaster had not yet returned.Far as his eye could see across the grassy sweep not a shepherd was moving. Feltham's sheep were straying by hundreds in his master's run. Then the two boys came in sight, and arms were waved to attract attention; and the burning anxiety on both sides found vent in the question, "Any news from the hills?"As Edwin poured forth the story of their flight, another horseman was seen spurring across the open. It was a messenger Mr. Bowen had despatched the day before, to inquire among the shepherd hermits in Feltham's outlying huts, who might, who must know more than their seaside neighbours. But the man had ridden on from hut to hut, all alike empty and deserted. About nightfall, at the extreme end of the run, he came upon a man who had been struck down by the awful lightning, who told a rambling tale of sudden flight before the strange storm."So," said the shepherd, "I rested my horse, and determined to ride round to the central station, or go on from farm to farm, to find out all I could; but a trackless swamp stretched before me. Turning aside, I fell in with a party of Feltham's men, who had made their way by the river-bank as far as the government road. They were returning for a cart to bring off one of their number, who had been knocked on the head by a falling tree, trying to make his way through the bush.""Who was it?" asked Edwin breathlessly, his brief colloquy with the horsemen he had passed full in his mind. They were the same men, but not a word as to the accident to one of the relief-party had crossed their lips.The significance of their silence flashed upon him."It is father!" he exclaimed, "and they would not tell us.""No, Edwin, no," interposed little Cuth, with wide-eyed consternation. "Why do you say it is father?""Why, indeed," repeated Mr. Bowen's man. "I tell you it was a near neighbour of the fordmaster's, who had come across to his help before the others got up. For Hirpington and his people were all blocked in by the weight of mud jamming up windows and doors, and were almost suffocated; but they got them out and into the boat when the others came. One man rowed them off to the nearest place of refuge, and the others went on to look for the roadmen in their solitary huts."Every word the man let fall only deepened Edwin's conviction.He grasped Cuth's hand. Was this what Whero had tried to tell him?The doubt, the fear, the suspense was unbearable. Their first impulse was to run after the shepherds, to hear all they had to tell. But the Bowen men held them back; and whilst they questioned Edwin more closely, Cuthbert sat down crying on the frosted grass. The boundary dog came up and seated itself before him, making short barks for the bone that was no longer to be had for the asking. The noise he made led the men to walk their horses nearer to the hut, when the debris of the wreck, scattered about the sands, met their eyes. That a coaster should have gone down in the terrific storm was a casualty which the dwellers by the sea-shore were well prepared to discover. They kicked over the half-buried boots and broken spars, looking for something which might identify the unfortunate vessel, and they brought Edwin into court once again, and questioned him closely. He assured them the sailors were all safe, and when they heard how they had borrowed his father's horse and cart to take them across to the central station, they only blamed him for his stupidity in not having asked the captain's name."Yes, it was stupid," Edwin owned, "but then I did not know what I was doing."The sound of their voices brought Effie to the door of the hut, and they heard a little piping voice behind repeating, "Bowen, please sir; his name was Bowen.""What! the captain's?" they cried."No, the schoolboy's," she persisted, shrinking from the cold sea-breeze blowing her hair into her eyes, and fluttering her scant blue skirt, and banging at the door until it shut again, in spite of her utmost efforts to keep it open.Here was a discovery of far more importance in the estimation of Mr. Bowen's men than all the rest."If that is our young master Arthur," they said, "coming up for the holidays, we must find him, let alone everything else. We must be off to the central station; and as for these children, better take them along with us."This was just what Edwin wanted. After a reassuring word to Effie anent the black boy-rat, he set himself to work piling up the wreckage, with the care of one about to leave the place.He had not forgotten Hal's charge to stay where he left them."But better be lost than starved," said the men; and he agreed with them. Even Audrey had failed to send them food to that far-off hut. It was clear there was no one to bring it."You should have gone with the sailors," said the boundary rider. "You must go with us."He wrapped the flap of his coat over Effie as Edwin lifted her on to his knee, and his comrade called to Cuthbert, who was hoisted up behind him; and so they set forth, Edwin walking in the rear.As the horses trotted onwards across the fern-covered downs, the distance between them steadily increased, for the boy was tired. Once or twice he flung himself down to rest, not much caring about losing sight of his companions, as he knew the way.Edwin had nearly reached the gate of the avenue, when he saw Whero scampering over the grass on Beauty's back.There was a mutual shout of recognition; and Whero turned the horse's head, exclaiming,—"Lee! Boy! Lee! Wanderer Lee! have you lost your horse? I went to beg bread at the station, and he leaped over the stable-bar and followed me. You must give him back, as you said you would, for how can I go to the hills without him? I want him now.""And so do I," answered Edwin; "I want to go back with the shepherds to father.""The men who spoke to us are gone. I saw them start," returned Whero. "But jump up behind me, and we will soon overtake them."For one brief moment Edwin looked around him doubtfully. But Erne and Cuthbert were safe with Audrey by this time, and he was sure Mr. Bowen, "the old identity," their kind-hearted travelling companion, would take good care of all three as soon as he heard of their forlorn condition. "His grandson will tell him how Cuth and I pulled him through the surf. I had better ride back to the hills with Whero, and see if it is safe for us to go home. They may have taken father there already, and then I know he will want me." So Edwin reasoned as he sprang up behind the Maori boy. "And if I don't go with him," he added, "we may lose our horse, and then what would father say to that?"CHAPTER XI.WIDESPREAD DESOLATION.As the boys rode onward a sharp and bracing wind blew in their faces. The hoar still lay on the grass, and the many pools at which the sheep were accustomed to drink were coated with ice. But the mysterious darkness of the preceding day was over, and the sun shone forth once more to gild a desolated world.Whero and Edwin were alike anxious to avoid meeting any of Mr. Feltham's shepherds who might have returned to their daily work, for fear they should try to stop them.Whero, with something of his father's skill, shot forward with a reckless disregard for the safety of Edwin's neck. But the party they were pursuing were long out of sight.As they reached the confines of the sheep-run, an unnatural grayness overspread the landscape. Yet on they went, encountering clouds of dust with every breeze. The blades of grass beneath the horse's hoofs, the leaves rustling on the boughs, were all alike loaded with it. But the cattle were still grazing, and despite the clouds of dust constantly rising, the atmosphere above was clear; and the sunshine cheered their spirits."We will not turn back," said Edwin.They knew, by what the shepherds had told them, the force of the eruption had expended itself; that danger was over. When the boys ascended higher ground and gained a wider view, they could distinguish parties of men marching up in every direction, with their spades on their shoulders. For now the personal danger was diminished, the anxiety to ascertain the fate of the unfortunate people living near the sacred heights of Tarawera predominated.Above the range of hills there was a dense bank of steam, which rose like a wall of snowy white, extending for miles. Whero shook with terror at the sight, but Edwin urged him on. They had missed the shepherds, but they could soon overtake the men now in sight. Yet the longer they gazed at the huge mass of vapour, the more impenetrable it seemed. It was drifting slowly northwards, where it merged in another cloud, black and restless, like smoke. It was but the work of the winds, stirring the vast deposit of dust covering hill and forest.Changed as the face of the country appeared to be, Whero seemed able to track his way with something of the unerring instinct of the hound. Emboldened by Edwin's steadier courage, on he went, the gray, drab tint of the volcanic debris deepening around them at every step, until it lay nine inches deep on the ground, covering up all trace of vegetation. The poor cattle wandering in the fields were here absolutely without food, and the blue waters of the liquid rivulets were changed to a muddy brown, thick and repulsive. Every footfall of the horse enveloped his riders in so dense a cloud that eyes were stinging and voices choking, until they began to exchange this dry deposit for the treacherous, deadly mud which had preceded it.This soon became so thick and sticky poor Beauty could scarcely drag his legs out again, and their pace grew slower and slower. The time was going fast; they had scarcely gained a mile in an hour. They dare not turn aside to view the ruins of Edwin's home. As they went deeper and deeper into the bush, the blue mud lay fifteen inches thick on all around. The unrivalled beauty of the forest was gone. The boys could see nothing but a mass of dirt-laden tree trunks, bending and falling beneath the weight of their burden. Every leaf was stripped off, and every branch was broken short. It was a scene of desolation so intense Whero set up a wild wail of lamentation. All was taken from the Maori when the wealth of the bush was gone.They gained the road; the mud was two feet thick at least, and Beauty sank knee-deep in the sulphurous, steaming slime. How they got him out again they hardly knew. They backed him amongst the trees, seeking the higher ground. Fresh mud-holes had opened in unexpected places, and old ones had enlarged to boiling pools, and wide areas of smouldering ashes marked the site of the many fires the lightning had kindled.Could the boys have extricated themselves just then, they might have been tempted to turn back in sheer dismay. They were forced from the line which Whero had hitherto pursued with the directness which marks the flight of the crow. The trees were quivering with an earthquake shock. The hill was trembling visibly beneath their feet. Guided by a break in the trees, they made their way to the open. Once more the bank of cloud was visible, drifting slowly to the north; but Whero's eyes were fastened on the distance, where he knew the lofty Tarawera reared its threefold crest.Had the mighty chieftains of renown arisen from their graves and built a wall of luminous vapour around their sleeping-place? He quailed in abject terror at the sight of the clouds, like ramparts rising into the air for thousands of feet, and veined with wavy lines that glowed and shimmered with the reflection of the flames they held enshrined."If the arrows of their lightnings burst forth upon us," shrieked Whero, "how shall such as we escape? Better seek sleep in the cold waters of the river than fall before the torture of their presence in the boiling mud and scorching flame."Edwin, too, was staggered by the strangeness of the sight. It was the sense of unprecedented peril, the presence of dangers which no man could fathom, which overwhelmed him. But he had enough clear-sighted common sense to perceive the first thing to be guarded against was the frantic terror of the wilful boy who was guiding him; for Whero, in his excitement, was urging Beauty to a breakneck speed. But a change awaited them in the open glade, for there the sun and wind had dried the surface of the mud, and the clouds of dust settling down upon it had formed a hard crust.Edwin breathed more freely as Whero grew calmer. The horse seemed to step along with ease at first; but his weight was too great. The crust gave way beneath him, and they were soon all floundering in a quagmire. Edwin was flung backwards on a portion of the broken crust, which, like a floating island, was drifting him across the fissure. Whero clung round the horse's neck, clutching wildly at his mane. Beauty, with the intelligence of a fording-horse, pawed through the mud in quest of a firmer foothold, and found it on the trunk of a buried tree.On this vantage-ground, being lightened of half his load, he was preparing for a spring. At the first movement Whero went over his head, and Beauty, finding himself his own master, changed his mind. Under any other circumstances it would have been fun to Edwin to see him feeling his way along his unseen bridge until he reached the roots of the tree, which, with the many tons of earth clinging in them, rose at least ten feet into the air, a solitary hillock around which the mud was consolidating. Here he took his stand. The boys could see him scraping away the earth and nibbling at the young green shoots of budding fern already forcing their way to the upper air.Edwin tried to propel his floating island towards the point where Whero was standing, like a heron, on one leg, trying to scrape the mud from the other. He edged about this way and that, until at last the boys were near enough to clasp hands. When he felt the sinewy gripe of his dusky friend, Edwin took the meditated leap, and broke into the mud by Whero's side. He went down upon his hands and knees; but Whero grasped the collar of his jacket, and kept him from sinking. The crust in this place was nearly a foot thick, and when Edwin regained his equilibrium the two stepped lightly over it, walking like cats, holding each other's hands, and balancing themselves as if they were treading on ice, until they reached a precipitous crag, on which it was impossible for the mud to rest. Whero began to climb the steep ascent, reaching down a hand to drag up Edwin after him. They gained a ledge several feet above the lower ground, and here they paused to recover themselves and look around for Beauty. It was a pain, a grief to both the boys to abandon him to his fate. But they dared not shout his name or attract his attention, for fear he should attempt to cross the treacherous waste which lay between them.To dash the tears from their eyes, to speak as if they "would not care" when their hearts felt bursting, was useless; and yet they did it—risking their own necks in a mad desire to rush off where they could no longer see him, and then returning for a last despairing glance, until Whero had to own he had lost his way.Another vast column of steam hung in mid air, and when it lifted they could distinguish the gangs of men hard at work, marking the site of more than one annihilated village. They watched them from afar digging away the mud in hopes of finding some of the inhabitants alive beneath it. A mill-sail turning in the wind just showed itself above the blue-gray mass, and warned them that the depth of the deposit was increasing steadily as they drew nearer and nearer to the sacred mountains. That moving sail told Whero where he was. With one hand shading his eyes he scanned the country round."The pakeha seeks out the pakeha, but no man turns to the Maori pah!" he exclaimed, stretching his arms towards the wide waste of hateful blue, and pointing to the foul remains of the crystal lake—the lake by which he had been born. But where was the ancient whare? where was his home?Edwin thought only of crossing to the nearest group of men, throwing back the mud, right and left, with a desperate energy. He raised his voice and tried to give the "coo" for help, in the fond hope it might reach their ears. Whero joined in the outcry, and they stood still, shouting. But the hollow echo was their sole reply.They had wandered wide from the ford, for they were approaching the lake from the opposite side.They sat down on the rocky ledge, and looked at each other in silence. A call from above startled them. It was a shrill but far-off voice that was not human.Whero, with all a Maori's belief in evil spirits, shook with terror, and his howling shrieks filled the air and drowned the distant sound."Oh, hush!" entreated Edwin. "Shut up! do, and let us listen."They heard it plainly once again—the long-drawn Maori word "Hoké" (Return, return), followed, in quicker accents, by Whero's name. He looked up terror-stricken, surveying the rocky steep above their heads, and gasped out, almost fainting,—"You know not where you are. This hill is tapu, and he who breaks tapu is sure to die.""Bosh!" retorted Edwin. "If you would only speak English I should know what you mean."His arms went round the poor boy, who seemed ready to die, as many a Maori has died before, of pure fright at the thought of breaking tapu—that is, touching anything the chief has made sacred. But Edwin did not understand his dread."Don't be such a coward," he expostulated; "I'll stand by you.""Hoké! hoké!" rang out the bird-like voice. "Whero, hoké!"The lofty summit of the hill gave back the cry."Go up," urged Edwin. "Some of your people may have taken refuge here. Whatever you mean by tapu, it can't scare me. You daren't go! then let me try."There was a rift in the scarped side of the hill, where human hands had cut a foothold here and there, making the ascent possible. Whero crept along the edge and swung himself over. Edwin crawled after him, and climbed up with less difficulty than he expected. "Hoké" was piped above their heads, and Whero's courage failed him once again. He sank upon a stone, with every nerve quivering. The English boy climbed on, and found himself at last upon a bit of table-land which from its height seemed to have escaped the general devastation; for the ground was still covered with the dried remains of summer vegetation. He passed between the tree-like ferns until he came upon a spot, bare and dry, without a sign of a scrap of undergrowth of any kind or at any time. It might have been about three-quarters of an acre, and was completely arched over by the inter-woven boughs of four or five gigantic trees, which even the storm of mud could not penetrate. Edwin gazed at their majestic trunks, full sixty feet in circumference, ranged around him like the columns of one of nature's temples, with a kind of awe.The ground on which he stood was hard and dusty, and yet he knew, by the fern and the creeper through which he had reached it, this unusual clearance was not the work of the eruption. It looked as if it might have been thus barren for ages.The roots of the trees had grown out of the ground, and were twisted and coiled over and over like a group of mighty serpents transfixed and fossilized by ancient sorcery. Among them lay the human relics of a barbarous age. The very stones on which he trod had once been fashioned by the hand of man. There were axe and spear heads, knives and chisels, embedded in the fibrous coils; and were they human skulls and bones which lay there whitening by their side? Edwin recoiled in horror. A bird flew down from the leafy dome, and alighted near him, renewing its wailing cry, "Hoké, hoké." Edwin saw by the crimson feathers of its breast it was a species of macaw—an escaped pet from some of the buried homes around him.He called it a little nervously at first, as if it had dyed its plumage in the blood of the murdered captives whose bones lay white at his feet. The bird swooped round, beating the air with its outspread wings, and darting forward as if it had half a mind to perch upon his outstretched hand.When were Edwin's pockets ever empty? He was feeling in them now for a few dry crumbs wherewith to tempt the wailing bird.It fluttered nearer at the welcome sight, for grain or insects were nowhere to be found in that place of dearth. It came at last, and nestled, as it had evidently been taught to nestle by its unknown master, close against Edwin's cheek. He grasped it by the wings, and gently smoothed its ruffled feathers."Whero," he shouted, running back with it to the brow of the hill, "Whero, it is a bird."The sound of his own voice seemed to break the spell of horror which had fallen over him, and he rushed away from serpent root and blighted bough with which nature herself had written on the hateful spot, "Accursed."He no longer wondered that the Maori boy refused to go with him. The slightest suspicion of impatience and contempt had vanished from his tone when he spoke again."Look at it, Whero."But Whero looked not at the bird, but at his friend."Did you go far?" he asked."Only to the top," answered Edwin."Not to the top," persisted Whero, lowering his voice and whispering hoarsely. "There is a spot up there, a fatal spot, where the grass never grows and the air breathes death. Ask me not for more. Come away."He seized Edwin's arm and drew him backwards. The desolate bird shook itself free, and flew to him with a cry of joy."It is my kaka," he exclaimed, "my own dear redbreast, calling out, 'Return.'""Are you satisfied, Whero?" asked Edwin, in tones of heartfelt sympathy. "Have we searched far enough? Shall we go back and try to make our way to the ford or across to the diggers?""Not yet," answered Whero; "I would see the spot where the great hot stone used to be.""It is buried," Edwin went on, "too deep in the mud for us to find, I'm afraid."Whero flung himself on the ground, exclaiming wildly, "All lost! all gone! why don't you tangi over me?""I would, if it would do you any good; but I don't know how," said Edwin, bluntly. "We are not sure yet, Whero; your people may have rushed away in the night as we did. We will hope to the last."In his despair Whero had let the kaka fly, and Edwin watched it wheeling over the space between them and the lake, until it settled down in what appeared to him to be a hole in the all-pervading mud."He has found something," cried Edwin, hurrying down the steep descent in a wave of excitement. Whero shrieked after him to stop him; so once again the boys rested awhile, and ate up the remainder of the bread in Whero's pockets. It was Edwin's last resource to revive the wild boy's failing courage, and it partially succeeded."Edwin," he said, "am I alone in the world—the last of the proud race who owned the fastness in this steep hill-top and the hot stone by yonder lake? Have I nothing left to me but this awful place where my grim forefathers held their victory-feast? Will you come and live with me there?""In that ogre's castle!" exclaimed Edwin, with a shudder. "A moment ago you dare not follow me to its threshold, and now—""I have been thinking," interrupted Whero, "I must not slight so strange an omen as the kaka's call. Are the mighty dead using his voice to call me back (for I should have fled the place); to remind me what I have now become—a chief of the hills, who can make and unmake tapu as he pleases? Let us go up and swear to be true to each other for ever and ever and ever, as my forefathers used to swear on the eve of battle.""I will stand by you," said Edwin, earnestly; "on the honour of an Englishman I will. I'll go down to the lake with you. Better see what the kaka has found than climb the hill again. Come."He put his arm round Whero and began the dangerous descent. A fallen tree bridged their path. The tremor of an earthquake was beginning. They flung themselves at once on their faces, for fear they should be rolled over down the treacherous steep. As Edwin lay resting his arms against the fallen tree, he scanned once more the break in the muddy crust round which the kaka was still wheeling.What did he see, or what did he fancy he could see at such a distance? Was it a blackened fragment of pumice-stone the bird was hovering over with its wailing cry, or was it the quaint old carving on the pointed roof of Nga-Hepé's whare? Whero's eye was fastened on the spot. Could he too see it? They were afraid of losing their foothold, as the tree, like everything else, was covered with the sticky slime, and crawled along the trunk one after the other, Whero leading the way. It landed them on the top of the mud-heap, and they walked across the dried crust, as they had been able to do on the other side.The stillness of the desert was around them. Little life of any kind seemed to have escaped the widespread destruction. A lonely gull had flown up with the morning breeze, and was pursuing the dead fish across the lake, as they floated entangled in the drift of the wind-torn foliage which strewed its surface.On they walked, until Whero was satisfied that the dead level they were crossing must cover the site of the Rota Pah. Even the strong wall which defended it was buried. Yet it was a wall strong enough and high enough to resist the attack of English assailants.The wintry breezes sweeping over the lake had dried the mud more thoroughly on this side of the hill. The crust beneath their feet was thicker and firmer.The boys ran lightly across the intervening space. As Whero drew near to the hole, the bird alighted on his shoulder, and putting its beak to his ear, exchanged its painful cries for a soft, low, warbling note.Edwin was sure now they saw the ridge of the high-peaked roof of Nga-Hepé's whare.
CHAPTER IX.
NOTHING TO EAT.
As the shock of the earthquake subsided, and Beauty rallied from his terror, his pace began to slacken. If Edwin had not tied himself and Cuthbert so securely in the cart, they might have been thrown out when Beauty ran away. So the knots which would not be untied proved their protection; and now they found themselves trotting leisurely through verdant stretches, dotted with ti tree and blue-gum, and overgrown with toi and flax and rushes. Before them rose the great gates of the avenue leading to the central station-house. The white front of Feltham's mansion gleamed through the tall stems of the trees which surrounded it; whilst beyond and around them were the sheds and walls, the pools and bridges, comprising stock-yards and shearing-places, where thousands of wild cattle and tens of thousands of wilder sheep were washed and dipped, and counted and branded, year after year.
The ingenious arrangement of pool and paddock and pen by which this gigantic undertaking is safely accomplished looked to the boys like a wooden village.
Beauty drew up at the friendly gate of his own accord, attracted by the welcome sounds of human life as stockmen and shepherds hurried out to their morning work. Half the hands were off to the hills; the remaining half found in consequence the more to do. The poor terrified cattle had suffered considerably. Sheep were cast in every ditch. Cows had gored each other in their mad terror; and broken fences told of wild leaps and escaped bulls to be sought for in the neighbouring bush.
The boundary rider, whose sole duty is to parade the vast domain and give notice at headquarters of unwary gaps and strays, had been spurring hither and thither, delayed by the gloom of the morning and the herds of wild bulls which had broken in, while the tame had broken out. With demolished fences, and frightened sheep dying around them by hundreds, the little fugitives in Oscott's hut had been forgotten.
But when the boundary rider saw a cart at his master's gate, blue with volcanic mud above, and dripping from below with the slime of the sea, he thought of the family from the hills waiting somewhere for the breakfast he was to have carried in his saddle-bag. His circuit was but half completed. "I shall find them yet," he said to himself, as he galloped up behind the cart. He saw the dangling rope, and the white faces of the two boys huddled together in a state of complete exhaustion. He tied his horse to the gate, and jumping into the cart, rattled Beauty up the avenue to his master's door, which stood wide open to all comers. For every hour brought fresh rumours, and fresh parties of fugitives who had fled precipitately from their homes when the storm of mud began.
He took his knife from his pocket and cut the rope which tied Edwin and his brother to the cart. Some one ran out with a cup of coffee, which he poured down their throats, and then the boys began to revive. He wanted to take them in-doors and put them to bed. But the relief-party had already sent down so many sufferers from the hills every bed was full of children, women, and even men, who had been dug out of the muddy stream in which they were suffocating.
As soon as Edwin could speak, he added his story to the others, entreating the men who turned their heads to listen, as they hurried in and out, to send some food to his sisters, who were left alone in Oscott's hut. As for the sailors, the feeling among Feltham's people was decided: any one not from the hills must be left to take care of himself.
Just then a horseman, covered with mud and foam, came spurring towards the house, shouting to the crowd around the door,—
"I've come for every man on the ground, by the master's orders. Leave everything. Bring your spades, and follow me. The nearer we get to Tarawera the thicker lies the mud. Our government station at Rotorua is buried beneath it, church and all. Te Ariki and Maura are nowhere to be seen. The low whares in the Maori pahs are utterly destroyed. Wherever the roofs have been strong enough to uphold the weight of the falling mud, the inhabitants are alive beneath them now. Come to the rescue—come!"
The last hoarse words were scarcely audible. The boundary rider took the unfinished cup from Edwin's lips and passed it to the man, and the boy was glad that he did so.
A cry of "Spades! spades!" rang through the increasing group of listeners, which seemed to gather and disperse with equal rapidity. Mrs. Feltham made her way through the midst to the bell-tower, and rang a frantic peal to call all hands together. Horses were saddling; men were mounting; others were hurrying up to learn the meaning of the hasty summons. Edwin drew his cart aside under the trees to watch the departure.
Mrs. Feltham reappeared on her doorstep with knife and loaf, trying to fill every pocket with bread before each one rode off. She could not make her intention understood. The men, in their impatience to be gone, would hardly stop to take it.
"Oh," thought Edwin, "they forget they will want it all to give away."
He leaned over his brother. "Cuth, take the reins." But Cuth's numbed hands let them drop. Edwin twisted them round his arm, and with a nod and a smile made his way to Mrs. Feltham.
His voice was so weak and faint she could not hear what he said, but the ready hand was offering to pass on the great hunches of bread she was cutting, and she kept him at work, little dreaming how he had to turn his head away again and again to resist the impulse to take a bite by the way. As he took the last crust from her, and saw that it was the last, a sudden faintness overcame him, and he dropped on the stones at her feet.
"I am so very, very hungry," he said piteously.
"Why did not you tell me that before the basket was empty?" she retorted. "You must remember, my boy, every bit of food for man and beast must be buried under this dreadful mud for miles and miles. I may have a famishing army round me before night, and how am I to feed them all? Not a crumb must be wasted. If you are so hungry, go into the kitchen and clear up the scraps on the men's plates. I would turn all the flour in the granary into bread, and feed you every one, if I had only hands to make it and bake it. Stop," she went on; "though you are a boy you could be of some use. You could wash and boil a copperful of potatoes and pumpkins; that would be something to set before the starving cart-loads I hope and trust they will be successful in saving."
"No, ma'am," answered Edwin. "I must go back to my sisters. I have left them alone with a lot of rough sailors."
His "no" was round and resolute.
She took out her purse, saying almost coaxingly, "Here is a week's wage for a day's work."
"I am very sorry, Mrs. Feltham, but I really can't stay," he persisted.
She turned away with an impatient gesture and went in-doors.
"She takes me for some unlucky beggar," thought Edwin, crawling round to the kitchen door, glad to avail himself of the somewhat ungracious permission to look out for the scraps. "It is dog's fare," thought Edwin, "but it is more to me than her gold." He found a piece of newspaper, and walked round and round the long breakfast-table, collecting into it such morsels as he could find. Of most of the dishes the hungry young shepherds had made a clean sweep. Still there were some unfinished crusts of bread, a corner of Melton pie, a rasher of bacon burned in the grilling. On the dresser he discovered a bone of mutton, evidently laid aside for the hounds. He would not touch the sugar in the basin, or take a peep at the contents of the cupboards, feeling himself on his honour. The sounds within convinced him Mrs. Feltham and the rest of her household were hard at work transforming the hospitable mansion into a temporary hospital, for the reception of the poor unfortunates who might be dug out alive but scarcely uninjured.
"O Cuth, we haven't been the worst off by a long way!" exclaimed Edwin suddenly, as the brothers sat together in their cart, enjoying their bone of mutton, quite in the doggie line, but, as Cuthbert averred, feeling themselves, as they ate, like new-made men.
Then they turned Beauty homewards. Yes, that queer little shanty was a kind of home. It was still dark as in a London fog, but the shocks of earthquake were less, fainter and farther apart.
Half-way down the road they met the party of sailors, walking barefoot on the edge of the grass. They did not recognize the boys, but stopped to ask the way to the central station.
"We have just been there to beg for food," said Edwin, feeling it quite "infra dig" to acknowledge the condition in which they reached Mrs. Feltham's gate. "But," he added drearily, "we could not get it. Not enough for you all."
Then he hurried on to explain the tidings from the hills and the general stampede to the rescue.
"Turn back," urged the captain, "and give us a lift."
"Lend us the cart," added Arthur Bowen. "If any harm should come to it, grandfather will pay you for it; and as for the horse, he will get a good feed of corn in Feltham's stable. I will see after him."
Edwin was not sure he ought to trust the horse and cart with strangers, but the prospect of a good feed of corn for Beauty went a long way; for he had nothing for the horse to eat but the winter grass around the hut. Down he jumped.
"If there are so many men at this station," the sailors were saying, "maybe they can find us an old pair of shoes; and if strong arms are in request, we are ready to take our turn."
They shook hands all round.
"Good-bye, my lads, good-bye. It was a brave act to back that cart into the sea, and you'll take a sailor's blessing with you to your home, wherever it is. If there is anything washed ashore from the little craft, you'll store it up high and dry until another coaster calls to fetch it away."
The promise was given on both sides. Edwin would find his Beauty safe at Feltham's, and the captain his wreckage piled against the back of Oscott's hut, although they might both be miles away when the two were reclaimed.
Edwin took Cuthbert's hand in his and walked on in grave silence. One thing was clear—nobody would have time or thought to care for them. They must just look out for themselves.
"It is playing at Robinson Crusoe in earnest, we four in that little hut," said Cuthbert. "He did lots of things to make himself comfortable, but then he was a man."
"It won't be for long," added Edwin. "I hardly think we shall see father to-night, but he may be back to-morrow. If we could only find something to eat. Whero and his mother lived on nuts and berries after the muru, but then it was autumn."
They sank again into silence. The barking of the boundary dog warned them they were near the hut, and when it died away to a low growl they distinguished a faint, soft murmur of singing.
"Oh, hush!" they exclaimed. "Oh, listen! It is the girls; that is Audrey."
It put fresh life into the weary feet as they heard it clearer and clearer—
"Hark, hark! the lark at heaven's gate sings."
"Hark, hark! the lark at heaven's gate sings."
"Hark, hark! the lark at heaven's gate sings."
"Heaven's gate," repeated the boys: it was the only word they could distinguish.
"Heaven's gate. It is a word to comfort us, for that is never shut," added Edwin, as they stumbled against an uprooted ti tree. The long, tapering stem, with its waving plume of feathery leaves, barred their progress. Cuth was about to climb over it, for the hard brown trunk at its base was six feet round; but Edwin ran off to examine its leafy crown, where the cabbage which gave the tree its name should lie hidden.
He parted the yard-long leaflets, and felt a something tall and crisp growing up in their midst.
A shout of glee brought Cuth to his assistance. They pulled the pliant boughs to this side and that, and perceived what looked to them like a coil of white ribbon, as thick and as long as a man's arm. Was this the cabbage of which they had heard so much, for the sake of which the lordly tree was so often cut down and destroyed?
They tore off one of the ribbon-like flakes and tasted it.
Cuth declared it was like eating almonds, only not so hard.
"But how can we cut it without a knife?" cried Edwin, munching away at the raw flakes in his fingers, and pronouncing them a right good feed for them all, if they could but cut the cabbage out.
There might be a knife in the hut, who could say. Away they rushed to explore, guided through the tangle of flax and rushes by their sisters' voices.
The girls were sitting on the bed of fern in an abandonment of despair, scarcely daring to believe their own ears when the refrain of their song was caught up and repeated—
"With everything that pretty is,My ladies sweet, arise."
"With everything that pretty is,My ladies sweet, arise."
"With everything that pretty is,
My ladies sweet, arise."
My ladies sweet, arise."
"O Edwin, Edwin!" they exclaimed. "We thought you too had vanished."
"We could not bear ourselves," said Effie, "so we took to singing. We feared we were left to starve on our bed of leaves, like the 'Children in the Wood,' and we were afraid there was not a robin redbreast anywhere here to cover us up."
"Oh, but there is a robin blackbreast," retorted Edwin; "a true-born native, all the fitter for the undertaker's work. Only it is not going to be done to-night, Dame Trot." He took the wee white face between his hands, and felt so strong, so vigorous, so determined to take care of it somehow. "I am not going away again, Effie." He pulled the newspaper parcel out of his pocket and tossed it into Audrey's lap. "Beggars' crumbs!" he laughed. But her cold, nerveless fingers seemed incapable of untwisting the paper.
"Hands were made before forks!" cried Cuthbert, pushing in between his sisters, "and I've often heard that pie-crust is made to be broken, like promises. I can spy a bill-hook in the corner, a little too big for cutting up a pie, but just the thing to chop the cabbage out of a ti tree."
Edwin spun round and shouldered it in triumph.
"There goes smash to the promise: he is off again as fast as he can go. And now for the second breakage. You must not mind my dirty pads for once, Audrey," Cuthbert went on, pulling the pie into two pieces and making his sisters eat.
The slender store in the newspaper would be soon exhausted. Cuthbert, like a provident commissariat officer, was anxious to make the most of it. He laid aside the bacon to eat with Edwin's cabbage, and piled up the mutton-bones for their solitary neighbour, the boundary dog, who, like themselves, had been breakfasting on broken promise.
Audrey had recovered herself in some measure by the time Edwin returned with his spoils.
"Who'll buy? who'll buy?" he shouted; "yards upon yards of vegetable ribbon, white and delicate enough to make the wedding favours for the queen of cooks."
"Oh, don't talk about cooking," put in Cuthbert; "it is so nice, let us eat it as it is."
So down they sat, breaking off flake after flake until they were satisfied. As hunger diminished speech returned, and Audrey, who had scarcely uttered a word whilst Edwin went over all they had heard and seen at Mrs. Feltham's, became suddenly animated. A thought had struck her, but she hesitated to propose her plan too abruptly.
"Dears," she said earnestly, looking round at the other three, "father will not come back to us perhaps for a day or two; it may even be a week. Think of our own escape. Think if one of us had been buried in that awful mud. How should we be feeling now? Whilst there is another life to be saved father will not come away—no, not for our sakes, and we must not wish that he should."
Even Effie answered, "Oh no, we must not."
"Then," continued Audrey, still more earnestly. "what are we going to do?"
"That is a poser," retorted Edwin. "The storm brought down the ti tree, and that gave us the cabbage. The gale is dying. We had better take a walk round and look about us. We may find something else. Heaven's gate is open still, Audrey. We must bear this as patiently as we can, and help will come."
"Yes, dears," she answered, "if you can be patient here a little longer, I think there is something I can do to help us all."
"You, Audrey?" exclaimed her brothers; "you are as white as a sheet. Let us do; we are twice as strong as you are."
"Strength is not everything," she returned quietly. "There are some things which only a girl can do. Now this is my plan. If Edwin will walk with me to the central station, I will ask Mrs. Feltham to let me help her. I will go for so much a day, and then at night when she pays me I may persuade her to sell me some flour and meat and tea, food enough for us all, dears."
"Go out like a charwoman, Audrey!" exclaimed Edwin, in amazement. "Is that what you mean?"
"Well, yes," returned Audrey, in a considering tone, "it certainly would be the same thing, if you like to call it so."
"'Of old men called a spade a spade,'" grumbled Edwin. "I like to give things their plain names, and then we know where we are."
"If little Mother Audrey goes out charing, Cuth will poison himself, and then there will be no more food wanting for him. That Mrs. Feltham looked as cross as two sticks," declared Cuthbert.
"Just listen to these proud young gentlemen," retorted Audrey. "Erne, my dear, I turn to you to support me."
"I'll do as you do," returned her little sister, laying her head on her shoulder.
"Not quite so fast, Dame Trot," interposed Edwin. "But if Audrey marches home at night with a bag of flour on her back, you must make it into Norfolk dumplings. Cuthbert and I, it seems, are good for nothing but to eat them."
"You ridiculous boys, why can't you be serious?" said Audrey, adding, in an aside to Edwin, "Erne is too ill to exist on your vegetable ribbon, even if we boil it. Well, is not my plan better—"
"Than robin blackbreast and the burying business? Of course, you have shut me up," he answered.
So the decision was reached. Audrey untied her bundle. Combs and brushes, soap and towels, a well-worn text-book, a little box of her own personal treasures, all knotted up in one of Effie's pinafores. What a hoard of comfort it represented!
"That is a notice to quit for you and me, Cuth," remarked Edwin. "We'll take the boundary dog his bones, and accommodate our honest charwoman with a pailful of sea-water to assist the toilet operations."
The storm had died away as suddenly as it rose, and the receding waves had left the shelving sands strewn with its debris—uprooted trees, old hats, and broken boards, fringed with seaweed. A coat was bobbing up and down, half in the water and half out, while floating spars told of the recent wreck. A keg sticking in the sand some feet below high-water mark attracted the boys' attention, for Edwin was mindful of his promise to the sailors. As they set to work to roll it up, they came upon the oysters sticking edgeways out of the sand, and clinging in clusters to the rocks. With a hurrah of delight they collected a goodly heap. Here was a supper fit for a king.
CHAPTER X.
THE MAORI BOY.
The bath of sea-water which Edwin had provided in the shepherd's pail did more than anything else to restore poor Effie. When the arduous task of opening the oysters was at last accomplished, by the aid of a great clasp nail and a splinter of stone, the abundant and nourishing meal which followed did them all so much good, Cuthbert and Effie declared they did not mind being left alone in the hut half as much as when father left them by the charcoal fires. They all wanted Audrey to wait until morning, but her answer was resolute.
"No, dears; the chance might be gone. It is just when the men come back from the hills Mrs. Feltham will want me. They may come in the middle of the night. Nobody knows when, and if I am there, at least I shall hear what they say. Perhaps they will have been with father, and bring us a message."
This reconciled them all to her departure. Then she hurried away with Edwin by her side, for fear the dark wintry day should close before she reached her destination.
Edwin guessed the distance to be about four miles; but they were in poor order for walking, and were reduced to halting by the wayside continually. Yet, as the snail got to the top of the wall at last, so they reached the avenue gates. Here they agreed to part. There was no more danger of Audrey losing herself, and both were uneasy at leaving Effie and Cuthbert alone so long.
During the walk they had talked over everything, which Audrey declared was the greatest comfort imaginable. Edwin did not want to go up to the house to fetch his Beauty.
"I shall come for him to-morrow," he said; "then I can tell you how Effie is, and we shall hear how you are getting on."
The shades of night were gathering as Edwin turned away; but he could not lose the white line of well-made road by which he was returning even by starlight, yet he was afraid of encountering any of the wild cattle, which he knew were roaming at will among the groves and coverts which surrounded him. He found himself a stick, and trudged along, whistling to keep his courage up.
It was a danger to which he was altogether unaccustomed; for there is no four-footed creature native to New Zealand bigger than a rat, and in the primeval forest which surrounded his home the absence of all animal life is its marked characteristic. But here the many horses and bulls which had strayed from the early colonists had multiplied in the bush and grown formidable, not to speak of the pigs which Captain Cook let loose on the New Zealand shore, and which now, like the rabbits, overrun the island. The sound of grunting in the midst of a flax-bush or the bleat of a bell-wether was enough to startle him.
The hoar was gathering white on the grass and sparkling like diamonds on shrivelled fronds and gloomy evergreens, when he heard the barking of the boundary dog, which told him he was nearing the hut, and his weary feet jogged on at a quicker pace.
The barking grew still more furious. A battle was going forward. Instead of turning off towards the sea to find the hut, Edwin ran on to the point of the road where it entered another sheep-run. As it was the public coast-road, there was no gate. The dog was stationed there, with a chain long enough to command the whole breadth of the road, to keep the sheep from straying on to their neighbour's ground, and well he did his work. He seemed to know in a moment to which side the adventurous rover belonged who dared to intrude on his beat, and sent him home with a resolute bark and a snap of the wool just to show how easily biting could follow. But the cry which succeeded the onslaught of the dog, the cry which made Edwin turn aside, was so like the cry of a child that it shot a fear through him Cuthbert might have been tempted to pay the dog another visit, and having no more bones to give him, the hungry brute had seized poor Cuth instead.
As Edwin came up he could just distinguish a small figure on the other side of the boundary vainly endeavouring to pass. It must be Cuth, he argued, because there was nobody else about; so he shouted to him to stand still until he came up. But instead of obeying, the small figure darted forward once more, and a fearful yell told Edwin the dog had seized him at last.
He sprang towards them, and grasping the dog's collar with both hands, exerted all his strength to pull him off. Strong and savage as the hairy hermit had become from the loneliness of his life, he had all a dog's grateful remembrance of a kindness, and recognizing the hand which had flung him the welcome bone earlier in the day, he suffered Edwin to choke him off without turning on him.
"Run!" cried Edwin to the boy he had delivered; "run beyond his reach whilst I hold him."
He had no need to repeat his exhortation. The shrieking boy fled like the wind. It was not Cuthbert; Edwin knew that by the fleetness of his hare-like speed. He did his best to soothe and coax the angry dog, keeping his eye meanwhile on the retreating figure.
As the distance between them increased, Edwin let the dog go. The fugitive changed his course, and was circling round to regain the road. Then Edwin started at right angles, and so got between him and the hut, where Effie and Cuthbert were probably asleep.
"They will be so frightened," thought Edwin, "if he runs in for refuge. For poor little Eff's sake I must stop him."
So they came up face to face in the open ground beyond the black shadow of the boundary, and eyed each other in the starlight.
"Whero!" exclaimed Edwin.
"Ah, you!" cried the Maori boy, holding out both hands. "To meet you is good."
"Come in with me and rest," continued Edwin. "Are you hurt? It was madness to try to pass the boundary dog in the dark. He might have torn you to pieces."
Out spoke the young savage, "I would have killed him first."
"No, no," interposed Edwin. "He is set there as a sentinel to keep the sheep from straying; he only did his duty."
"I," repeated Whero—"am I a sheep, to be made to fear? All the goblins in Lake Taupo should not turn me back to-night. I heard men saying in Tauranga streets the sacred three had shot forth the lightning that made all faces pale last night and laid the tall trees low. Are not they the men from whom I spring who are sleeping the death-sleep in their bosom? Last night they awakened; they are angry. The thunder of their voices is louder than the cannon of the pakeha. Why are they calling? I know not; but I answer I am theirs. I leaped out of the window of my school, and ran as the water runs to the sea. No one could catch me, for I thought of my father and mother; and I said in my heart, 'Will the anger of the majestic ones fall upon the son of Hepé, or upon those who have despoiled him?'"
Edwin drew his arm within his dusky friend's. "It is not the dead men's bones which are buried on Tarawera but the hidden fires which have burst from the mountain which have done the mischief. Our house went down in the shock of the earthquake, and we fled from it for our lives to the sea."
"I took the coast-road," continued Whero, "for the coach was turned back. Trees lay everywhere in its path; and no man knows more than I have told you."
Edwin trembled for Whero, for he remembered how the men had said the low whares of the natives were completely buried.
"Wait with us," he entreated; "wait for the daylight."
As he began to describe the strangeness of the disaster which had overwhelmed the district, the ready tears of the Maori race poured down in torrents from Whero's eyes.
Edwin led him into the hut; and finding Cuthbert and Effie fast asleep, the two lowered their voices, and sitting side by side in the starlight, went over again the startling story until voices grew dreamy, and Edwin became suddenly aware that the eager listener reclining at his elbow was lost in forgetfulness. Then he too laid down his head and gained a respite from his cares and fears in the deep sweet sleep of healthy boyhood.
Effie was the first to awaken. A solitary sunbeam had made its way through the tiny window, and was dancing along the opposite wall. The rest of the hut was in shadow. She did not see Edwin with Whero nestling by his side, for the long fern fronds rose in heaps around her; but she heard a sound from the road, and called joyously to Cuthbert,—
"Get up; there is somebody coming."
Cuth tumbled to his feet; Edwin started upright. They were rushing to the door, when Whero lifted a black hand and commanded silence. His quicker sense of hearing had already told him of men and horses near at hand.
Effie eyed him in mute amazement. "Look," she whispered at last, pointing to Whero's head, "there is a big boy-rat rustling in the leaves."
"Hush! listen!" cried her brothers.
"Is it father?" she asked, in a flutter of fear and expectation.
The boys ran out, elate with a similar hope. But Edwin saw in a moment there was only a party of shepherds returning for supplies. They scarcely waited to listen to his eager questions.
"Can't stop," they shouted. "But the worst is over. All are going back to their farms. You will have your own people coming to look you up before long. You are safest where you are for the present."
Their words were intended to reassure the boys—Edwin was certain of that; but their faces were so grave, they seemed to contradict the comforting assertion that the worst was over.
"I must hear more," cried Edwin. "I'll run after them and ask if any one has seen father."
The tired horses were walking slowly; one or two seemed to have fallen lame, and all were covered with mud.
"We shall soon overtake them," thought Edwin; but Whero outstripped him in the chase. The shepherds looked back. One amongst their number halted, and shouted the inquiry, "What now?"
"Did you reach the lake in the hills? How is it there?" burst forth Whero.
"Up among the natives?" answered the shepherd, not unkindly. "Nobody knows. We did not get beyond the road, and we found enough to do. The mud fell so thick every door and window was blocked in no time, and many a roof fell in with the weight. Everything around the mountain lies buried deep in mud."
The shriek, the howl in which poor Whero vented his alarm so startled the shepherd's horse it galloped off at a mad rate towards the mansion, just as Edwin came up, pale and panting. But Whero's English was scattered. He could only reiterate the man's last words, "Deep in mud; buried, all buried deep in mud," and then he ran on in Maori.
Edwin and Cuthbert looked at each other in despair. It was impossible to understand what he was evidently trying to explain.
"You wooden boys!" he exclaimed at last, as he turned away in disgust, and raced off like a hare towards the mansion.
Cuthbert was wild to follow, when a large merino ram bounded out of a group of palm trees and knocked him over.
"Go back to Effie," urged Edwin, "and I'll watch by the roadside, for somebody else may pass."
But Cuthbert could not find his way alone, and the brothers retraced their steps. As they drew near the hut, the loud barking of the boundary dog was again heard. Somebody might be coming by the coast-road, somebody who could tell them more.
It was the boundary rider from the neighbouring run, waiting and watching for the appearance of his neighbour, to ascertain if any tidings had yet been received from the lonely mountain wilds. All knew now some dread catastrophe had overwhelmed the hills. Confused rumours and vague conjectures were flying through the district beyond the reach of the muddy rain. Earth-slips and fallen trees blocked every road. The adventurous few who had made their way to the scene of the disaster had not yet returned.
Far as his eye could see across the grassy sweep not a shepherd was moving. Feltham's sheep were straying by hundreds in his master's run. Then the two boys came in sight, and arms were waved to attract attention; and the burning anxiety on both sides found vent in the question, "Any news from the hills?"
As Edwin poured forth the story of their flight, another horseman was seen spurring across the open. It was a messenger Mr. Bowen had despatched the day before, to inquire among the shepherd hermits in Feltham's outlying huts, who might, who must know more than their seaside neighbours. But the man had ridden on from hut to hut, all alike empty and deserted. About nightfall, at the extreme end of the run, he came upon a man who had been struck down by the awful lightning, who told a rambling tale of sudden flight before the strange storm.
"So," said the shepherd, "I rested my horse, and determined to ride round to the central station, or go on from farm to farm, to find out all I could; but a trackless swamp stretched before me. Turning aside, I fell in with a party of Feltham's men, who had made their way by the river-bank as far as the government road. They were returning for a cart to bring off one of their number, who had been knocked on the head by a falling tree, trying to make his way through the bush."
"Who was it?" asked Edwin breathlessly, his brief colloquy with the horsemen he had passed full in his mind. They were the same men, but not a word as to the accident to one of the relief-party had crossed their lips.
The significance of their silence flashed upon him.
"It is father!" he exclaimed, "and they would not tell us."
"No, Edwin, no," interposed little Cuth, with wide-eyed consternation. "Why do you say it is father?"
"Why, indeed," repeated Mr. Bowen's man. "I tell you it was a near neighbour of the fordmaster's, who had come across to his help before the others got up. For Hirpington and his people were all blocked in by the weight of mud jamming up windows and doors, and were almost suffocated; but they got them out and into the boat when the others came. One man rowed them off to the nearest place of refuge, and the others went on to look for the roadmen in their solitary huts."
Every word the man let fall only deepened Edwin's conviction.
He grasped Cuth's hand. Was this what Whero had tried to tell him?
The doubt, the fear, the suspense was unbearable. Their first impulse was to run after the shepherds, to hear all they had to tell. But the Bowen men held them back; and whilst they questioned Edwin more closely, Cuthbert sat down crying on the frosted grass. The boundary dog came up and seated itself before him, making short barks for the bone that was no longer to be had for the asking. The noise he made led the men to walk their horses nearer to the hut, when the debris of the wreck, scattered about the sands, met their eyes. That a coaster should have gone down in the terrific storm was a casualty which the dwellers by the sea-shore were well prepared to discover. They kicked over the half-buried boots and broken spars, looking for something which might identify the unfortunate vessel, and they brought Edwin into court once again, and questioned him closely. He assured them the sailors were all safe, and when they heard how they had borrowed his father's horse and cart to take them across to the central station, they only blamed him for his stupidity in not having asked the captain's name.
"Yes, it was stupid," Edwin owned, "but then I did not know what I was doing."
The sound of their voices brought Effie to the door of the hut, and they heard a little piping voice behind repeating, "Bowen, please sir; his name was Bowen."
"What! the captain's?" they cried.
"No, the schoolboy's," she persisted, shrinking from the cold sea-breeze blowing her hair into her eyes, and fluttering her scant blue skirt, and banging at the door until it shut again, in spite of her utmost efforts to keep it open.
Here was a discovery of far more importance in the estimation of Mr. Bowen's men than all the rest.
"If that is our young master Arthur," they said, "coming up for the holidays, we must find him, let alone everything else. We must be off to the central station; and as for these children, better take them along with us."
This was just what Edwin wanted. After a reassuring word to Effie anent the black boy-rat, he set himself to work piling up the wreckage, with the care of one about to leave the place.
He had not forgotten Hal's charge to stay where he left them.
"But better be lost than starved," said the men; and he agreed with them. Even Audrey had failed to send them food to that far-off hut. It was clear there was no one to bring it.
"You should have gone with the sailors," said the boundary rider. "You must go with us."
He wrapped the flap of his coat over Effie as Edwin lifted her on to his knee, and his comrade called to Cuthbert, who was hoisted up behind him; and so they set forth, Edwin walking in the rear.
As the horses trotted onwards across the fern-covered downs, the distance between them steadily increased, for the boy was tired. Once or twice he flung himself down to rest, not much caring about losing sight of his companions, as he knew the way.
Edwin had nearly reached the gate of the avenue, when he saw Whero scampering over the grass on Beauty's back.
There was a mutual shout of recognition; and Whero turned the horse's head, exclaiming,—
"Lee! Boy! Lee! Wanderer Lee! have you lost your horse? I went to beg bread at the station, and he leaped over the stable-bar and followed me. You must give him back, as you said you would, for how can I go to the hills without him? I want him now."
"And so do I," answered Edwin; "I want to go back with the shepherds to father."
"The men who spoke to us are gone. I saw them start," returned Whero. "But jump up behind me, and we will soon overtake them."
For one brief moment Edwin looked around him doubtfully. But Erne and Cuthbert were safe with Audrey by this time, and he was sure Mr. Bowen, "the old identity," their kind-hearted travelling companion, would take good care of all three as soon as he heard of their forlorn condition. "His grandson will tell him how Cuth and I pulled him through the surf. I had better ride back to the hills with Whero, and see if it is safe for us to go home. They may have taken father there already, and then I know he will want me." So Edwin reasoned as he sprang up behind the Maori boy. "And if I don't go with him," he added, "we may lose our horse, and then what would father say to that?"
CHAPTER XI.
WIDESPREAD DESOLATION.
As the boys rode onward a sharp and bracing wind blew in their faces. The hoar still lay on the grass, and the many pools at which the sheep were accustomed to drink were coated with ice. But the mysterious darkness of the preceding day was over, and the sun shone forth once more to gild a desolated world.
Whero and Edwin were alike anxious to avoid meeting any of Mr. Feltham's shepherds who might have returned to their daily work, for fear they should try to stop them.
Whero, with something of his father's skill, shot forward with a reckless disregard for the safety of Edwin's neck. But the party they were pursuing were long out of sight.
As they reached the confines of the sheep-run, an unnatural grayness overspread the landscape. Yet on they went, encountering clouds of dust with every breeze. The blades of grass beneath the horse's hoofs, the leaves rustling on the boughs, were all alike loaded with it. But the cattle were still grazing, and despite the clouds of dust constantly rising, the atmosphere above was clear; and the sunshine cheered their spirits.
"We will not turn back," said Edwin.
They knew, by what the shepherds had told them, the force of the eruption had expended itself; that danger was over. When the boys ascended higher ground and gained a wider view, they could distinguish parties of men marching up in every direction, with their spades on their shoulders. For now the personal danger was diminished, the anxiety to ascertain the fate of the unfortunate people living near the sacred heights of Tarawera predominated.
Above the range of hills there was a dense bank of steam, which rose like a wall of snowy white, extending for miles. Whero shook with terror at the sight, but Edwin urged him on. They had missed the shepherds, but they could soon overtake the men now in sight. Yet the longer they gazed at the huge mass of vapour, the more impenetrable it seemed. It was drifting slowly northwards, where it merged in another cloud, black and restless, like smoke. It was but the work of the winds, stirring the vast deposit of dust covering hill and forest.
Changed as the face of the country appeared to be, Whero seemed able to track his way with something of the unerring instinct of the hound. Emboldened by Edwin's steadier courage, on he went, the gray, drab tint of the volcanic debris deepening around them at every step, until it lay nine inches deep on the ground, covering up all trace of vegetation. The poor cattle wandering in the fields were here absolutely without food, and the blue waters of the liquid rivulets were changed to a muddy brown, thick and repulsive. Every footfall of the horse enveloped his riders in so dense a cloud that eyes were stinging and voices choking, until they began to exchange this dry deposit for the treacherous, deadly mud which had preceded it.
This soon became so thick and sticky poor Beauty could scarcely drag his legs out again, and their pace grew slower and slower. The time was going fast; they had scarcely gained a mile in an hour. They dare not turn aside to view the ruins of Edwin's home. As they went deeper and deeper into the bush, the blue mud lay fifteen inches thick on all around. The unrivalled beauty of the forest was gone. The boys could see nothing but a mass of dirt-laden tree trunks, bending and falling beneath the weight of their burden. Every leaf was stripped off, and every branch was broken short. It was a scene of desolation so intense Whero set up a wild wail of lamentation. All was taken from the Maori when the wealth of the bush was gone.
They gained the road; the mud was two feet thick at least, and Beauty sank knee-deep in the sulphurous, steaming slime. How they got him out again they hardly knew. They backed him amongst the trees, seeking the higher ground. Fresh mud-holes had opened in unexpected places, and old ones had enlarged to boiling pools, and wide areas of smouldering ashes marked the site of the many fires the lightning had kindled.
Could the boys have extricated themselves just then, they might have been tempted to turn back in sheer dismay. They were forced from the line which Whero had hitherto pursued with the directness which marks the flight of the crow. The trees were quivering with an earthquake shock. The hill was trembling visibly beneath their feet. Guided by a break in the trees, they made their way to the open. Once more the bank of cloud was visible, drifting slowly to the north; but Whero's eyes were fastened on the distance, where he knew the lofty Tarawera reared its threefold crest.
Had the mighty chieftains of renown arisen from their graves and built a wall of luminous vapour around their sleeping-place? He quailed in abject terror at the sight of the clouds, like ramparts rising into the air for thousands of feet, and veined with wavy lines that glowed and shimmered with the reflection of the flames they held enshrined.
"If the arrows of their lightnings burst forth upon us," shrieked Whero, "how shall such as we escape? Better seek sleep in the cold waters of the river than fall before the torture of their presence in the boiling mud and scorching flame."
Edwin, too, was staggered by the strangeness of the sight. It was the sense of unprecedented peril, the presence of dangers which no man could fathom, which overwhelmed him. But he had enough clear-sighted common sense to perceive the first thing to be guarded against was the frantic terror of the wilful boy who was guiding him; for Whero, in his excitement, was urging Beauty to a breakneck speed. But a change awaited them in the open glade, for there the sun and wind had dried the surface of the mud, and the clouds of dust settling down upon it had formed a hard crust.
Edwin breathed more freely as Whero grew calmer. The horse seemed to step along with ease at first; but his weight was too great. The crust gave way beneath him, and they were soon all floundering in a quagmire. Edwin was flung backwards on a portion of the broken crust, which, like a floating island, was drifting him across the fissure. Whero clung round the horse's neck, clutching wildly at his mane. Beauty, with the intelligence of a fording-horse, pawed through the mud in quest of a firmer foothold, and found it on the trunk of a buried tree.
On this vantage-ground, being lightened of half his load, he was preparing for a spring. At the first movement Whero went over his head, and Beauty, finding himself his own master, changed his mind. Under any other circumstances it would have been fun to Edwin to see him feeling his way along his unseen bridge until he reached the roots of the tree, which, with the many tons of earth clinging in them, rose at least ten feet into the air, a solitary hillock around which the mud was consolidating. Here he took his stand. The boys could see him scraping away the earth and nibbling at the young green shoots of budding fern already forcing their way to the upper air.
Edwin tried to propel his floating island towards the point where Whero was standing, like a heron, on one leg, trying to scrape the mud from the other. He edged about this way and that, until at last the boys were near enough to clasp hands. When he felt the sinewy gripe of his dusky friend, Edwin took the meditated leap, and broke into the mud by Whero's side. He went down upon his hands and knees; but Whero grasped the collar of his jacket, and kept him from sinking. The crust in this place was nearly a foot thick, and when Edwin regained his equilibrium the two stepped lightly over it, walking like cats, holding each other's hands, and balancing themselves as if they were treading on ice, until they reached a precipitous crag, on which it was impossible for the mud to rest. Whero began to climb the steep ascent, reaching down a hand to drag up Edwin after him. They gained a ledge several feet above the lower ground, and here they paused to recover themselves and look around for Beauty. It was a pain, a grief to both the boys to abandon him to his fate. But they dared not shout his name or attract his attention, for fear he should attempt to cross the treacherous waste which lay between them.
To dash the tears from their eyes, to speak as if they "would not care" when their hearts felt bursting, was useless; and yet they did it—risking their own necks in a mad desire to rush off where they could no longer see him, and then returning for a last despairing glance, until Whero had to own he had lost his way.
Another vast column of steam hung in mid air, and when it lifted they could distinguish the gangs of men hard at work, marking the site of more than one annihilated village. They watched them from afar digging away the mud in hopes of finding some of the inhabitants alive beneath it. A mill-sail turning in the wind just showed itself above the blue-gray mass, and warned them that the depth of the deposit was increasing steadily as they drew nearer and nearer to the sacred mountains. That moving sail told Whero where he was. With one hand shading his eyes he scanned the country round.
"The pakeha seeks out the pakeha, but no man turns to the Maori pah!" he exclaimed, stretching his arms towards the wide waste of hateful blue, and pointing to the foul remains of the crystal lake—the lake by which he had been born. But where was the ancient whare? where was his home?
Edwin thought only of crossing to the nearest group of men, throwing back the mud, right and left, with a desperate energy. He raised his voice and tried to give the "coo" for help, in the fond hope it might reach their ears. Whero joined in the outcry, and they stood still, shouting. But the hollow echo was their sole reply.
They had wandered wide from the ford, for they were approaching the lake from the opposite side.
They sat down on the rocky ledge, and looked at each other in silence. A call from above startled them. It was a shrill but far-off voice that was not human.
Whero, with all a Maori's belief in evil spirits, shook with terror, and his howling shrieks filled the air and drowned the distant sound.
"Oh, hush!" entreated Edwin. "Shut up! do, and let us listen."
They heard it plainly once again—the long-drawn Maori word "Hoké" (Return, return), followed, in quicker accents, by Whero's name. He looked up terror-stricken, surveying the rocky steep above their heads, and gasped out, almost fainting,—
"You know not where you are. This hill is tapu, and he who breaks tapu is sure to die."
"Bosh!" retorted Edwin. "If you would only speak English I should know what you mean."
His arms went round the poor boy, who seemed ready to die, as many a Maori has died before, of pure fright at the thought of breaking tapu—that is, touching anything the chief has made sacred. But Edwin did not understand his dread.
"Don't be such a coward," he expostulated; "I'll stand by you."
"Hoké! hoké!" rang out the bird-like voice. "Whero, hoké!"
The lofty summit of the hill gave back the cry.
"Go up," urged Edwin. "Some of your people may have taken refuge here. Whatever you mean by tapu, it can't scare me. You daren't go! then let me try."
There was a rift in the scarped side of the hill, where human hands had cut a foothold here and there, making the ascent possible. Whero crept along the edge and swung himself over. Edwin crawled after him, and climbed up with less difficulty than he expected. "Hoké" was piped above their heads, and Whero's courage failed him once again. He sank upon a stone, with every nerve quivering. The English boy climbed on, and found himself at last upon a bit of table-land which from its height seemed to have escaped the general devastation; for the ground was still covered with the dried remains of summer vegetation. He passed between the tree-like ferns until he came upon a spot, bare and dry, without a sign of a scrap of undergrowth of any kind or at any time. It might have been about three-quarters of an acre, and was completely arched over by the inter-woven boughs of four or five gigantic trees, which even the storm of mud could not penetrate. Edwin gazed at their majestic trunks, full sixty feet in circumference, ranged around him like the columns of one of nature's temples, with a kind of awe.
The ground on which he stood was hard and dusty, and yet he knew, by the fern and the creeper through which he had reached it, this unusual clearance was not the work of the eruption. It looked as if it might have been thus barren for ages.
The roots of the trees had grown out of the ground, and were twisted and coiled over and over like a group of mighty serpents transfixed and fossilized by ancient sorcery. Among them lay the human relics of a barbarous age. The very stones on which he trod had once been fashioned by the hand of man. There were axe and spear heads, knives and chisels, embedded in the fibrous coils; and were they human skulls and bones which lay there whitening by their side? Edwin recoiled in horror. A bird flew down from the leafy dome, and alighted near him, renewing its wailing cry, "Hoké, hoké." Edwin saw by the crimson feathers of its breast it was a species of macaw—an escaped pet from some of the buried homes around him.
He called it a little nervously at first, as if it had dyed its plumage in the blood of the murdered captives whose bones lay white at his feet. The bird swooped round, beating the air with its outspread wings, and darting forward as if it had half a mind to perch upon his outstretched hand.
When were Edwin's pockets ever empty? He was feeling in them now for a few dry crumbs wherewith to tempt the wailing bird.
It fluttered nearer at the welcome sight, for grain or insects were nowhere to be found in that place of dearth. It came at last, and nestled, as it had evidently been taught to nestle by its unknown master, close against Edwin's cheek. He grasped it by the wings, and gently smoothed its ruffled feathers.
"Whero," he shouted, running back with it to the brow of the hill, "Whero, it is a bird."
The sound of his own voice seemed to break the spell of horror which had fallen over him, and he rushed away from serpent root and blighted bough with which nature herself had written on the hateful spot, "Accursed."
He no longer wondered that the Maori boy refused to go with him. The slightest suspicion of impatience and contempt had vanished from his tone when he spoke again.
"Look at it, Whero."
But Whero looked not at the bird, but at his friend.
"Did you go far?" he asked.
"Only to the top," answered Edwin.
"Not to the top," persisted Whero, lowering his voice and whispering hoarsely. "There is a spot up there, a fatal spot, where the grass never grows and the air breathes death. Ask me not for more. Come away."
He seized Edwin's arm and drew him backwards. The desolate bird shook itself free, and flew to him with a cry of joy.
"It is my kaka," he exclaimed, "my own dear redbreast, calling out, 'Return.'"
"Are you satisfied, Whero?" asked Edwin, in tones of heartfelt sympathy. "Have we searched far enough? Shall we go back and try to make our way to the ford or across to the diggers?"
"Not yet," answered Whero; "I would see the spot where the great hot stone used to be."
"It is buried," Edwin went on, "too deep in the mud for us to find, I'm afraid."
Whero flung himself on the ground, exclaiming wildly, "All lost! all gone! why don't you tangi over me?"
"I would, if it would do you any good; but I don't know how," said Edwin, bluntly. "We are not sure yet, Whero; your people may have rushed away in the night as we did. We will hope to the last."
In his despair Whero had let the kaka fly, and Edwin watched it wheeling over the space between them and the lake, until it settled down in what appeared to him to be a hole in the all-pervading mud.
"He has found something," cried Edwin, hurrying down the steep descent in a wave of excitement. Whero shrieked after him to stop him; so once again the boys rested awhile, and ate up the remainder of the bread in Whero's pockets. It was Edwin's last resource to revive the wild boy's failing courage, and it partially succeeded.
"Edwin," he said, "am I alone in the world—the last of the proud race who owned the fastness in this steep hill-top and the hot stone by yonder lake? Have I nothing left to me but this awful place where my grim forefathers held their victory-feast? Will you come and live with me there?"
"In that ogre's castle!" exclaimed Edwin, with a shudder. "A moment ago you dare not follow me to its threshold, and now—"
"I have been thinking," interrupted Whero, "I must not slight so strange an omen as the kaka's call. Are the mighty dead using his voice to call me back (for I should have fled the place); to remind me what I have now become—a chief of the hills, who can make and unmake tapu as he pleases? Let us go up and swear to be true to each other for ever and ever and ever, as my forefathers used to swear on the eve of battle."
"I will stand by you," said Edwin, earnestly; "on the honour of an Englishman I will. I'll go down to the lake with you. Better see what the kaka has found than climb the hill again. Come."
He put his arm round Whero and began the dangerous descent. A fallen tree bridged their path. The tremor of an earthquake was beginning. They flung themselves at once on their faces, for fear they should be rolled over down the treacherous steep. As Edwin lay resting his arms against the fallen tree, he scanned once more the break in the muddy crust round which the kaka was still wheeling.
What did he see, or what did he fancy he could see at such a distance? Was it a blackened fragment of pumice-stone the bird was hovering over with its wailing cry, or was it the quaint old carving on the pointed roof of Nga-Hepé's whare? Whero's eye was fastened on the spot. Could he too see it? They were afraid of losing their foothold, as the tree, like everything else, was covered with the sticky slime, and crawled along the trunk one after the other, Whero leading the way. It landed them on the top of the mud-heap, and they walked across the dried crust, as they had been able to do on the other side.
The stillness of the desert was around them. Little life of any kind seemed to have escaped the widespread destruction. A lonely gull had flown up with the morning breeze, and was pursuing the dead fish across the lake, as they floated entangled in the drift of the wind-torn foliage which strewed its surface.
On they walked, until Whero was satisfied that the dead level they were crossing must cover the site of the Rota Pah. Even the strong wall which defended it was buried. Yet it was a wall strong enough and high enough to resist the attack of English assailants.
The wintry breezes sweeping over the lake had dried the mud more thoroughly on this side of the hill. The crust beneath their feet was thicker and firmer.
The boys ran lightly across the intervening space. As Whero drew near to the hole, the bird alighted on his shoulder, and putting its beak to his ear, exchanged its painful cries for a soft, low, warbling note.
Edwin was sure now they saw the ridge of the high-peaked roof of Nga-Hepé's whare.