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'Not half bad! he said, when he had completed his investigation. 'You are satisfied that Te-iki-pa knew something? If you had seen what I have seen, if you had seen the three days dead and Bude shivered slightly. 'I have seen enough. Do you know how it is done? 'No.
'Well, a miracle is not what you call logical proof, but I believe that you did see the Moa, and a still more extraordinary bird, Te-iki-pa. 'Yes, they talk of strange beasts, but "nothing is stranger than man." Did you ever hear of the Berbalangs of Cagayan Sulu? 'Never in my life, said Merton.
No man knows her nest but myself, and old Te-iki-pa, the chief medicine-man, or Tohunga, of the Maori King. The Moa's eyrie is in the King's country. It is a difficult country, and a dangerous business, if the cock Moa chances to come home. 'Bude, is this worthy of an old friend, this blague? 'Do you doubt my word? 'If you give me your word I must believe that you dreamed it.
'Not exactly, but proof that Te-iki-pa knew a thing or two, quite as out of the way as the habitat of the Moa. 'What do you want me to do? 'Bare your arm, and hold it over the bowl. The room was full of the yellow dusky light of an early summer morning in London. Outside the heavy carts were rolling by: in full civilisation the scene was strange. 'The Blood Covenant? asked Merton.
The identity of Jones Harvey remains a puzzle to the learned. The classical authority on the Berbalangs is still the paper by Mr. Skertchley in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. The evidence of Captain Funkal is rejected as 'marine. Te-iki-pa decided to remain in New York as custodian of the Moas.
Te-iki-pa, on inspection, pronounced them to be cock and hen, and in healthy condition. The breed, he said, could doubtless be acclimatised. The professors of the museum, by Jones Harvey's request, then closely examined the chickens. The American continent was now endowed, through the enterprise of Mr.
First he exhibited a skeleton of a dinornis, a bird of about twenty-five feet in height. With a touch on the mechanism he unrolled the valves of a gigantic incubator. Within, recumbent on cotton wool, the almost frenzied spectators perceived two monstrous eggs, like those of the Roc of Arabian fable. Te-iki-pa now chanted a brief psalm in his own language.
Te-iki-pa displaced his nose-ring and inserted his pearl in the orifice previously occupied by that ornament. A little chain of the pearls was hung on the padlock of the huge packing-case, which was the special care of Te-iki-pa. 'Luckily I had the yacht's painting altered before leaving England, said Bude. 'I'll sail her under Spanish colours, and perhaps they won't spot her.
The immense case that contained the discovery of Jones Harvey was also carefully conveyed to an apartment prepared for it in the same repository. The competitors sought their hotels, Te-iki-pa marching beside Logan and Jones Harvey. But, by special arrangement, either Jones Harvey or his Maori ally always slept beside their mysterious case, which they watched with passionate attention.
Bude nodded. Merton turned up his cuff, Bude let a little blood drop into the bowl, then performed the same operation on his own arm. 'This is all rot, he said, 'but without this I cannot show you, by virtue of my oath to Te-iki-pa, what I mean to show you. Now repeat after me what I am going to say.
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