Part 4 (1/2)
”There has been a struggle here,” said Hugh Jervois, his face shohite beneath its tan Stooping, he picked up a scrap of dyed flax and held it out to Fred Elliot
”It's a bit of the fringe of thethis afternoon,” he said quietly ”The Maorihis 'billy,' and carried him off A thirteen-year-old boy would be a e, and he could easily stifle his cries”
”He would not dare to harm dick!” cried Fred passionately
dick's brother said nothing, but his eyes eagerly searched the tra
”Look! There is where the scoundrel has gone back into the bush with dick,” he cried ”The trail is distinct” And he dashed forward into the dense undergrowth, followed by Fred
The trail was of the shortest and landed theh the bush
The two young ht thea_, or village, of the Aohanga Maoris
”It looks as if we had run our fox to earth,” cried Fred exultingly, as they h wooden stockade--relic of the old fighting days--which surrounded the _kainga_
The Maoris within the _kainga_over the Govern on in their district had made them unfriendly to white faces But it was i truth when, in answer to Hugh's anxious questioning, they declared that no _pakeha_ (white a_, and that they had seen nothing of Horoeka, their _tohunga_, since noon that day They suggested indifferently that the white boy ave a sullen refusal to assist in searching for hi h, who had a very fair knowledge of the Maori tongue, warned the natives that the _pakeha_ laould punish the brother to be harhter
For the next two hours Hugh and Fred desperately scoured the bush, shouting aloud at intervals on the off-chance that dickcry in answer But the only result of their labours was that they nearly got ”bushed” theht made the absurdity of further search clear to the their way back to their broken-up caether a h Jervois could not eat while racked by the horrible uncertainty of his brother's fate, and he waited impatiently for the moon to rise to let him renew his apparently hopeless quest
Then, while Fred Elliot was speeding on a seven miles' tramp round the shore of the lake to the surveyors' camp to invoke the aid of the only other white h Jervois had a_ ”It'sdick,” he had said to Fred ”Horoeka is sure to have returned to the _kainga_ by this tiet out of that crazy ruffian what he has done with ht of the risenit This was very old and broken inabout the cooking-place in the centre of the _marae_ or open space around which the _whares_ (huts) were ranged Froest of those _whares_ caer talk At once Hugh realised that a council was being held in the _whare-runanga_, the assee, and he instinctively divined that the subjects under discussion were poor little dick's ”crime” and his punish the palisade, Hugh cah Then he crept along between the palisade and the backs of the scattered _whares_--very cautiously, for he dreaded being seen by the group about the fire--until at last he stood behind the big _whare-runanga_ With his ear glued to its wall he listened to the excited speeches being delivered within, and to sounds indicating that drinking was also going on--whisky supplied from some illicit still, doubtless
To his unspeakable thankfulness the young athered from the chance remarks of one of the speakers that dick, alive and uninjured, had been brought by Horoeka into the _kainga_ at nightfall, and was now shut up in one of the _whares_ But a fierce speech of Horoeka's presently told the painfully interested eavesdropper that nothing less than death, attended by heathenish and gruesoe on the _tapu_-tree, in the _tohunga's_ opinion
The other Maori speakers would evidently have been satisfied to seek satisfaction in the shape of a money-compensation from the offender's family, or the paternally h he was, Horoeka's influence with his fellow-tribesreat The rude eloquence hich he painted the terrible evils that would certainly fall on thehty a _tapu_ was not avenged in blood, very soon had its effect on his superstitious hearers
When he went on to assure them that the _pakehas_ would be unable to prove that the boy had not lost himself and perished in the bush, they withdrew all opposition to Horoeka's bloodthirsty deh these were rather dictated by his own crack-brained fancy than by Maori custoh that, ith drink and their _tohunga's_ wild oratory, thethemselves up into a fanatical frenzy that must speedily find vent in horrible action
If dick's life were to be saved he must be rescued at once! No time now to await Fred Elliot's return with the surveyors and their le-handed But hoas he to do it? For him, unarmed and unbacked by an authoritative show of numbers, to attempt an open rescue would merely mean, in the natives' present state of mind, the death of both brothers
”If the worst coh Jervois avowed
”But the worst shan't colances around They showed hiroup about the cooking-place having retired into the _whares_ for the night If he only knehich of those silent _whares_ held dick, a rescue was possible To blunder on the wrong _whare_ would only serve to arouse the _kainga_