CHAPTER XIV.

THE CHIEF OF THE VILE TOHUNGAS.

Having made up his mind to accompany me with his daughter on our search expedition, Dreamer Grey began setting his sheep-run and his household matters in order, in view of an absence which might prove prolonged. It was necessary to engage a competent manager to look after things, and this meant a delay of at least a week, which, however, would afford ample time to prepare for the journey. During the first two or three days of this week I saw much of Grey, helping him with his sheep and various other things that had to be seen to. As a consequence we got to know and trust each other well.

Tiki, who worshipped ‘the little maiden’ as if she were a divine being, and, when she spoke to him in his own tongue, replied invariably with a mixture of acquired politeness and native poetry, half comical, half grand to listen to, had made himself and me thoroughly uneasy about that _taepo_ he had seen in Cazotl’s boat. With the wisdom of a savage, who, long accustomed to intertribal wars, knows almost intuitively _when_ he is being tracked, if not _why_, Tiki had it firmly fastened in his mind that the people on the yacht ought to be watched. As I had not informed Tiki of my suspicion that we had been tracked along the whole course of our journey, I regarded his independent view more seriously than if he had known and exaggerated my own weird feeling in regard to that wizened negro.

“Very well, Tiki,” I said, the day after our arrival, when he spoke about it, “if you think ‘the little maiden’ is in danger from those people you might keep your eye on them.”

He needed no second permission. From that time I saw very little of him for several days, but I knew he was keeping a strict eye on the movements of Cazotl and his crew. It was not until the evening of the fourth day after our arrival that my suspicions received verification, and his watchfulness nearly cost him his life.

In the evening of that day, when Grey was busy with some correspondence in his library, I strolled down into the garden, where I knew I should find Crystal, for I had seen her go out some time before with her sketching book. I had dreams of a heaven on earth--indeed, I should have been less than human if more than three days had passed over my heart without bringing my ‘love at first sight’ to a stage in which I felt that the garden where Crystal moved and had her being was a sacred place. Sweetness lingered in the air. The dreamy trees, as they rolled in the summer zephyrs, made music which could not be written down; the rustic retreat beneath the hazels was full of an influence which I can only describe as the presence of angels lingering in an atmosphere which has been purified for them. Sitting here alone late at night, I had been able to cast aside the littleness of my life and feel that by right of an ennobling love I might remain there awhile on sufferance. I was aware that a great change had taken place in me. A new world had sprung into being, and the splendour of its sun, moon, and stars was centred in Crystal.

It was with a feeling that all this must soon come to an avowal of love, as surely as water boils at a given temperature, that I sought her that evening in the garden; and, I reflected, it would in all probability reach a sudden end just as surely as the same water under different conditions freezes at a given degree, for in all sober reason, who or what was I to deserve the love of such a girl? But I went to find her all the same, and making my way to the retreat beneath the nut-trees, held aside the leaves about the entrance and looked in.

Crystal was sitting in the wicker chair with an open book on her knees. Her hat was laid aside, and a wisp of her raven hair, fanned loose from the good-natured mass, half screened her cheek.

“May I come in?” I asked.

“Yes, of course you may,” she laughed, looking up and brushing the wayward wisp back into its place again. “Come and read me some of Kawana Kerei’s legends in the original Maori.” She held up the book as she spoke.

“In the original Maori?” I said, seating myself on the rough bench against the hazel stems. “That reminds me. I saw a picture in an out-of-the-way corner of the drawing-room to-day with something in Maori written beneath it: ‘Degrade the pure one! Whose is the task? Mine! Mine!’ Did you paint that picture?”

“Yes,” she replied simply; “I painted it quite lately.”

Seeing by her manner that she was a little confused, I asked: “Is it founded on some Maori legend?”

“No; it is--it is----” She hesitated, with her eyes cast down; then, after a pause, looked up with a shy smile and asked: “Have you ever had a very vivid dream, of which you can remember every detail so accurately that it seems like a real experience?”

“No,” I said; “my imagination is not strong enough for that; but if you are going to say that picture was painted from a dream of your own I shall believe you.”

She leaned forward in her chair and half whispered: “Yes, it was; I saw it as plainly as I see you now, Wanaki,”--she had caught my Maori name from Tiki--“even more distinctly, if that is possible.”

“Tell me your dream,” I said. “I could not see the faces of the men in the picture, as the light was not good, but I judge from the legend that they were evil. It is strange that you should see unlovely things in your dreams. Will you tell it me?”

“It is rather a terrible subject,” she said, “and I don’t think I quite understood it even when I had painted the picture. Perhaps you will tell me what it means. I dreamed that I went away over the sea for thousands of miles. The silver-tipped waves shone beneath in the bright moonlight, and the little islands, fringed with palms and belted with coral, were studded everywhere on the ocean. At last I came to a vast country, where, in the interior, there were great hills and mountain lakes, impassable swamps and deep wildernesses. I saw ancient ruins and long lines of what looked like giant cactus----”

“Mexico,” I said, thinking aloud.

“It may have been; it was vast and it was tropical. In my dream I found myself standing among the ruined pillars of what must once have been a colossal temple. Now, it usually happens in a dream that one sees things vaguely, but in my dream it was different. I saw every detail. The scale-like feathers on the huge stone snakes that were coiled up the pillars, the glittering eyes of the vampire bats that clung about them, the huge green lizard that basked in a patch of moonlight on the stone floor--all these were clear and distinct, and on the heavy, broken stonework overhead, supported by the pillars, were shadowy masses of creeping plants, with here and there a glistening aloe or clump of white flowers catching the moonlight through the crevices.

“As I was looking at these things in my dream a murmur of voices came from within. I advanced between the treble row of pillars and saw a large inner space where there were a number of figures moving about a tall column. They were men of different nationalities, and they chanted a strange song while they looked up at the full moon which poured its rays down into the open space. These men had strong, evil faces, with eyes that flashed red in the moonlight; I can remember each one perfectly, and have drawn them as I saw them.”

She paused as if she were recalling the vivid scene, and, in the few moments’ silence, my mind flew back to the Vile Tohungas of the Pit gazing up at the full moon, nursing their stomachs and curling their granite lips disdainfully as they worshipped. Ngaraki, no doubt, would have read in this dream a word from his Great Tohungas of the Earth to the effect that the Vile Brotherhood of Huo still existed, striving to work out the age-long degradation of Woman, and, above all, to destroy his ancient goddess, when, as the Daughter of the Dawn, she should return. Just as the sacred fire of Hinauri had been nursed in the breasts of her guardians through pre-Maori races up to the present, so the baleful red fire of the Vile Tohungas, taken into the north by their servant fleeing from the wrath of Zun, may have been kept burning through pre-Toltec civilisations even unto this day. In spite of myself, this idea was growing upon my mind, when Crystal continued.

“While I watched, their chant to the moon ended; and, as the last notes fell, I fancied I could hear them rolling back into the distance like the close of a song sung by a great multitude in the open air. Then a large black mirror was brought out of the darkness and fixed in position so that the moonray was reflected high up on to a dark part of the smooth stone wall of the ruin. They began a wild orgy round the pillar. It came to a sudden silence, and all stood still, gazing at the moonlight on the wall. I looked also and saw, not on the rock, but in the distance through the rock, what looked like the central thoroughfare of some great city. By the glare of many lamps, high and low, I saw carriages crossing and re-crossing, while omnibuses for ever stopped and moved on again. I saw people moving to and fro upon the broad pavements; all about were women--many of them proud-looking and beautiful--who appeared to be waiting for someone. I did not understand what they were doing there, but when the men in the open space of the temple cried ‘It is well! It is well!’ I knew that the vision had shown them the working out of some great wrong.

“The picture vanished, and they returned to their orgy, which grew more terrible and furious, then stopped suddenly as before, while they remained gazing fixedly at the moonlight on the wall. A second time there came a scene--not the same place, though the people acted in just the same way--and this also was greeted with the cry, ‘It is well! It is well!’

“It vanished, and a third time the wild orgy was carried on. It reached a pitch of fury which horrified me, and, when it stopped suddenly, and they stood gazing at the wall, the vision came again. But this time it was the white figure of a woman standing among the trees of a garden far away. The place was bathed in peaceful sunlight. It was a sun-picture reflected by the moon from a distant spot. I could not see the features of the woman, but her arms were raised to the sky, and she seemed to be praying. Then, as if in answer to her prayer, there came, out of the blue, beings that seemed more like gods and goddesses than men and women. They came thronging down towards the world--men with noble looks and perfect forms, and women with serene, heavenly faces full of all the tender goodness that should belong to a woman. They appeared to separate to the four quarters of space, and I thought that here was a race of more perfect beings coming to people this earth in answer to the cry of the woman.

“At a sound of murmuring and confusion, I turned to the other watchers in the open space, and, as I did so, one among them, who seemed to be chief, stood out from the rest and held up a threatening hand towards the far-off vision. He laughed, and his voice was more animal than human. Then he roared out the words you saw beneath my picture: ‘Degrade the pure one! Whose is the task? Mine! Mine!’ and with these words ringing in my ears I woke. That was the dream; was it not strange?”

“Very strange,” I said; “but your father called me as I was glancing at the picture, and I had not time to examine it very clearly. I should like to have a good look at it if I may.”

“Yes, I’ll run and get it now.”

“Let me go,” I volunteered. But she was before me, and ran up to the house. While she was gone I cast my memory over the extraordinary dream she had related. Matter of fact as I was, I could not but see that if ever there was a meaning in a dream there was a meaning in this. The Destroyers of Woman exulting at the slow undermining of mankind in the mass, their threat hurled at Woman as the Mother of a nobler and more godlike race, their resolve to degrade her as such, so that this world should be peopled with dull, coarse forms, informed by vile minds, such as their own evil faces portrayed--all this, I reflected with astonishment, was indeed the tale of Ngaraki the savage, retold from the heart of an innocent girl.

My reflections were cut short by the reappearance of Crystal with the picture.

“See!” she said, holding it up to the full light; “that is the man who roared out the words. Why--what is--oh! Mr. Warnock, what is the matter?”

I had turned from the picture with a gasp, and had sat down on the wooden bench with my face buried in my hands. I looked up as she repeated her words and saw mingled bewilderment and concern on her lovely face.

“It is the face of a fiend,” I said, “not of a man.”

“But why are you so strange? And why do you clench your teeth like that? You’re as pale as death--surely, Wanaki, the face of a fiend on canvas cannot be so terrible to look at!”

“It is the face of a fiend,” I repeated fiercely, half beside myself with maddening fears, “not of a man.”

_It was the face of Cazotl._ And, in those evil features, I traced a resemblance which had eluded me on my first sight of the Mexican in the flesh--a resemblance to the bold granite features of the chief of the Vile Tohungas of the Pit, so fiercely cursed by Ngaraki.

Very weird to me was this strange, circumstantial suggestion that the legendary chief of the Vile Tohungas had returned to be the actual head of a brotherhood whose aims and objects were identical with those of ancient time. Yet forcible and valid seemed the conception that as the guardians of Hinauri had brought their protecting curses down from the remotest past, so her enemies, who, although driven far into the north as the aged chief had said, had preserved their continuity as a Vile Brotherhood through the ages, had handed on even into the present their hatred of the Pure One, always with the aim of destroying her or causing her to forget her Sign of Power. For awhile my shrewd, practical scepticism struggled against a strong unity of evidence derived independently from different sources. The aged chief’s belief that the Vile Ones would return, Crystal’s dream picture of the Destroyers of Women, the undeniable resemblance of their chief to Cazotl and to the granite image in the abyss--these things pointed my mind to strange conclusions; but when I reviewed the conflicting purposes of the Good and the Vile of ancient time and identified them with the conflicting purposes of Ngaraki and Cazotl, I was for a moment almost tempted to throw my common-sense to the winds and say that the ancient giants of the two priesthoods had returned again and again to the earth to continue the fierce struggle begun at the very foundations of the world. But if Cazotl were the arch enemy of Ngaraki and the would-be destroyer of Hinauri, why should he have appeared to Crystal Grey in a dream? And why, again, should he seem to be in pursuit of her? A vague apprehensive shuddering within me was the only answer to these questions.