Chapter III: Part 3

Edwin's thoughts had gone back to the corduroy road, which Dunter had told him was made of the trunks of trees laid close together, with a layer of saplings on the top to fill up the interstices. He was making it in miniature with some bits of rush and reed scattered about the stables, when the latch was softly lifted, and Whero stood before him. Not the Whero he had parted from by the white pines, but the lean skeleton of a boy with big, staring eyes, and bony arms coming out from the loose folds of the blanket he was wearing, like the arms of a harlequin. Edwin sprang up to meet him, exclaiming, "Your grandfather is here." But instead of replying, Whero was vigorously rubbing faces with his good old Beauty.

"Have you come to meet your grandfather?" asked Edwin.

"No," answered the boy abruptly. "I've come to ask Ottley to take me to school." His voice was hollow, and his teeth seemed to snap together at the sight of the bread in Edwin's hand.

"Whero, you are starving!" exclaimed Edwin, putting the remainder of his supper into the dusky, skinny fingers smoothing Beauty's mane.

"A man must learn to starve," retorted Whero. "The mother here will give me food when I come of nights and talk to Ottley."

"But your own mother, Whero, and Ronga, and the children, how do they live?" Edwin held back from asking after Nga-Hepe, "for," he said, as he looked at Whero, "he must be dead."

"How do they live?" repeated Whero, with a laugh. "Is the door of the whare ever shut against the hungry? They go to the pah daily, but I will not go. I will not eat with the men who struck down my father in his pride. I wander through the bush. Let him eat the food they bring him--he knows not yet how it comes; but his eyes are opening to the world again. When he sees me hunger-bitten, and my sister Rewi fat as ever, he will want the reason why. I will not give it. His strength is gone if he starves as I starve. How can it return? No; I will go to school to-morrow before he asks me."

Edwin's hand grasped Whero's with a warmth of sympathy that was only held in check by the dread of another nasal caress, and he exclaimed, "Come along, old fellow, and have a look at your grandfather too."

There was something about the grand old Maori's face which made Edwin feel that he both could and would extricate his unfortunate daughter from her painful position.

"It is a fix," Edwin went on; "but he has come to pull you through, I feel sure."

Still Whero held back. He did not believe it was his grandfather. _He_ would not come without a following; and more than that, the proud boy could not stoop to show himself to a stranger of his own race in such a miserable guise. He coiled himself round in the straw and refused to stir.

"Now, Whero," Edwin remonstrated, "I call this really foolish; and if I were you I would not, I could not do it, speak of my own mother as one of the women. I like your mother. It rubs me up to hear you--" The boy stopped short; the measured breathing of his companion struck on his ear. Whero had already fallen fast asleep by Beauty's side.

"Oh, bother!" thought Edwin. "Yet, poor fellow, I won't wake you up, but I'll go and tell your grandfather you are here."

He went out, shutting the door after him, and encountered Mr. Hirpington coming in with his men.

"Hollo, Edwin, my boy, what brings you here?" he exclaimed.

"Please, sir, I came over with a packet of letters for Mr. Ottley to post," was the quick answer, as Edwin walked on by his side, intent upon delivering his father's messages.

"All right," was the hearty response. "We'll see. Come, now I think of it, we can send your father some excellent hams and bacon we bought of the Maoris. Some of poor Hepe's stores, I expect."

"That was a big shame," muttered Edwin, hotly, afraid to hurt poor Whero's pride by explaining his forlorn state to any one but his grandfather.

He entered the well-remembered room with the fordmaster, looking eagerly from side to side, as Mr. Hirpington pushed him into the first vacant seat at the long table, where supper for the "coach" was going forward. Edwin was watching for the old chief, who sat by Ottley, gravely devouring heap after heap of whitebait, potatoes, and pumpkins with which the "coach" took care to supply him. Mrs. Hirpington cast anxious glances round the table, fearing that the other passengers would run short, as the old Maori still asked for "more," repeating in a loud voice, "More, more kai!" which Ottley interpreted "food." Dunter was bringing forth the reserves from the larder--another cheese, the remains of the mid-day pudding, and a huge dish of brawn, not yet cold enough to be turned out of the mould, and therefore in a quaky state. The old chief saw it tremble, and thinking it must be alive, watched it curiously.

"What strange animals you pakehas bring over the sea!" he exclaimed at last, adding, as he sprang to his feet and drew the knife in his belt with a savage gesture, "I'll kill it."

The laughter every one was trying to suppress choked the explanation that would have been given on all sides. With arm upraised, and a contorted face that alone was enough to frighten Mrs. Hirpington out of her wits, he plunged the knife into the unresisting brawn to its very hilt, utterly amazed to find neither blood nor bones to resist it. "Bah!" he exclaimed, in evident disgust.

"Here, Edwin," gasped the shaking fordmaster, "give the old fellow a spoon."

Edwin snatched up one from the corner of the table, and careful not to wound the aged Maori's pride, which might be as sensitive as his grandson's, he explained to him as well as he could that brawn was brawn, and very jolly stuff for a supper.

"Example is better than precept at all times," laughed Mr. Hirpington. "Show him what to do with the spoon."

Edwin obeyed literally, putting it to his own lips and then offering it to Kakiki. The whole room was convulsed with merriment. Ottley and Mr. Hirpington knew this would not do, and exerted themselves to recover self-control sufficiently to persuade the old man to taste and try the Ingarangi kai.

He drew the dish towards him with the utmost gravity, and having pronounced the first mouthful "Good, good," he worked away at it until the whole of its contents had disappeared. And all the while Whero was starving in the stable.

"I can't stand this any longer," thought Edwin. "I must get him something to eat, I must;" and following Dunter into the larder, he explained the state of the case.

"Wants to go by the coach and cannot pay for supper and bed. I see," returned Dunter.

Edwin thought of the treasure by the white pines as he answered, "I am afraid so."

"That's hard," pursued the man good-naturedly; "but the missis never grudges a mouthful of food to anybody. I'll see after him."

"Let me take it to him," urged Edwin, receiving the unsatisfactory reply, "Just wait a bit; I'll see," as Dunter was called off in another direction; and with this he was obliged to be content.

Ottley was so taken up with the aged chief--who was considerably annoyed to find himself the laughing-stock of the other passengers--that Edwin could not get a word with him. He tried Mr. Hirpington, who was now talking politics with a Wellingtonian fresh from the capital. Edwin, in his fever of impatience, thought the supper would never end. After a while some of the passengers went off to bed, and others drew round the fire and lit their pipes.

Mrs. Hirpington, Kakiki, and the coachman alone remained at the table. At last the dish of brawn was cleared, and the old Maori drew himself up with a truly royal air. Taking out a well-filled purse, in which some hundreds of English sovereigns were glittering, he began counting on his fingers, "One ten, two ten--how muts?" (much).

Ottley, who understood a Maori's simple mode of reckoning better than any one present, was assisting Mrs. Hirpington to make her bill, and began to speak to Kakiki about their departure.

The fordmaster could see how tired the chief was becoming, and suddenly remembered a Maori's contempt and dislike for the wretched institution of chairs. He was determined to make the old man comfortable, and fetching a bear-skin from the inner room, he spread it on the floor by the fire, and invited Kakiki to take possession. Edwin ran to his help, and secured the few minutes for talk he so much desired. Mr. Hirpington listened and nodded.

"You will have to stay here until the morning," he added, "every one of you. Go off with Dunter and make the boy outside as comfortable as you can. I should be out of my duty to let that old man cross the bush at night, with so much money about him. Better fetch his grandson in here."

Mrs. Hirpington laid her hand on Edwin's shoulder as he passed, and told him, with her pleasant smile, his bed was always ready at the ford.

Dunter pointed to a well-filled plate and a mug of tea, placed ready to his hand on the larder shelf; and stretching over Edwin's head, he unbolted the door to let him out.

The Southern Cross shone brightly above the iron roof as Edwin stepped into the yard to summon Whero. The murmur of the water as it lapped on the boating-stairs broke the stillness without, and helped to guide him to the stable-door. The lantern had burnt out. He groped his way in, and giving Whero a hearty shake, charged him to come along.

But the hand he grasped was withdrawn.

"I can't," persisted Whero; "I'm too ashamed." He meant too shy to face the "coach," and tell all he had endured in their presence. The idea was hateful to him.

Edwin placed the supper on the ground and ran back for Ottley. He found the coachman explaining to Kakiki why Marileha had refused to accept the money for the horse, and how he had kept it for her use.

"Then take this," cried Kakiki, flinging the purse of gold towards him, "and do the like."

But Ottley's "No!" was dogged in its decision.

"What for no?" asked Kakiki, angrily.

"Who is his daughter?" whispered Mr. Hirpington to his wife.

"You know her: she wears the shark's teeth, tied in her ears with a black ribbon," Mrs. Hirpington answered, sleepily.

Then he went to the rescue, and tried to persuade Kakiki to place his money in the Auckland Bank for his daughter's benefit, pointing out as clearly as he could the object of a bank, and how to use it. As the intelligent old man began to comprehend him, he reiterated, "Good, good; the pitfall is only dangerous when it is covered. My following are marching after me up the hills. If I enter the Rota Pah with the state of a chief, there will be fighting. Send back my men to their canoes. Hide the wealth that remains to my child as you say, but let that wahini" (meaning Mrs. Hirpington) "take what she will, and bid her send kai by night to my daughter's whare, that there may be no starving. This bank shall be visited by me, and then I go a poor old man to sleep by my daughter's fire until her warrior's foot is firm upon the earth once more. I'll wrap me in that thin sheet," he went on, seizing the corner of the table-cloth, which was not yet removed.

Mr. Hirpington let him have it without a word, and Ottley rejoiced to find them so capable and so determined to extricate Marileha from her peril.

"Before this moon shall pass," said Kakiki, "I will take her away, with her family, to her own people. Let your canoe be ready to answer my signal."

"Agreed," replied Mr. Hirpington; "I'll send my boat whenever you want it."

"For all that," thought Edwin, "will Nga-Hepe go away?" He longed to fetch in Whero, that he might enter into his grandfather's plans; and as, one after another, the passengers went off to bed, he made his way to Mrs. Hirpington. Surely he could coax her to unbar the door once more and let him out to the stables.

"What, another Maori asleep in the straw!" she exclaimed. "They do take liberties. Pray, my dear, don't bring him in here, or we shall be up all night."

Edwin turned away again in despair.

Having possessed himself of the table-cloth, the old chief lay down on the bear-skin and puffed away at the pipe Mr. Hirpington had offered him, in silence revolving his schemes.

He was most anxious to ascertain how his son-in-law had brought down upon himself the vengeance of the tribe amongst which he lived. "I will not break the peace of the hills," he said at length, "for he may have erred. Row me up stream while the darkness lasts, that I may have speech of my child."

"Too late," said Mr. Hirpington; "wait for the daylight."

"Are there not stars in heaven?" retorted Kakiki, rising to try the door.

"Am I a prisoner?" he demanded angrily, when he found it fastened.

Mr. Hirpington felt he had been reckoning without his host when he declared no one should leave his roof that night. But he was not the man to persist in a mistake, so he threw it open.

"I'll row him," said Dunter.

Edwin ran out with them. Here was the chance he had been seeking. He flew to the stable and roused up Whero. Grandfather and grandson met and deliberately rubbed noses by the great flat stone which Edwin had used as a horse-block. Whilst Dunter and Mr. Hirpington were getting out the boat, they talked to each other in their native tongue.

"It will be all right now, won't it?" asked Edwin, in a low aside to Ottley, who stood in the doorway yawning. But Kakiki beckoned them to the conference.

"The sky is black with clouds above my daughter's head; her people have deserted her--all but Ronga. Would they cut off the race of Hepe? Some miscreant met the young lord in the bush, and tried to push him down a mud-hole; but he sprang up a tree, and so escaped. Take him to school as he wills. When I go down to the bank I shall see him there. It is good that he should learn. The letter has saved my child."

*CHAPTER VI.*

*MIDNIGHT ALARMS.*

After his return home, Edwin felt as if mud and rain had taken possession of the outside world. The rivulet in the valley had become a raging torrent. All the glamour of the woods was gone. The fern-covered hills looked gaunt and brown. The clumps of flax and rush bent their flattened heads low in the muddy swamp before the piercing night winds. The old trees in the orchard were shattered, and their broken branches, still cumbering the ground, looked drear and desolate. The overgrowth of leaf and stalk presented a mass of decaying vegetation, dank and sodden.

One chill May morning brought a heavy snow, veiling the calm crests of the majestic hills with dazzling whiteness, becoming more intense and vivid as their drapery of mist and storm-cloud blackened. All movement seemed absorbed by the foaming cascades, tearing down the rifts and gullies in the valley slope. Every sign of life was restricted to a ghostly-looking gull, sated with dead rabbit, winging its heavy flight to the blue-black background of dripping rock.

But in this England of the Southern Seas the winter changes as it changes in the British Isles. Sharp, frosty nights succeeded. The ground grew crisp to the tread. The joyous work in the woods began. Mr. Lee went daily to his allotment with axe on shoulder and his boys by his side. His skill in woodcraft was telling. Many of the smaller trees had already fallen beneath his vigorous stroke, when the rabbiters--who glean their richest harvest in the winter nights--reappeared. They were so used to the reckless ways of the ordinary colonist--who cuts and slashes and burns right hand and left until the coast is clear--that Mr. Lee's methodical proceedings began to interest them. His first step was to clear away the useless undergrowth and half-grown trees, gaining room for charcoal fires, and for stacks of bark which his boys were stripping from the fallen trunks. His roving neighbours promised to leave their traps and snares, and help him to bring down the forest giants which he was marking for destruction.

One June evening, as the Lees were returning from a hard day's work, they passed the rabbiters going out as usual to begin their own. A slight tremor in the ground attracted the attention of both parties. As they exchanged their customary good-night, one of the rabbiters observed there was an ugly look about the sky.

The boys grumbled to each other that there was an ugly look about the ground. Although thousands of little brown heads and flopping ears were bobbing about among the withered thistle-stalks, thousands more were lying dead behind every loose stone or weedy tuft.

The ghoul-like gulls were hovering in increasing numbers, some already pouncing on their prey and crying to their fellows wheeling inland from the distant shore. No other sound disturbed the silence of the bush. The sense of profound repose deepened as they reached their home. To Mr. Lee it seemed an ominous stillness, like the lull before the storm; but in the cheerful light of his blazing fire he shook off the feeling.

The weary boys soon went to bed. For the present they were sleeping in the same room as their father, who slowly followed their example.

It was nearly midnight, when Edwin was awakened with a dim feeling of something the matter. Cuthbert was pulling him. "Edwin! Edwin!"

"What is it?" he cried. Edwin's hurried exclamation was lost in the bang and rattle all around. Were the windows coming in? He sprang upright as the bed was violently shaken, and the brothers were tossed upon each other.

"What now?" called out Mr. Lee, as the floor swayed and creaked, and he felt himself rolling over in the very moment of waking. The walls were beginning a general waltz, when the noise of falling crockery in the outer room and the howling of the rabbiters' dogs drowned every other sound.

A sickly, helpless sensation stole over them all, Mr. Lee too, as everything around them became as suddenly still--an eerie feeling which could not be shaken off. The boys lay hushed in a state of nervous tension, not exactly fear, but as if their senses were dumfoundered and all their being centred in a focus of expectation.

Effie gave a suppressed scream. Mr. Lee was speaking to her through the wall. "It is over, my dear--it is over; don't be frightened," he was saying.

"It--what it?" asked Cuthbert, drawing his head under the bed-clothes.

"Our first taste of earthquake," returned his father; "and a pretty sharp one, I fancy."

At this announcement Cuthbert made a speedy remove to his father's bed, and cuddled down in the blankets. Mr. Lee walked round the room and looked out of the window. It was intensely dark; he could see nothing.

"Oh my head!" they heard Audrey saying; "it aches so strangely."

Mr. Lee repeated his consolatory assurance that it was over, and returned to bed, giving way to the natural impulse to lie still which the earthquake seemed to produce. The violence of the headache every one was experiencing made them thankful to lie down once more; but rest was out of the question. In a little while all began again; not a violent shock, as at the first, but a continual quaking.

Mr. Lee got up and dressed. He was afraid to light a lamp, for fear it should be upset; so he persuaded his children to keep in bed, thinking they would be rolled down in the darkness by the heaving of the floor. He groped his way into the outer room, treading upon broken earthenware at every step. This was making bad worse. He went back and lit a match. It was just two o'clock.

Audrey, who heard him moving about, got up also, and began to dress, being troubled at the destruction of the plates and dishes. In ten minutes they were startled by a fearful subterranean roar. Edwin could lie still no longer. He sprang up, and was hurrying on his clothes, when the house shook with redoubled violence. Down came shelves, up danced chairs. The bang and crash, followed by a heavy thud just overhead, made Edwin and his father start back to opposite sides of the room as the roof gave way, and a ton weight of thatch descended on the bed Edwin had just vacated.

"The chimney!" exclaimed Mr. Lee. "The chimney is down!"

The dancing walls seemed ready to follow. Cuthbert was grabbing at his shoes. Mr. Lee ran to the door, thinking of his girls in the other room.

"Audrey! Effie!" he shouted, "are you hurt?"

But the weight of the falling thatch kept the door from opening. He saw the window was bulging outwards. He seized a stick standing in the corner, and tried to wrench away the partition boarding between him and his daughters. But the slight shake this gave to the building brought down another fall of thatch, filling the room with dust. Edwin just escaped a blow from a beam; but the darkness was terrific, and the intense feeling of oppression increased the frantic desire to get out.

"In another moment the whole place will be about our ears!" exclaimed Mr. Lee, forcing the window outwards, and pushing the boys before him into the open. He saw--no, he could not see, but rather felt the whole building was tottering to its fall. "Let the horses loose!" he shouted to Edwin, as he ran round to the front of the house to extricate the girls.

The boom as of distant cannon seemed to fill the air.

"O Lord above, what is it?" ejaculated one of the rabbiters, who had heard the chimney go down, and was hurrying to Mr. Lee's assistance.

Again the heavy roll as of cannon seemed to reverberate along the distant shore.

"It is a man-of-war in distress off Manakau Head," cried a comrade.

"That! man, that is but the echo; the noise is from the hills. There is hot work among the Maoris, maybe. They are game enough for anything. The cannon is there," averred old Hal, the leader of the gang.

"Then it is that Nga-Hepe blowing up the Rota Pah by way of revenge," exclaimed the first speaker.

Edwin had opened the stable-door, and was running after his father. He caught the name Nga-Hepe, and heard old Hal's reply,--

"He buy cannon indeed, when the muru took away his all not three months since!"

Edwin passed the speaker, and overtaking his father in the darkness, he whispered, "The man may be right. Nga-Hepe's wife buried his money by the roadside, by the twin pines, father. I saw her do it."

"Ah!" answered Mr. Lee, as he sprang up the veranda steps and rapped on Audrey's window. As she threw it open a gruff voice spoke to Edwin out of the darkness.

"So it was money Marileha buried?"

But Edwin gave no reply. Mr. Lee was holding out his arms to Erne, who had scrambled upon the window-sill, and stood there trembling, afraid to take the leap he recommended.

"Wrap her in a blanket, Audrey, and slide her down," said their father.

Edwin was on the sill beside her in a moment. The blanket Audrey was dragging forward was seized and flung around the little trembler, enveloping head, arms, and feet. Mr. Lee caught the lower end, and drawing it down, received his "bonnie birdie" in his fatherly arms. Edwin leaped into the darkness within.

"Quick, Audrey, quick, or the house will fall upon us," he urged.

She was snatching at this and that, and tying up a bundle in haste. Edwin pulled out another blanket from the tumbled bed-clothes, and flung it on the window-sill.

"No, no," said Audrey; "I'll jump."

She tossed her bundle before her, and setting herself low on her feet, she gave one hand to her father and the other to the gruff speaker who had startled Edwin in the darkness. They swung her to the ground between them just as the log-built walls began to roll. Edwin was driven back among the ruins, crouching under the bulrush thatch, which lay in heaps by the debris of beam and chimney, snug like a rabbit in its burrow, whilst beam and prop were falling around him. He heard Cuthbert calling desperately, "Look, look! father, father! the world's on fire!"

Edwin tugged furiously at the mass of dry and dusty rushes in which he had become enveloped, working with hands and feet, groping his way to space and air once more. The grand but terrific sight which met his gaze struck him backwards, and he sank confounded on the heap, from which he had scarcely extricated himself.

The sacred Maori hills, which at sunset had reared their snowy crests in majestic calm, were ablaze with fire. The intensity of the glare from the huge pillar of flame, even at so great a distance, was more than eyes could bear. With both hands extended before his face to veil the too terrific light, Edwin lay entranced. That vision of a thousand feet of ascending flame, losing itself in a dome of cloud blacker and denser than the blackness of midnight, might well prelude the day of doom. Unable to bear the sight or yet to shut it out, he watched in dumb amazement. White meteor globes of star-like brilliancy shot from out the pall of cloud in every direction, and shed a blue unearthly light on all around. They came with the roar as of cannon, and the rocks were riven by their fall. Huge fissures, opening in the mountain sides, emitted streams of rolling fire.

Edwin forgot his own peril and the peril of all around, lost in the immensity of the sight. The cries and groans of the rabbiters recalled him. Some had thrown themselves on their faces in a paroxysm of terror. Old Hal had fallen on his knees, believing the end of the world had come.

Edwin heard his father's voice rising calm and clear above the gasping ejaculations and snatches of half-forgotten prayer.

"Would you court blindness? Shut your eyes to the awful sight. It is an eruption of Mount Tarawera. Remember, Hal, we are in the hands of One whom storm and fire obey."

The play of the lightning around the mountain-head became so intense that the glare from the huge column of volcanic fire could scarcely be distinguished. The jagged, forked flashes shot downwards to the shuddering forest, and tree after tree was struck to earth, and fire sprang up in glade and thicket.

"To the open!" shouted Mr. Lee, blindfolding Cuthbert with his handkerchief, and shrouding Effie in the blanket, as he carried her towards the recent clearing.

Cuthbert grasped his father's coat with both hands, and stumbled on by his side. A dull, red spot in the distance marked the place where the charcoal fires were smouldering still, just as Mr. Lee had left them.

He laid his burden down in the midst of the circling heaps, which shed a warmth and offered something of a shelter from the rising blast. It was the safest spot in which he could leave the two; and charging Cuthbert to be a man and take care of his sister, he hurried away to look for Edwin.

With their backs against the sods which covered over the charring wood, the children sat with their arms round each other's necks, huddled together in the blanket, all sense of loneliness and fear of being left by themselves absorbed in the awe of the night.

Inspired by Mr. Lee's example, old Hal had rallied. He had caught Beauty, and was putting him in the cart. Audrey, with her recovered bundle on her arm, with the quiet self-possession which never seemed to desert her, was bringing him the harness from the new-built shed, which was still standing.

The gruff rabbiter, who had been the first to come to Mr. Lee's assistance, followed her for a fork to move the heaps of thatch which hemmed Edwin in. He was crossing to the ruined house with it poised upon his shoulder as Mr. Lee came up. He saw the lightning flash across the steel, and dashed the fork from the man's insensate grasp. The fellow staggered backwards and fell a senseless heap. Star-like rays were shooting from each pointing tine as the fork touched the ground, and lines of fire ran from them in every direction. Edwin saw it also, and seizing a loosened tie-beam, he gave the great heap of thatch before him a tremendous heave, and sent it over. The sodden mass of rush, heavy with frozen snow, broke to pieces as it fell, and changed the running fire to a dense cloud of smoke.

A deep-voiced "Bravo, young un!" broke from the horror-stricken rabbiters, who had gathered round their comrade. But Mr. Lee was before them. He had loosened the man's collar and torn open his shirt. In the play of the cold night air his chest gave a great heave. A sigh of thankfulness ran round the group. The lightning he had so unthinkingly drawn down upon himself had not struck a vital part.

Audrey had dropped her bundle, and was filling her lap with the frozen flags by the edge of the stream.

They dragged him away from the smoke, and Audrey's icy gleanings were heaped upon his burning head. A twitch of the nostrils was followed by a deep groan.

"He'll do," said Hal. "He's a coming round, thank God!"

With a low-breathed Amen, Mr. Lee turned away, for the cloud of smoke his boy had raised completely concealed him. The cheery "All right" which answered his shout for his son put new life into the whole party.

Audrey and her father ran quickly to the end of the house. The great beam of the roof was cleared, and Edwin was cautiously making his way across it on his hands and knees.

"Stand back!" he cried, as he neared the end, and, with a flying leap and hands outspread he cleared the broken wall, and alighted uninjured on the ground.

Mr. Lee caught hold of him, and Audrey grasped both hands.

"I'm all right," he retorted; "don't you bother about me."

A terrible convulsion shook the ground; the men flung themselves on their faces. A splendid kauri tree one hundred and seventy feet high, which shaded the entrance of the valley, was torn up by the roots, as an awful blast swept down the forest glades with annihilating force. The crash, the shock reverberating far and wide, brought with it such a sense of paralyzing helplessness even Mr. Lee gave up all for lost.

They lifted up their heads, and saw red-hot stones flying into the air and rolling down the riven slopes.

"O my little lambs!" groaned Mr. Lee, thinking of the two he had left by the charcoal fires, "what am I doing lying here, and you by yourselves in the open?"

"Get 'em away," said Hal; "the cart is still there. Put 'em all in, and gallop off towards the shore; it's our only safety."

There was too much weight in the old man's words to disregard them. Mr. Lee looked round for his other horse, which had rushed over him at a mad bound when the last tree fell. He saw it now, its coat staring with the fright, stealing back to its companion.

*CHAPTER VII.*

*THE RAIN OF MUD.*

It was about four o'clock in the morning. A new thing happened--a strange new thing, almost unparalleled in the world's history. The eruption had been hitherto confined to the central peak of Tarawera, known among the Maori tribes as Ruawahia; but now with a mighty explosion the south-west peak burst open, and flames came belching forth, with torrents of liquid fire. The force of the earthquake which accompanied it cracked the bed of the fairy lake. The water rushed through the hole upon the subterranean fires, and returned in columns of steam, forcing upwards the immense accumulation of soft warm mud at the bottom of the lake. The whole of this was blown into the air, and for fifteen miles around the mountain fell like rain. The enormous amount of steam thus generated could not find half vent enough through the single hole by which the water had poured in, and blew off the crust of the earth above it.

Showers of rock, cinders, and dust succeeded the mud, lashing the lake to fury--a fury which baffled all imagination. The roar of the falling water through unseen depths beneath the lake, the screech of the escaping steam, the hissing cannonade of stones, created a volley of sound for which no one could account, whilst the mud fell thick and fast, as the snow falls in a blizzard.

The geysers, catching the subterranean rage, shot their scalding spray above the trees. Mud-holes were boiling over and over, and new ones opening in unexpected places. Every ditch was steaming, every hill was reeling. For the space of sixty miles the earth quivered and shook, and a horrid sulphurous smell uprose from the very ground; while around Tarawera, mountain, lake, and forest were enveloped in one immense cloud of steam, infolding a throbbing heart of flame, and ascending to the almost incredible height of twenty-two thousand feet. Beneath its awful shadow the country lay in darkness--a darkness made still more appalling when the huge rock masses of fire clove their way upwards, to fall back into the crater from which they had been hurled.

As Mr. Lee caught his horse by the forelock, the first heavy drops of mud hissed on the frozen ground. In another moment they came pelting thick and fast, burning, blinding, burying everything in their path. The horse broke loose from his master's hand, and tore away to the shelter of the trees. The heavy cart lumbering at his heels alone kept Beauty from following his mate. Hal caught his rein, Edwin seized his head, as the thick cloud of ashes and mud grew denser and blacker, until Edwin could scarcely see his hand before him.

"Get in! get in!" gasped the old rabbiter.

Edwin swung himself upon the horse's back, and rode postilion, holding him in with all his might.

"The sick man first," said Mr. Lee, almost choking with the suffocating smell which rose from the earth. He lifted the poor fellow in his arms, a comrade took him by the feet, and between them they got him into the cart. Hal had resigned the reins to Edwin, and taken his place, ready to pillow the unconscious head upon his knees.

"The Lord have mercy on us!" he groaned.

Mr. Lee groped round for Audrey. Her feet were blistering through her thin boots, as she sank ankle-deep in the steaming slime, which came pouring down without intermission. Her father caught her by the waist and swung her into the back of the cart. Another of the rabbiters got up on the front and took the reins from Edwin, who did not know the way. The other two, with Mr. Lee, caught hold of the back of the cart and ran until they came to their own camp. The tents lay flat; the howling dogs had fled; but their horse, which they had tethered for the night, had not yet broken loose.

Here they drew up, sorely against Mr. Lee's desire, for he could no longer distinguish the glimmer of his charcoal fires, and his heart was aching for his children--his innocents, his babies, as he fondly called them--in that moment of dread. As the rabbiters halted, he stooped to measure the depth of mud on the ground, alarmed lest the children should be suffocated in their sleep; for they might have fallen asleep, they had been left so long.

"Not they," persisted Edwin. "They are not such duffers as to lie down in mud like this; and as for sleep in this unearthly storm--" he stopped abruptly.

"Hark!" exclaimed his father, bending closer to the ground. "Surely that was a 'coo,' in the distance."

Every ear was strained. Again it came, that recognized call for help no colonist who reckons himself a man ever refuses to answer.

Faint as was the echo which reached them, it quivered with a passionate entreaty.

"They are cooing from the ford," cried one. But another contradicted. It was only when bending over the upturned roots of a fallen tree that the feeble sound could be detected, amidst all the fearsome noises raging in the upper air.

The rabbiters felt about for their spades, and throwing out the mud from the cavity, knelt low in the loosened earth. They could hear it now more plainly.

Mr. Lee pressed his ear to the freshly-disturbed mould, and listened attentively. The cry was a cry of distress, and the voice was the voice of his friend.

The rabbiters looked at each other, aghast at the thought of returning to the thick of the storm. It was bad enough to flee before it; but to face the muddy rain which was beating them to the earth, to breathe in the burning dust which came whirling through it, could any one do that and reach the ford alive? Not one dare venture; yet they would not leave the spot.

At break of day they said, "We will go." They were glad of such shelter as the upheaved roots afforded. It was a moment's respite from the blistering, blinding rain. But whilst they argued thus, Mr. Lee was striding onwards to the seven black heaps, in the midst of which he had left his children.

The fires had long gone out; the blackness of darkness was around him. He called their names. He shouted. His voice was thick and hoarse from the choking atmosphere. He stumbled against a hillock. He sank in the drift of mud by its side. A faint, low sob seemed near him; something warm eluded his touch. His arms sought it in the darkness, sweeping before him into empty space. Two resolute small hands fought back his own, and Cuthbert growled out fiercely, "Whoever you are, you shan't touch my Effie. Get along!"

"Not touch your Effie, my game chick!" retorted Mr. Lee, with the ghost of a smile in spite of his despair.

"Oh, it is father! it is father!" they exclaimed, springing into his arms. "We thought you would never come back any more."

He thought they would never stop kissing him, but he got them at last, big children as they were, one under each arm, lifting, dragging, carrying by turns, till he made his way to the cart. Then he discovered why poor Effie hung so helplessly upon him. Both hands had tightly clinched in the shock of the explosion, and her feet dragged uselessly along the ground.

"She turned as cold as ice," said Cuthbert, "and I've cuddled her ever since. Then the mud came on us hot; wasn't that a queer thing?"

They snugged poor Effie in the blanket, and Audrey took her on her lap.

"I'm not afraid now," she whispered, "now we are all together. But I've lost the kitten."

"No," said Audrey; "I saw it after you were gone, scampering up a tree."

Mr. Lee was leaning against the side of the cart, speaking to old Hal.

They did not hear what he was saying, only the rabbiter's reply: "Trust 'em to me. I'll find some place of shelter right away, down by the sea. Here, take my hand on it, and go. God helping, you may save 'em at the ford. Maybe they are half buried alive. It is on my mind it will be a dig-out when you get there. The nearer the mischief the worse it will be. When our fellows see you have the pluck to venture, there'll be some of 'em will follow, sure and sartin."

"We are all chums here," said Mr. Lee, turning to the men. "Lend me that spade and I'm off to the ford. We must answer that coo somehow, my lads."

"We'll do what we can in the daylight," they answered.

"I am going to do what I can in the darkness," he returned, as he shouldered the spade and crossed over for a last look at his children.

Audrey laid her hand in his without speaking.

"You are not going alone, father, when I'm here," urged Edwin, springing off the horse. "Take me with you."

"No, Edwin; your post is here, to guard the others in my absence.--Remember, my darlings, we are all in God's hands, and there I leave you," said Mr. Lee.

He seized a broken branch, torn off by the wind, and using it as an alpenstock, leaped from boulder to boulder across the stream, and was up the other side of the valley without another word.

Cuthbert was crying; the dogs were whining; Audrey bent over Effie and rocked her backwards and forwards.

The cart set off. The mud was up to the axle-tree. It was slow work getting through it.

The rest of the party were busy dragging their tents out of the mire, and loading their own cart with their traps as fast as they could, fumbling in the dark, knee-deep in slush and mud.

As Beauty pulled his way through for an hour or more, the muddy rain diminished, the earth grew hard and dry. The children breathed more freely as the fresh sea-breeze encountered the clouds of burning dust, which seemed now to predominate over the mud.

They could hear the second cart rumbling behind them. The poor fellow who had been struck by the lightning began to speak, entreating his comrades to lay him somewhere quiet. "My head, my head!" he moaned. "Stop this shaking."

By-and-by they reached a hut. They were entering one of the great sheep-runs, where the rabbiters had been recently at work. Here the carts drew up, and roused its solitary inmate. One of the rabbiters came round and told Hal they had best part company.

"There are plenty of bold young fellows among Feltham's shepherds. We are off to the great house to tell him, and we'll give the alarm as we go. He'll send a party off to the hills as soon as ever he hears of this awful business. A lot of us may force a way. We'll take this side of the run: you go the other till you find somewhere safe to leave these children. Wake up the shepherds in every hut you pass, and send them on to meet us at Feltham's. If we are back by daylight we shall do," they argued.

"Agreed," said the old man. "We can't better that. Dilworth and the traps had best wait here. He will sleep this off," he added, looking compassionately at his stricken comrade.

Out came the shepherd, a tall, gentlemanly young fellow, who had passed his "little-go" at Trinity, got himself "ploughed" like Ottley, and so went in for the southern hemisphere and the shepherd's crook.

Pale and livid with the horror of the lone night-watch in his solitary hermitage, he caught the full import of the direful tidings at a word. His bed and his rations were alike at their service. He whistled up his horse and dog, and rode off at a breakneck gallop, to volunteer for the relief-party, and send the ill news a little faster to his master's door, for his fresh horse soon outstripped the rabbiters' cart. Meanwhile old Hal drove onward towards the sea. A shepherd met him and joined company, breathless for his explanation of all the terrors which had driven him from his bed. He blamed Mr. Lee for his foolhardiness in venturing on alone into such danger.

Freed at last from the clayey slime, Beauty rattled on apace. Cuthbert was fast asleep, and Edwin was nodding, but Audrey was wide awake. She gathered from the conversation of the men fresh food for fear. The "run" they were crossing was a large one. She thought they called it Feltham's. It extended for some miles along the sea-shore, and Audrey felt sure they must have journeyed ten or fifteen miles at least since they entered it. Thirteen thousand sheep on run needed no small company of shepherds. Many of them lived at the great house with Mr. Feltham; others were scattered here and there all over the wide domain, each in his little shanty. Yet most of them were the sons of gentlemen, certain to respond to the rabbiters' call. Again the cart drew up, and a glimmer of firelight showed her the low thatched roof of another shanty. Hal called loudly to a friend inside.

"Up and help us, man! There is an awful eruption. Tarawera is pouring out fire and smoke. Half the country round will be destroyed before the morning!"

Down sprang the shepherd. "We are off to Feltham's; but we must have you with us, Hal, for a guide. We don't know where we are wanted."

Edwin was wide awake in a moment. The men were talking eagerly. Then they came round, lifted the girls out of the cart, told them all to go inside the hut and get a sleep, and they would soon send somebody to see after them.

Hal laid his hand on Edwin's shoulder. "Remember your father's charge, lad," he said, "and just keep here, so that I know where to find you."

It was still so dark they could scarcely see each other's faces; but as Edwin gave his promise, Audrey sighed a startled sigh of fear. Were they going to leave them alone?

"Must," returned all three of the men, with a decision that admitted of no question.

"Afraid?" asked the shepherd, in a tone which made Edwin retort, "Not a bit."

But Audrey could not echo her brother's words. She stood beside him the picture of dismay, thinking of her father. Hal's friend Oscott picked up a piece of wood and threw it on the dying lire; it blazed up cheerily.

"My dear," said Hal, in an expostulating tone, "would you have us leave your father single-handed? We have brought you safe out of the danger. There are numbers more higher up in the hills; we must go back."

"Yes, yes," she answered, desperately. "Pray don't think about us. Go; do go!"

Oscott brought out his horse. The shepherd smiled pityingly at the children. "We'll tell the boundary-rider to look you up. He will bring the dog his breakfast, and I have no doubt Mrs. Feltham will send him with yours."

With a cheery good-night, crossed by the shepherd with a cheerier good-morning, intended to keep their spirits up, the men departed.

Edwin put his arm round Audrey. "Are you really afraid? I would not show a white feather after all he said. Come inside."

The hut was very similar to the one at the entrance of the gorge, with the customary bed of fern leaves and thick striped blanket. The men had laid Effie down upon it, and Cuthbert was kneeling beside her rubbing her hands.

"I'll tell you a secret," he whispered. "Our Audrey has gone over to the groaners."

"No, she has not," retorted Edwin. "But once I heard that Cuthbert was with the criers."

"Where are we?" asked Effie piteously.

"Safe in the house that Jack built," said her brother, wishing to get up a laugh; but it would not do.

Audrey turned her head away. "Let us try to sleep and forget ourselves."

Edwin found a horse-rug in the hut, and went out to throw it over Beauty's back, for the wind was blowing hard. There was plenty of drift-wood strewing the shore, and he carefully built up the fire. Having had some recent experience during the charcoal-burning, he built it up remarkably well, hoping the ruddy blaze would comfort Audrey--at least it would help them to dry their muddy clothes. The sound of the trampling surf and the roar of the angry sea seemed as nothing in the gray-eyed dawn which followed that night of fear.

He found, as he thought, his sisters sleeping; and sinking down in the nest of leaves which Cuthbert had been building for him, he soon followed their example. But he was mistaken: Audrey only closed her eyes to avoid speaking. She dared not tell him of their father's peril for fear he should rush off with the men, urged on by a desperate desire to share it. "I know now," she thought, "why father charged him to remain with us."

Her distress of mind drowned all consciousness of their strange surroundings. What was the rising of the gale, the trampling of the surf upon the sand, or the dashing of the tumultuous waves, after the fire and smoke of Tarawera?

But Cuthbert started in his dreams, and Edwin woke with a cry. Shaking himself from the clinging leaves, now dry as winter hay, he ran out with the impression some one had called him. It was but the scream of the sea-gull and the moan of the storm. It should have been daylight by this time, but no wintry sun could penetrate the pall-like cloud of blue volcanic dust which loaded the atmosphere even there.

It seemed to him as if the sea, by some mysterious sympathy, responded to the wild convulsions of the quaking earth. The billows were rolling in towards him mountains high. He turned from the angry waves to rebuild his fire.

Did Oscott keep it as a beacon through the night on the ledge of rock which sheltered his hut from the ocean breezes? From its position Edwin was inclined to think he did, although the men in the hurry of their departure had not exactly said so. By the light of this fire he could now distinguish the outline of a tiny bay--so frequent on the western coast of the island--a stretch of sandy shore, and beyond the haven over which the rock on which he stood seemed sentinel, a sheet of boiling foam.

And what was that? A coasting steamer, with its screw half out of the water, tearing round and round, whilst the big seas, leaping after each other, seemed washing over the little craft from stem to stern.

He flung fresh drift-wood on his beacon-fire until it blazed aloft, a pyramid of flame. "Audrey dear, Audrey," he ran back shouting, "get up, get up!"

She appeared at the door, a wan, drooping figure, shrinking from the teeth of the gale. "Is it father?" she asked.

"Father! impossible, Audrey. We left him miles away. It is a ship--a ship, Audrey--going down in the storm," he vociferated.

She clasped her hands together in hopeless despair.

Cuthbert pulled her back. "You will be blown into the sea," he cried. "Let me go. Boys like me, we just love wild weather. I shan't hurt. What is it brings the downie fit?" he asked. "Tell old Cuth."

"It is father, dear--it is father," she murmured, as his arms went round her coaxingly.

"I know," he answered. "I cried because I could not help it; but Edwin says crying is no good."

"Praying is better," she whispered, buttoning up his coat a little closer. But what was he wearing?

"Oh, I got into somebody's clothes," he said, "and Edwin helped me."

"It is father's short gray coat," she ejaculated, stroking it lovingly down his chest, as if it were all she ever expected to see of her father any more.

"So much the better," he answered, undaunted. "I want to be father to-night."

"Night!" repeated Edwin, catching up the word, "How can you stand there talking when there is a ship going down before our eyes?"

Cuthbert ran up the rocky headland after his brother, scarcely able to keep his footing in the increasing gale. There, by the bright stream of light flung fitfully across the boiling waves, he too could see the little vessel tossing among the breakers. An Egyptian darkness lay around them--a darkness that might be felt, a darkness which the ruddiest glow of their beacon could scarcely penetrate.

"You talk of night," Edwin went on, as the brothers clung together, "but it is my belief it has long since been morning. I tell you what it is, Cuth: the sun itself is veiled in sackcloth and ashes; it can't break through this awful cloud."

Young as they were, they felt the importance of keeping up the fire to warn the steamer off the rocks, and again they set to work gathering fuel. The men had said but little about the fire, because they knew it was close on morning when they departed, and now--yes, the morning had come, but without the daylight.