Chapter IV: Part 4

Old roots and broken branches drifted in to shore were strewing the beach. But as the boys were soon obliged to take a wider circle to collect them, Edwin was so much afraid of losing his little brother he dare not let go his hand. Then he found a piece of rope in the pocket of "father's coat," and tied their arms together. So they went about like dogs in leash, as he told Cuthbert. If dogs did their hunting in couples, why should not they?

Meanwhile Audrey, whose heart was in the hills, was watching landwards from the little window at the back of the hut. Edwin's pyramid of fire shot fitful gleams above the roof and beyond the black shadow of the shanty wall. Beauty, who had never known the luxury of a stable until he came into the hands of his new masters, was well used to looking out for himself. He had made his way round to the back of the hut, and now stood cowering under the broad eaves, seeking shelter from the raging blast.

Where the firelight fell Audrey could faintly distinguish a line of road, probably the one leading to the mansion. To the left, the wavering shadows cast upon the ground told her of the near neighbourhood of a grassy embankment, surmounted by a swinging fence of wire, the favourite defence of the sheep-run, so constructed that if the half-wild animals rush against it the wire swings in their faces and drives them back. She heard the mournful howling of a dog at no great distance. Suddenly it changed to a clamorous bark, and Audrey detected a faint but far-away echo, like the trampling of approaching horsemen.

She pushed the window to its widest and listened. Her long fair hair, which had been loosely braided for the night, was soon shaken free by the raging-winds, and streamed about her shoulders as she leaned out as far as she could in the fond hope that some one was coming.

The knitted shawl she had snatched up and drawn over her head when she jumped into her father's arms was now rolled up as a pillow for Effie. She shivered in the wintry blast, yet courted it, as it blew back from her the heated clouds of whirling ashes. Faint moving shadows, as of trees or men, began to fleck the pathway, and then a band of horsemen, galloping their hardest, dashed across the open.

Audrey's pale face and streaming hair, framed in the blackness of the shadowing roof, could not fail to be seen by the riders. With one accord they shook the spades they carried in the air to tell their errand, and a score of manly voices rang out the old-world ballad,--

"What lads e'er did our lads will do;
Were I a lad I'd follow him too.
He's owre the hills that I lo'e weel."

Audrey waved her "God-speed" in reply. With their heads still turned towards her, without a moment's pause, they vanished in the darkness. Only the roll of the chorus thrown back to cheer her, as they tore the ground beneath their horses' hoofs, rose and fell with the rage of the storm--

"He's owre the hills we daurna name,
He's owre the hills ayont Dumblane,
Wha soon will get his welcome hame.
My father's gone to fecht for him,
My brithers winna bide at hame,
My mither greets and prays for them,
And 'deed she thinks they're no to blame.
He's owre the hills," etc.

The last faint echo which reached her listening ears renewed the promise--

"What lads e'er did our lads will do;
Were I a lad I'd follow him too.
He's owre the hills, he's owre the hills."

The voices were lost at last in the howl of the wind and the dash of the waves on the angry rocks. But the music of their song was ringing still in Audrey's heart, rousing her to a courage which was not in her nature.

She closed the window, and knelt beside the sleeping Effie with a question on her lips--that question of questions for each one of us, be our emergency what it may--"Lord, what wouldest thou have me to do?" She was not long in finding its answer.

*CHAPTER VIII.*

*A RAGING SEA.*

The boys rushed in exclaiming, "Audrey, Audrey! the ship is foundering! The men are getting off into the boat, and they can't keep its head to the sea. She swings round broadside to the waves, and must be filling. Is there a rope about the hut--anywhere, anywhere; a long, strong rope, dear Audrey?"

How should she know what was in the hut? But she knew what was put in the cart: the ropes which tied the load were there. She had pulled them out of the shed with the harness herself.

Off went Edwin, shouting, "A rope! a rope! a kingdom for a rope!"

Cuthbert released himself from the leash, which was dragging him along too fast, and ran back to his sister.

"Did you hear the singing?" she asked. "Did you see the men ride past? They are gone to the rescue, Cuth; they are gone to father's help. May God reward them all."

"And will you come to ours?" he said. "Audrey, you could feed the fire. Edwin and I have got a lot of wood together. You have only to keep throwing it on; and then I can help Edwin."

"'What lads e'er did our lads will do;
Were I a lad I'd follow him too,'"

she answered, slipping her shawl from under Effie's head and tying it once more over her own. They went out together. Cuthbert helped her up the rock, pulled a big root in to the front of the fire to make her a seat, and left her a willing stoker. He had pointed out the tiny cockle-shell of a boat--a small dark speck beyond the sheet of boiling foam, with the hungry, curling waves leaping after it.

Could it escape swamping in the outer line of breakers it could never hope to cross? It was running before them now. Edwin had put Beauty once more into the cart, and was carefully knotting the rope to the back of it.

He had learned to tie a safety-knot--a sailor's knot--on their voyage out. Thank God for that! It whiled away an idle hour at the time; now it might prove the saving of human creatures' lives. That the cart was heavy and lumbering and strong was cause for rejoicing.

"You and I, Cuth, could not pull a man through such a sea; but Beauty can. We know how well he crossed the ford. I shall back him into the water as far as ever I can, and then jump into the cart and throw the rope. You see my plan?"

"I do," said Cuth; "but as soon as you leave go of Beauty's head he'll come splashing back again out of the water. You must have me in the cart to hold his reins."

"I dare not," protested Edwin. "A shrimp like you would be washed out to sea in no time; and I promised father to take care of you. No, Cuth, you are not yet ten years old."

"I am sure I look a good bit older than that, in father's coat," urged Cuthbert, looking down upon himself with considerable satisfaction; but Edwin was inexorable. "Tie me in the cart, then," cried Cuthbert.

"Where is the old leash?"

It was quickly found, and Edwin owned the thought was a good one.

When all was ready a sudden impulse prompted them to run back into the hut and look at Erne, and then up the rock for a final word with Audrey. They found her already wet with the salt sea spray, and almost torn to pieces by the wind, but, as Edwin said, "at it all the same."

The final word was spoken, reiterated, shouted; who, alas! could hear it in the rage of the storm? So it came to a snatch of kiss, and away they ran, leaving Audrey with the impression that the moving lips were trying to repeat, "Keep us a jolly blaze."

Voice being useless on such a morning, Audrey made answer by action, and flung her brands upon the fire with such rapidity that the column of flame rose higher and higher, flinging its fitful gleams across the sands, where the boys were busy.

The recent voyage had taken away all fear of the sea even from Cuthbert, who was already tied to the front of the cart, with Beauty's reins in his hand, holding him in with all his might. Edwin, with his teeth set and a white look about his lips, had seized the horse's head, and was backing him into the water. Splash, splash into the wall of wave, rising higher and higher at every step, and almost lifting Edwin off his feet. Then he swung himself into the cart by Cuthbert's side. Beauty felt his firmer grasp as the reins changed hands, and turning his head with a look in his resolute eye that showed him a willing partner in the daring plan, he reversed the position, choosing rather to breast the opposing billows. Edwin let him have his way, and with a dash and a snort he plunged into their midst, carrying the boys full fifteen yards into the raging sea. The brothers clung to the cart as the waves dashed in their faces. Caps were gone in a moment. The cart was filling. Beauty held his head high above the water, and struggled on another yard or so. Then Edwin felt they must go no further, and turned the cart round.

It was no easy matter to make Beauty stand. His natural sense of danger, his high intelligence, his increasing love for the boys, all prompted him to bring them out of the water, not to stay in it. He was bent on rushing back to dry ground, as Cuthbert had predicted. The boys thundered "Whoa, whoa!" with all the endearing epithets they were wont to lavish upon him in his stable. He was brought to a stand at last, and Edwin, raising himself on the side of the cart, looked round for the boat.

It was nowhere. His heart sank cold within him.

"O Cuth, we are too late, too late!" he groaned.

Then Audrey's fire sent up a brighter blaze, and hope leaped lightly into life once more, and he cried out joyfully, "I see it!" but stopped abruptly, almost drawing back his words with bated breath.

The momentary glimpse had shown him the luckless boat, blown along by the force of the wind, without the help of an oar, dash into the bursting crest of a giant roller. It flung the boat across the line of boiling foam. The men in it, finding their oars useless, were kicking off their boots, preparing for a swim. He knew it by their attitudes. He seized the pole they had put in the cart to use as a signal. It was a willow sapling, torn up by its roots, which they had found when they were gathering the firewood.

Cuthbert had peeled off the bark at the thin end, whilst Edwin had twisted its pliant boughs into a strong hoop, to tie at the end of his rope.

As Edwin raised it high above his head--a tall, white wand, which must be conspicuous in the surrounding darkness--he saw the boat turn over, the angry waves rush on, and all was gone. A cry of dismay broke from the brothers' lips: "Lord help us, or they perish!"

"I could not have done this without you, Cuth. We are only two boys, but now is our hour."

Edwin had learned a great deal from the sailors' stories during their voyage, and he had been a crack kite-flier on the playground at his English school; so that he was quite alive to the importance of keeping his rope free from entanglement, which really is the vital point in throwing a rope at sea. He had laid it carefully on the bottom of the cart, fold upon fold, backwards and forwards, and Cuth had stood upon it to keep it in place. The hoop lay on the top of the coil, and to the hoop he had tied the plaid-scarf from his own neck, to serve it as a sail.

The paralyzing fear came over him now that whilst they were doing all this the time for help had gone by. "But we won't stop trying," he said, "if it seems ever so hopeless; God only knows."

He took his brother's place on the coil of rope, and unfolding a yard or two, flung the hoop from him, taking aim at the spot where the boat had capsized. The wind caught the scarf and bore the hoop aloft; Edwin let his rope go steadily, fold after fold. Would it carry it straight? Would the men see his scarf fluttering in the wind? He felt sure a hand might catch the hoop if they only saw it. But, alas, it was so small! He leaned against his brother back to back, and if the hot tears came it was because he was only a boy. Cuthbert put a hand behind him. There was comfort to him in the touch. One burning drop just trickled on his thumb.

"What, you crying!" he exclaimed; "is not praying better?"

"God have mercy on us!" burst from Edwin's lips; and Cuthbert echoed back the gasping words. Had they ever prayed like that before? All, all that was in them seemed to pour itself forth in that moment of suspense, when God alone could hear.

The rope tightened in Edwin's grasp; something had clutched it at last. The tug had come. Would his knots give way? He was faint with the fear that his work was not well done--not strong enough to stand the strain which he felt was increasing every moment. It seemed to him, as he watched with every sense alert and tried to its uttermost, that each successive earthquake shock, as it heaved the land, sent a corresponding wave across the sea. One of these had carried out his hoop, and he knew he must wait until it subsided to draw his rope in, or it might snap like pack-thread under the awful strain.

"O Edwin, I am getting so tired!" said little Cuth, in a tone of such utter exhaustion it went like a knife through his brother to hear him.

"Only another minute," he replied; "just another minute--if we can hold on."

The longed-for lull was coming. Edwin gave Beauty his head; but the poor horse was stiffened with standing, and almost refused to move. Then Edwin tied himself to the cart.

"O Beauty, if you fail us we are done!"

The despairing cry roused the torpid energies of the horse. With a stretch and a snort he tugged and strained, dragging his load a yard or two landwards. A man's head appeared above the water. The joy of the sight brought back hope and capability. It was but a spasmodic effort; but Beauty caught the thrill of joy animating the boyish voices, cheering him on to renewed exertions. The wheels splashed round in the water; a cloud of muddy spray rose between Edwin and the rescued man. He could not see the sailor's face. The fire was dying. Was all the wood they had gathered--all that great heap--burnt up at last?

Audrey raked the dying brands together, and a fresh flame shot upwards, and by its welcome radiance Edwin was aware of two hands working their way along the tightened rope, one over the other, towards the cart.

The tightened rope! Yes; that was proof that some one had grasped the hoop. In another moment that stranger hand was clasping Edwin's in the darkness that was following fast upon those fitful flames.

"Hold hard!" shouted a stentorian voice, and a man got up into the cart beside him. A deep-drawn breath, a muttered prayer, and the strong, powerful hands clasped over Edwin's, and began to draw in the rope.

Not a word was said, for the boys had no voice left to make themselves heard. The last shout of joy to Beauty had left them spent and faint. The stranger, surprised at the smallness and feebleness of the hand he now let go, gently pushed the boy aside and took his place. Edwin leaned against the front of the cart beside his brother, dead beat and scarcely conscious of anything but a halo of happiness radiating from the blessed consciousness which found expression in a murmured, "Cuth, old boy, we've done it."

The reins fell slack on Beauty's neck, but the good horse needed no guiding. He seemed aware that two more men got up into the cart, and when a pause followed he gave his proud head a triumphant toss, and brought them up out of the water. There were three men in the cart and twice as many more holding on by the rope.

Audrey ran down from the dying fire to meet them.

A strange, unnatural kind of twilight, a something weird and ghastly, belonging to neither day nor night, seemed to pervade the land, and shed a sepulchral gleam across the men's pale faces. Audrey pushed open the door of the hut and beckoned to the sailors to enter.

They gathered round her, shaking the salt water from their dripping garments, and uttering broken exclamations of surprise and thankfulness. She saw a boy in the midst of the group limping painfully. As she hurried up to his assistance, she discovered that it was neither Edwin nor Cuthbert; but he grasped her outstretched hand so thankfully she could not withdraw it. There was a wildness in the alarm with which she began to ask them for her brothers the men could not mistake. They gave the forlorn girl an almost unanimous assurance that they knew nothing of her brothers. For the men clinging to the rope had not seen the boys in the cart. "But," added one heartily, "we'll protect you, for there is wild work afoot somewhere to-night. We have heard the cannonading, broadside after broadside, or we should not have gone rock-hunting in the dark. It is fool's work--you can give it no better name--coasting along a dangerous shore, with a sky too black for moon or star to penetrate."

"Yon's the little maid who fed the beacon," said another. "I saw her move across the front of the fire and throw her sticks upon it. God bless her! Every minute I thought we should see her blown over into the sea."

"Not me, not me," interposed poor Audrey.

Getting free in her desperation, and pressing between the sailors, she ran towards Beauty, who was slowly lagging round to the back of the hut.

"If my brothers are missing," she cried, "they must have been washed out of the cart." She clasped her hands before her eyes to shut out the sight of the drowning boys which imagination was picturing, and so failed to perceive the two weary heads leaning against the side of the cart. It was but a moment of agony, one of the unfounded alarms which always cluster round a real danger and follow the shock of dread like its shadow.

"Edwin, Edwin! where are you?" she cried.--"Cuthbert, Cuthbert! come to me!"

The rocks gave back the hollow echo, "Come to me!"

But she did not hear two faint voices feebly expostulating, "We tied ourselves to the cart, and we can't undo the knots. We are here, like two galley-slaves chained to the oars, and we can't get out."

A shock of earthquake sent Beauty with a shiver of terror straight to the open. The men threw themselves on their faces, knowing how easily they might lose their footing on the reeling ground; whilst Audrey, neglecting this precaution, went over like a nine-pin.

The hut shook as if its carefully-piled walls were about to give way, and Audrey, who had seen their house go down in the beginning of this fearful night, shrieked out for Effie.

As the tremor subsided, and the sailors gathered from poor Audrey's broken sentences some idea of the awful catastrophe on land, they turned from the hut, judging it safer to remain in the open.

Mates were looking out for mates. Were they all there? Captain, boatswain, cook--not one of the little coaster's crew was missing. Passengers all right: a gold-digger from Otago, the schoolboy from Christchurch. Are all saved? Only the hand which threw the rope was missing.

Who backed the cart into the sea? they asked; and where was Oscott?

When they learned from Audrey's frantic replies that every man had gone to the rescue, and the little fugitives had been left in the hut alone, the sailors' desire to find the missing boys was as earnest as her own.

They pointed to the cart jogging steadily across the grassy plain, dotted with sheep, and shaded here and there by groups of stately trees.

"God bless the young heroes!" they exclaimed. "Why, there they are--off to the mansion to beg for tucker for us all."

Audrey, set at rest from this last great fear, escaped from her questioners, and retreated to Effie and the empty hut, saying reproachfully,--

"How just like Edwin! But they might have told me what they were going to do."

It seemed a moment's reprieve. There was nothing more to be done. Audrey sank upon the bed of fern leaves, weary and wet and worn, unable any longer to resist the craving for a little sleep.

The sailors lit a fire on the open grass beyond the hut, and grouped themselves round it to talk and rest. The poor fellows who had been dragged to shore, clinging to the rope, found their shoeless feet cut and bleeding from the sharp edges of the oyster-shells with which the sands were studded. But when an hour or more passed by, the sunless noon brought with it sharper pangs of hunger to them all.

No cart had returned, no boundary rider had put in an appearance, and the men began to talk of a walk over the grass to find the mansion. They were all agreed as to the best course for them to pursue. They must turn "sundowners"--the up-country name for beggars--tramp across to the nearest port, begging their way from farm to farm. They knew very well no lonely settler dare refuse supper and a night's lodging to a party of men strong enough to take by force what they wanted.

The embankment with its swinging fence, the shepherd's hut where the girls were sleeping, told them where they were--on the confines of a great sheep-run. Their route must begin with the owner's mansion, which could not be very far off, as there was no food in the hut, and no apparent means for cooking any, so Audrey had told them. But now the storm was dying, the captain rose to look round the hut for himself. He was wondering what to do with the Christchurch boy he had undertaken to land at another great sheep-run about twenty-five miles farther along the coast It was of no use to take him back with them, a hundred miles the other way. He hoped to leave him at the mansion. The owner must be a wealthy man, and would most likely undertake to put the boy on board the next steamer, which would pass that way in a week or ten days.

So he called to the boy to go with him, and explained his purpose as they went. They waked up Audrey, to ask the owner's name.

"Feltham," she answered, putting her hand to her head to recall her scattered senses; between rabbiters and sailors she was almost dazed.

To be left alone again in that empty hut, without food, without her brothers, was enough to dismay a stouter heart than hers. The captain spoke kindly.

"I want to see you all safe in this sheep-owner's care before I leave you," he said. "It was stupid in those brothers of yours to go off with the cart, for you are too exhausted to walk."

"Did you ever hear the name of Bowen in these parts?" asked the Christchurch boy eagerly, nursing a bleeding foot the while.

Audrey thought of the kind old gentleman in Ottley's coach, and answered, brightening.

"I am his grandson," the boy replied. "I am Arthur Bowen."

*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 Hepe, 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.