CHAPTER XII.

THE MAN-WHO-HAD-FORGOTTEN.

Our journey to the coast, first through the dense bush and afterwards by goldseekers’ tracks, was not marked by any adventure worth mentioning. Arrived at a village on the coast line near Hokitika, we booked our passage by a whaler bound southward, and in less than a week we reached the Sounds.

Grand, solitary, majestic are the bold features of this coast line which faces the westerly breezes of the Pacific. Gentle arms of the sea caress and almost entwine great mountain rocks that stand waist deep in ninety fathoms.

Following the Scot’s directions accurately, I arranged with the captain of the whaler to put us ashore in a boat as soon as we came opposite the required Sound, which I recognised at once from Crichton’s description. The opening was almost hidden by the perpendicular rocks which stood about the entrance, but, when we passed between these in the small boat pulled by two sturdy sailors, we found a broad arm of smooth water within stretching for several miles between rugged mountains, which grew gradually rounded and verdant as they sloped away inland.

As we passed over the glassy surface of this still water among still surroundings, it seemed that we were entering a world where we should encounter no living thing but penguins and wild fowl.

The steady sound of our oars echoed from the rugged and precipitous shore; some ducks wheeled by overhead and disappeared round an elbow some hundred yards beyond, and high up above the towering rocks, the distant fleecy clouds shone in the rays of the setting sun. It was a splendid solitude, whose substance and shadow were clearly defined and divided by the millpond surface of the water.

But immediately on rounding the elbow beyond which the ducks had disappeared, we came in view of something which jarred upon our sense of solitude. There, riding at anchor in a little wooded cove before us, was a large yacht.

“Whose is that?” I asked one of the seamen who had come with us.

“I couldn’t tell you, sir,” was his response; “but there’s a bit of the Yankee about her. See them there spars”--he broke off suddenly in his speech to me and addressed the continuation of his remark excitedly to his fellow seaman--“why, blow me, Bill, if that ain’t the craft as we seen in Astrolabe Roads nigh on a month ago. What was the big chap’s name, him as was the owner?”

“Señor Cazotl,” returned the other, regarding the yacht intently. “I heard the skipper tellin’ the doctor that he was a Mexican with whips of money and a nasty look in his eye; and what’s more, if a man could be judged by his crew, he was more like Old Nick himself out for a holiday than anyone else.”

“What was the matter with his crew?” I asked.

“The matter! why, the skipper said he’d never seed a more hang-dog lookin’ lot; a man with a crew like that ought to be hanged on general principles, he ought. Some was half-castes; there was two Spaniards with murder scribbled all over ’em, and a Portuguese hunchback with a face like a wild gorilla; but the worst and curst of the whole swag was a grey-headed, skinny wisp of a nigger what gave our skipper fantods, and made him think of Thugs and Areois, and them sort of uncanny sarpints.”

“The skipper evidently didn’t care for Señor Cazotl and his crew,” I said.

“You’re right there, sir. He ups anchor an’ gets away the very next mornin’ before the Mexican had a chance of returning his visit.”

By this time we were abreast of the yacht, but we could not discern anyone on board; and, after weighing the remarks of the sailors, I did not feel greatly inclined to have anything to do with the strangers. But it fell out contrary to our inclinations, for, having avoided the yacht, we had no sooner reached the next bend than we nearly ran into its owner and two of his crew in a small boat coming down from the upper part of the sound. We were within twenty yards, when the man who was steering, evidently Cazotl himself, called upon his two rowers to cease pulling, and waved his hand to us, evidently wishing to speak. The sailors reluctantly obeyed the intimation, and, as we drew up within two oars’ lengths of each other I observed the huge, ungainly proportions of Cazotl sitting in the stern, and his evil face, whose low forehead, square protruding jaw, and leering lips were half concealed by a wealth of glossy black hair. His long, flat nose lent a peculiar interpretation to his face, and filled me with the strange fancy that if one of his first parents may have been a fiend, the other might certainly have been a giant ape. Moreover, there was a peculiar suggestion of red fire in his eyes which riveted my attention. As he drew nearer and was about to speak, I found myself wondering where I had seen that face before. The general cast and expression were familiar to me, but I could not recall where or when I had seen it.

“Good day to you,” he said. “Do you live in these parts, or are you a wandering star like myself?”

“Going to the head of the Sound for a time,” I replied shortly; “got a friend living there. Just come off a small sailing craft outside. That’s your yacht down there, isn’t it? You, I presume, are Señor Cazotl?”

“Yes, at your service. I should be very pleased if you and your friend at the head of the Sound would do me the honour of looking me up some evening.”

“Thank you,” I said. “I will mention your kind invitation to my friend, but his house is some miles up the Sound. We must push on if we hope to reach it before dark.”

The two sailors were not slow to ply their oars, and, as we began to move off, Señor Cazotl said: “I shall be very pleased to see you, if you care to come.”

But I did not reply, for my glance had fallen for the first time on the two who were handling the oars in his boat--and what I saw deprived me of speech for the moment. The one was a Spaniard with “murder scribbled all over him,” and the other was the white-haired, skinny, Thug-like wisp of a negro. I stared in amazement, for I recognised his wizened face as that which I had seen in the moonlight at the window of the hut on the bank of the river. In another moment I jerked out some reply--I cannot remember what--and we passed on towards the head of the Sound, while Cazotl’s boat continued its way towards the yacht.

The sailors, as they rowed on, talked to each other in a manner not flattering either to Cazotl or his crew, but I sat silent. Two things troubled me. Had that lithe negro tracked me through the bush, and, if so, why? And where had I set eyes on Cazotl’s face before? His yacht had been seen some weeks since in l’Astrolabe Roads, which locality was not far either from Te Makawawa’s _pa_ or from the place where I first landed from Wakatu. A shudder ran through me as I asked myself if it was possible that the Thug-like creature I had just seen had tracked me from the moment when I landed until now. In answer to my question there came into my mind that far-away laugh which I could not understand, as in each case it had followed some false step or semi-exposure of someone near at hand. The more I thought the more I was convinced that I had been tracked by this thing with the evil face; and, as it dawned upon me that, if it was so, there must be some connection between that fact and the appearance of the yacht down there near our destination, I felt forebodings which I could not dispel. I was aroused from these dark thoughts only to be plunged into darker by Tiki, who, gazing steadily after Cazotl’s boat, remarked: “Wanaki! if that _taepo_[21] catches the little maiden he will roast her in the oven. _Oa!_ I have heard the _ariki_ say, ‘Beware of the children of the Great Woman of Death and Darkness; and by this you shall know them: they have the gleam of the red fire in their eyes.’”

It was dark when the two sailors landed us at the head of the Sound, and made their way back to their ship. As far as one could see by the uncertain light of the stars, the rugged characteristics of the place here sloped off into rounded hills enclosing a broad, fertile valley, which widened out considerably before being lost among the hills inland. There were banks of trees not more than a quarter of a mile up the valley, and there I concluded we should find Grey’s house.

It was not very long before we struck a path leading up from the water. This, as we followed it, took us through green fields, where sheep and horses were grazing. Then before us we saw the great banks of trees. Coming at last to some slip bars beneath high blue-gums, we gained a square enclosure some acres in extent, in the midst of which, embowered in trees, we discerned vaguely the gables of a house. In the upstairs window of the gable facing us a light was showing through the close-drawn blind. Someone was going to bed.

Our path led us round an umbrageous orchard and brought us out on to a well-kept lawn, where, passing beneath some cedars which stood apart, their boughs moving gently between us and the stars as they whispered in the night wind, we approached the picturesque old country house.

“You stay here beneath the trees,” I said to Tiki, thinking his appearance might frighten the inmates; “and I will come for you presently.”

Then, finding my way round the verandah, I sought out the front door and knocked. Presently, through the glass panel at the side of the door, I saw a light approaching along the hall, and a moment later the door was opened by a tall man with a candle in his hand.

“Are you Mr. Grey?” I asked, recognising him from Te Makawawa’s description--a soldierly man with curling hair, brown eyes, and short, black moustache.

“That is my name,” he replied, holding the candle up and scanning my face.

I said, “I am a stranger to you, but I come from Jim Crichton, whom I met in the Karamea; and I have something important to tell you.”

“From Jim Crichton!” he said, with pleased surprise. “You are welcome, then, if your news is good or bad. Come in.”

He led me into a room that looked like a library, and proceeded to light the lamp.

“Everybody’s gone to bed,” he said, as he turned the wick up, “and I was just going myself. We’re early to bed and early to rise here. Take a seat, Mr.--let me see, you did not tell me your name.” He smiled at me kindly. In the smile and the expression of his face anyone could see that he was a man with a large heart.

“Warnock--Dick Warnock.”

“Ah! sit here, Mr. Warnock, and before you tell me your news let me get you something to eat; I daresay you’re hungry.”

He went out of the room, and I glanced around at the pictures on the wall, the books in the shelves, and the delicately arranged flowers on the table. It was the room of a successful man with refined tastes, and in many places there were gentle evidences of a feminine hand.

In a few minutes he returned, bearing a tray with various things to eat and drink, and while I was partaking of these he talked about his old friend Crichton, recalling incidents of the goldfields.

When I had finished my meal, and had tuned my pipe to his cigar, I leaned back in my chair and said: “Now to my news.”

“All in good time,” he replied with a pleasant smile; “is it good or bad?”

“It is good, but I have no doubt it will startle you, even to the extent of leading you to doubt my sanity, or at least my story.”

He raised his eyebrows and looked steadily at me for a while; then, blowing forth a cloud of smoke, he remarked quietly: “All right. I’m not easily startled. Proceed.”

“In order to find the exact point at which I must begin,” I said, “I shall have to ask you a few questions. In the first place, do you remember the hut on the bank of the river where you lived?”

“Yes, perfectly well.”

“Good. Do you remember your first coming to that hut through the Karamea bush?”

“Yes, I remember that.”

“Well now, one question more; can you remember the place you set out from on that occasion?”

Grey took his cigar from his lips and fixed his eyes on the lamp, while a dreamy, puzzled expression came on his face. At last, drawing his hand over his brow, he turned to me and said: “Perhaps it will be your turn now to doubt either my sanity or my story; but, nevertheless, what I am about to tell you is the sober truth. Four or five days before reaching that hut something happened to me, I don’t know what, but at all events I have never been able to recall anything that transpired previously. The last I can remember, and it is a very dim memory, is that I found my way down from a high place among the mountains. All beyond that is a blank in my mind--a blank containing nothing but the consciousness of something forgotten.”

“I doubt neither your sanity nor your story,” I hastened to reply. “Besides, I have ample evidence of the truth of what you say; and not only that, but I can set before you various important details of your past life which, as I said, will startle you.”

He scanned my face again more eagerly than before. “Are you an old friend whose face and name I have forgotten?” he asked wistfully.

“No, not that,” I replied. “I have my information from the Maoris. Do you know that you have a wife and daughter, Mr. Grey?”

He started. Then leaning forward over the table and looking earnestly in my face, he asked, hoarsely:

“Still living?”

“I have every reason to believe that your wife Miriam is still alive----” I paused, wondering if in his oblivion he had married again, and if, perhaps--it was a painful thought--the woman of his choice was at present the head of his household. His face, wrought with nervous emotion, told me nothing of this kind; and if I had not paused he would have interrupted me in his excitement.

“Thank Heaven!” he said, striking the table with his fist, and rising from his seat to pace the carpeted floor; “thank Heaven I have never married again. And my daughter--speak, sir--my daughter?”

“Was left at your hut fifteen years ago while you were asleep by the fire.”

He stopped in his pacing to and fro on the other side of the table and faced me with a countenance from which all traces of excitement had fled. Slowly a fine light began to burn in his brown eyes. Like a man walking in his sleep, he felt his way round the table, and, seating himself again in his chair, said in a deep, hushed voice, which had a strange ring of sweetness in it: “Crystal Grey my own child--the mother whom she has led me to love above all other women--my--own--wife. I, I, Warnock!”--he started from his chair again--“can you prove this? Quick! or I shall go mad; man, it is more than I ever dared to dream.”

Then, as clearly as I could, I laid before him the facts which the reader already knows, telling the story of Te Makawawa, but, in accordance with our understanding with the old chief, omitting all mention of the legend of Hinauri and the statue in the marble cave. As I proceeded I strengthened point by point with evidence derived from my own adventures in the mountain, with the carved piece of wood, which I handed him across the table, and with that part of Kahikatea’s adventure which involved no mention of the sacred stone.

“It is strange,” he said, when I had finished; “but for the last seventeen years, which is the only part of my life that I know, there has passed scarcely a day without some flitting reminiscence of giant rocks, with an additional dream-glimpse of something which has always eluded me. In the midst of my work, or perhaps when I am in conversation with someone, I will suddenly see in my mind’s eye a woman’s face--ah! very often that woman’s tender face--then a patch of grey rock, a smooth white stone, or a gigantic crag against the blue sky; but, beyond that, nothing, except a vague consciousness of some long chain of events which will not disclose themselves.”

When I continued my tale, and concluded with the statement of Te Makawawa’s express condition that when I returned with the child he would inquire of his ancestors concerning the whereabouts of Miriam Grey, but not before, Dreamer Grey’s eyes sparkled with purpose and resolve.

“We will go, Warnock,” he said, “we will go, the three of us together, and find my wife, if she is still alive.”

“The three of us?” I said. “You, I, and----?”

“Why, Crystal of course; she went to bed before you came. But, by Heaven! I must go and wake her and tell her this news.”

Before he had finished speaking he was out of the room and half way up the stairs. Suddenly remembering Tiki waiting beneath the cedars, I went softly out of the house with half a loaf of bread in one hand and a large piece of cold pork in the other, with which, having found him, I advised him to regale himself. But, hungry as he was, he did not begin until he had asked the question which probably he had asked himself a hundred times since I had left him: “Is the little maiden in there?”

“Yes,” I replied, “she’s in there; you’ll see her to-morrow, perhaps. Stay here and I’ll come out again soon with Pakeha Kerei, and he’ll find you some place where you can pass the night.”

“_He Wanaki_,” was all he said, but it meant a great deal. It meant that eating and sleeping were matters of no moment now that he knew ‘the little maiden’ was alive.

Leaving him, I returned to the house and waited for Grey. When he came back some time later his face was full of a gentle happiness. The discovery that Crystal Grey was not an adopted child, but his own daughter, had touched the very depths of his soul.

“Warnock,” he said, grasping my hand, “how can I ever repay you for this?”

“I am already a paid servant,” I faltered, “drawing my salary from certain trustees of a large estate at home.”

“Ah! yes,” he replied, “money might repay you for your trouble, but how can I discharge the debt of gratitude I owe to you, who have brought me this great happiness?”

“I give it up,” I said laughing; “and I advise you to do the same. In the meantime, I have a Maori waiting outside, and I took the liberty of taking him some food while you were away. He’s a bit of a savage, and perhaps it would be best for him to sleep in the barn--he would be more comfortable.”

“Yes, yes; where is he?” he asked. Then, as I led the way, he added with a merry laugh: “I suppose he’d never forgive us if we put him between sheets in a feather bed--he’d think his days were numbered, eh?”

I laughed in reply. I was becoming infected with my host’s happiness.

“Do you talk Maori?” I asked, as we found Tiki finishing his meal beneath the cedars; “this fellow can’t speak a word of English.”

“No, I can’t,” he replied, “but Crystal can. She’ll put him through his facings in the morning. Where shall we bed him down, in the barn or in the hay loft?”

“I think a bundle of straw in the corner of the verandah would be a luxury to him.”

“Right! you wait here. I’ll soon fix him up.” And he disappeared, to return presently with a lantern and a large bundle of straw which he deposited in the most sheltered part of the verandah, where, following my instructions, Tiki made his bed and turned in. We then went inside the house; and when, after a long, earnest talk, my host had shown me into the best bedroom, he said “Good-night,” and retired to rest.

Until long after everything was quiet I leaned upon the window-sill gazing at the stars, and basking in the atmosphere of happiness which had fallen upon that house. The cloth of gold roses that clustered round the window gave a faint odour, which stole softly out upon the quiet air, for the night wind had died away in the blue-gums, and the garden below was very still. The sound of a breaking twig, the sighing of the guilty aspen as its leaves turned restlessly in their sleep, the chirping of a cricket on the lawn, the munching of the horses in the stable, the hooting of an owl in the plantation, and the baying of a shepherd’s dog on the hills--these were the sounds that emphasised the stillness of the night. But suddenly, from far away, came the faint refrain of a wild, heathenish chant, rising and falling on the still night air in weird, barbaric changes. As I listened it chilled my blood, breaking through the sweet, happy silence of the place like a note of horror. I knew it came from the direction of Cazotl’s yacht. With a shudder I closed the window to shut it out.