"War to the Knife;" or, Tangata Maori by Rolf Boldrewood (e novels to read TXT) 📗

Here Mr. Slyde resumed his pen, and with a brief adieu the chance friends separated.

Discovering from reliable sources that nothing in the way of battle, murder, and sudden death was likely to take place for a few weeks, Mr. Massinger decided that he would pay a visit to those wondrous lakes of which he had heard and read. He had pictured in his mind, how often, the strange aspect of a country where snow-crowned mountains or active volcanoes looked down upon Nature's daring colour-effects dashed off in her most fantastic moods; where the central fires of the globe sent up their steam in jets, and the angry gnome, "the mid-earth's swarthy child," still murmured audibly; where boiling fountains hissed and gurgled, unchilled by the wintry blast; where fairy terraces, lustrous in lace-like tracery, lay shining, [Pg 95] translucent, under summer moon or winter dawn; where the unsophisticated inhabitants of this weird and magical region, all ignorant of the clothes philosophy, revelled from morn to eve in the luxurious warmth of medicated baths, curative of all the ills that flesh is heir to.

When he communicated his intentions as to visiting the far-famed land of the geyser and the fumarole to his friends, they all advised him to make the journey without delay.

"It is one of the wonders of the world, and by no means the least," said Mr. Lochiel. "I thank God that I have seen it; and though I have travelled much in other lands, I have never beheld the place that equals that strange and grand landscape, terrible even in its beauty. The delicate loveliness of the pink and white terraces 'beggars all description.' I shall not attempt it. They alone are well worth coming from the other end of the world to see."

"And I wouldn't delay either," said Captain Macdonald. "This Waitara business may bring on war at any time, and then no white man, except a missionary, is safe—hardly he, indeed."

"I will start next week," said Massinger, "if I can get a horse and guide. I should never forgive myself if I lost the chance by delay."

"Horses of any kind you can pick up at the bazaar within an hour," said Mr. Lochiel; "and I will send you a guide who could find his way to Taupo in the dark. It is scarcely a road to travel alone just now, and the forest tracks are neither easy to keep nor to find again when lost. The rivers, too, are of a violent nature, and dangerous unless you know the fords."

[Pg 96]

Acting upon this information and the advice so freely tendered, Mr. Massinger at once bought himself a horse. The roads being rough—indeed, mostly in a state of nature, as he was informed—and a certain amount of wearing apparel and provisions being absolutely necessary, he looked less to the paces and appearance of the animal than to its strength and substance. A guide, too, was essential, as in a country where the primeval forest was almost impracticable in places, where the ice-cold rivers were without fords often, without bridges always, local knowledge was indispensable. He was fortunate in one respect, as he fell across a stout half-bred grey mare at a moderate price.

Something was said to him about the danger of travelling among the wilder tribes of the north without protection, or even a comrade of his own race; to which he made answer that he had not come all that way to lead a feather-bed life. Whatever risk other men encountered, he felt equal to. So, with the good wishes of all whom he had met since his landing, he prepared to depart.

Mr. Slyde's parting injunction was, "Stand up to these Maori beggars, and talk as if you owned the island. They know a gentleman when they see one, and they hate anything like distrust or double-dealing. Unless war is declared while you are away, you will be as safe as in town here; in some respects perhaps safer. Au revoir."

In New Zealand at that time, and, indeed, long afterwards, people were so accustomed to the sight of the emigrant Briton, with his thick boots, his rough tweeds, Crimean shirt, and brand-new valise or saddlebags, [Pg 97] that such an apparition hardly excited more surprise than in the Australian colonies. There, a hundred years of colonization have settled the race in personal habitudes descriptive of every shade of road travel, town dwelling, ordinary wayfaring or desert exploration. One glance there is sufficient to determine, not only the station in life, but the immediate business or occupation of the stranger. And so full and continuous had been the stream of emigration poured into New Zealand of late years, that the ultra-British rig excited no more remark than that of the tweed-clad tourist in the Highlands. Even the "garb of old Gaul," which the clansmen from Aberfoil or Glengarry not infrequently sported, as useful, dignified, and ornamental, only received a passing glance, or gave rise to a transient observation from a native as to the peculiar description of lunacy to which the pakehas were subject.

When, therefore, Roland Massinger left Auckland one fine morning, riding his gallant grey, with the trusty double-barrel on his shoulder, a navy revolver in his belt, and a miscellaneous assortment of useful articles dispersed about himself and his charger, no one seemed disposed to remark unnecessarily, or to make jeering remarks upon his outfit.

A day or two before starting, Massinger received a note in a strange handwriting, which ran as follows:—

"Auckland, 14, Shortland Street,           

"Wednesday.     

"Dear Sir,

"My old friend Dr. Lochiel has, I believe, recommended me to you as a guide for the trip to Rotorua and Rotomahana.

[Pg 98]

"I know the country well, and shall be glad to act, if we can arrange. I don't say that it is too safe in the present state of native feeling, but that is for you to judge. I shall have the pleasure of calling upon you tomorrow morning.

"Yours truly,

"Albert Warwick.         

"R. Massinger, Esq."

"Why, I thought Dr. Lochiel told me that the guide was a half-caste," said he to himself. "Very well written and expressed. Some men I know, from English public schools, too, could not have written such a note to save their lives. However, I suppose he got some one to write it for him."

He had finished his breakfast, and was digesting it and the contents of the New Zealand Herald, besides trying to reconcile conflicting statements as to the Native Lands Policy, when a visitor was announced.

"Mr. Massinger, I believe," said the stranger, bowing. "My name is Warwick; I presume you received my note yesterday?"

For one moment that gentleman's self-possession almost failed him, but he recovered himself in time to murmur an assent and ask the stranger to take a chair. There was some reason for his surprise.

He saw before him a very good-looking, well-dressed man of about his own age, turned out much as he had often been himself for a day's shooting. A Norfolk jacket, with knickerbockers and worsted stockings, these last exhibiting a volume of muscular calf, above laced-up shooting-boots of great strength and thickness of sole. A wide-brimmed felt hat, and [Pg 99] a Crimean shirt, completed attire which was eminently appropriate and serviceable.

"You know the people and the country, as well as the route to these far-famed lakes?" he inquired.

"From my boyhood," answered this perplexing personage, with a perfectly correct, even finished accent, "I have been familiar with both. We have relatives in the Ngapuhi tribe, and I am always glad of an excuse to see some wild life among them. I have occasionally acted as guide to parties of tourists, and not so long ago to His Excellency the Governor and his staff."

"And your remuneration?" queried the tourist, thinking it wise to settle that important question off-hand.

"Oh, say a guinea a day and expenses paid," replied the stranger, in airy, off-hand fashion, as if the trifling amount was hardly worth mentioning. "That is my usual fee. I am fond of these expeditions myself, and in pleasant company; but that one must live, I should be quite willing to go with you for nothing."

"That, of course, is not to be thought of. But it will be an added pleasure to have a companion from whom I can gain information and share a novel experience."

"Thanks very much," said Mr. Warwick, bowing; "and for the baggage, if I might advise, the least possible quantity that you can do with. All beyond will encumber you in the sort of trail before us. I should like to superintend the packing."

"Very grateful, if you will," said Massinger. "Perhaps you would not mind breakfasting with me tomorrow; we could start directly afterwards."

[Pg 100]

"Most happy. In that case, I shall be here at sunrise, which will give time to arrange the pack, and we need lose none of the best part of the day."

So much being understood, Mr. Warwick bowed himself out, leaving his employer in a state of suppressed astonishment.

"The land of wonders, indeed!" he soliloquized. "The people, as well as the land, seem mysteries and enigmas. Only to look at this man is a revelation. What a handsome fellow he is!—no darker than a Spaniard, with regular features and a splendid figure. He would throw into the shade many of the curled darlings of the old land. One of his descendants, having taken high honours at Christ Church University, is obviously the man Macaulay had in his mind when he created the immortal New Zealander on London Bridge. His accent, his manner, his whole bearing, quiet, dignified, easy. Why, he has quite English club form! And where can he have got it? At any rate, there will be some one to talk to on the way, and as he is a master of Maori as well as English, he will be invaluable as an interpreter."

Preliminaries are hateful things at best, but after the usual hindrances a start was made tolerably early in the day, and ere long our hero was inducted into the peculiarities of forest wayfaring, as at that time practised in New Zealand.

He had scorned the idea of performing any part of it by sea or coach, having heard that all the pioneers, aristocratic or otherwise, had been noted for their pedestrian prowess.

So, with Warwick leading the way with the packhorse, and he himself doughtily surmounting rock or [Pg 101] log, or thrusting between brambles and climbers, he realized that he was at length actively engaged in the adventurous experiences he had come so far to seek.

They did not always keep to the rude highways, or accepted tracks of ordinary travellers; Warwick seemed, without bestowing thought or care upon the matter, to journey upon a line of his own. It invariably turned out to be the correct one, as it cut off angles and shortened the distances, always striking points on the main trail which he had previously described. All the available stopping-places on the road were thoroughly well known to him, and between the more desirable inns and accommodation houses, at all of which Warwick was evidently the bienvenu, and the historical localities near which Massinger was prone to linger, no great progress was made. However, time being no object, they wandered along in a leisurely and satisfactory way, Massinger congratulating himself again and again on his good fortune in having secured such a guide and companion.

At Mercer, on their third day out, Mr. Massinger was gladdened with his first sight of the Waikato, that noble river around which so many legends have been woven, on whose banks so much blood has been shed, on whose broad bosom the whale-boat has succeeded the canoe, the steamer the whale-boat. His spirits rose to enthusiasm as they traversed the country between the river and the lakes of Waikare and Rangarui. While at Taupiri, he marked the groves—actual groves, as he exclaimed—of peach and cherry trees planted by the missionaries in past days. Then leaving the river, they entered on the great Waikato plain.

[Pg 102]

"All this is very pleasant," he said one morning; "though, but for the absence of red-tiled farmhouses and smock-wearing yokels, I might as well be back in Herefordshire. What I am dying to see, is a decent-sized village—kainga, don't you call it?—where I may see the noble Maori with his meremere, his pah, and his wharepuni, in all his pristine glory unsullied by pakeha companionship."

"I think I can manage that for you," replied Warwick, with an amused smile, "between here and Oxford."

"What, more England?" said Massinger. "Why not Clapham and Paddington at once?"

"Well, you must bear with Lichfield," continued Warwick. "We can turn off there and make for Taupo. Before we get there, I can promise you one real Maori settlement, as well as another rather more important, at Taupo on the lake."

"And a chief?" queried the wayfarer. "I must have chiefs. A real Rangatira."

"I believe Waka Nene, warrior, high chief, and ally of England, is on a visit at the first one we come to," said the guide, "and he should satisfy your