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I was foolish in making the last statement, but the sight of the glorious sunbeams, striking down into the abyss, had made me blind to the difficulties that were yet to be faced! And the Maori's chant must surely be true! Now that it had brought us to the light, I could not but believe that it would bring us to liberty. The slippery chute brought a suggestion from Holman.
The last carrot was eaten, and a cautious excursion to Summers' orchard produced nothing, Maori's warning bark driving the boys back to the Gaol Quarry, empty and disconsolate. Billy could hold out no longer, but he did not meditate an open desertion.
Wits much less acute than a Maori's would appreciate the difference between hacking at hardwood trees with a jade tomahawk, and cutting them down with a European axe. So New Zealand's shores became, very early in this century, the favourite haunt of whalers, sealers, and nondescript trading schooners. Deserters and ship-wrecked seamen were adopted by the tribes.
"Did you ever meet with an Englishman named Jeremiah Thompson?" he asked. A smile passed over the Maori's face. "Meet him?" he repeated. "Why, I ate him!" No Place Like Home A Bostonian died, and when he arrived at St. Peter's gate he was asked the usual questions: "What is your name, and where are you from ?" The answer was, "Mr. So-and-So, from Boston." "You may come in," said St.
But as time went on that fear grew less, and just at sunset one evening, as Ngati turned the shoulder of one of the mountains and stood pointing, Don set up a shout which Jem echoed, for there beneath them in a valley, and about a quarter of a mile from the shimmering sea, lay a cluster of cottages, such as could only have been built by Europeans, and they realised now what had been the Maori's thoughts in bringing them there.
But at the same moment the man had cut the first Maori's bands, and then went on behind the rank, cutting the line that bound seven, who stood staring wildly.
Some of his reminiscences, embodied in a volume entitled Old New Zealand, still form the best book which the Colony has been able to produce. Nowhere have the comedy and childishness of savage life been so delightfully portrayed. Nowhere else do we get such an insight into that strange medley of contradictions and caprices, the Maori's mind.
Volkner was denounced as a spy, because he had travelled so often between Opotiki and Auckland. Nothing could be brought against Grace, except the old charge of taking away the Maori's land. "Neither Mr. Volkner nor I have any land," said the missionary. The Maoris seemed by this time somewhat ashamed of their barbarity, and Grace was allowed his liberty to go about the pa.
Not for some days did the chaplain know of the Maori's presence, but, as the ship entered warmer latitudes, Marsden observed on the forecastle among the sailors a man whose dark skin and forlorn condition appealed strongly to his sympathy. Ruatara was wrapped in an old great coat, racked with a violent cough, and was bleeding from the lungs. Though young, he seemed to have but a few days to live.
They had been furnished with a snug hut, close to one of the roughly-made hot water baths, and were fairly well supplied with food, which they augmented by going out in Ngati's canoe, and catching abundance of fish, to the Maori's great delight; for he gazed with admiration at the skilful methods adopted by Jem, who was no mean angler.
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