CHAPTER XVI.

WHICH REVEALS THE WAY OF THE SORCERER.

After a restless night, gladdened somewhat by the thought that I had saved Crystal from a terrible fate, but for the most part troubled by fears of further danger, I rose early, and, passing through the gap in the plantation where I had encountered the wizard negro, walked over the field and down the valley towards the beach, thinking that perhaps I might learn something of Tiki’s fate.

Finding nothing to guide me, I climbed a high hill seaward, which overlooked the lower part of the Sound. From that vantage ground I could see nearly the whole of the slender arm of the sea which reached inland, the failing breath of the land breeze ruffling its waters. A glance at the sheltered cove where the yacht had been anchored told me that Cazotl had either shifted his position or put out to sea. I scanned the whole length of the Sound, and at last discerned the yacht passing into the shadows of the high cliffs which opened on to the Pacific. Her sails were swelling out to the breeze, and it was with a feeling of great relief that I watched her disappear between the high rocks. But my relief did not outlive reflection, for I soon saw that it was not at all probable that Cazotl would relinquish his object after one failure.

The sun had risen high in the sky by the time I had returned to the house, and while waiting for the breakfast-bell I strolled round the verandah. When I came to the corner dedicated to Tiki, I was surprised to find that faithful Maori coiled up on his bed of straw, wrapped in his mat, and fast asleep. He must have returned in my absence.

With an inconsiderate impatience to know what had befallen him I stooped down and touched him on the shoulder, knowing from experience that the slightest thing would wake him But he did not stir. I then shook him soundly, but he made no sign. With a sudden apprehension I bent over him and listened for his breathing. It was regular and deep; he was evidently sleeping off the effects of that strange poison, and, as far as I could judge, he was best left alone.

On going inside I encountered Grey coming downstairs.

“Good morning, Warnock,” he said, as he grasped my hand. “That was an extraordinary affair last night--can’t think what possessed the girl: she’s never done anything of that kind before. Good job you saw her, or there’s no telling what might have happened.”

“Yes, it was lucky I happened to be abroad,” I replied; “I went out to enjoy the thunderstorm.” Then I explained briefly how it had occurred, but omitted all mention of the negro and his infernal arts, as I thought it was better to keep that mysterious and alarming part of the matter to myself.

“Is she up yet?” I asked in conclusion.

“No; I’ve just been in to see her. She’s fast asleep and seems perfectly all right.”

“Ah! yes,” I said with assumed carelessness; “that’s the way out of those peculiar fits: to let them sleep as long as ever they will.”

With that we went to breakfast, and discussed at length the details of our proposed journey north, which was now finally fixed for the following day. Grey’s manager was to arrive on the morrow, and, the day after, we were to proceed overland to a seaport some thirty miles to the north, and there take our passage in a sailing ship which Grey had ascertained was bound for Golden Bay, the coast line of which was situated not fifty miles from the Table Land.

From time to time during the day I learned by repeated inquiries that Crystal was still sleeping peacefully, but my mental state was one of extreme tension; for, being ignorant of the after effects of the strange poison, I was tormented with a thousand apprehensions. Every half-hour I paid visits to Tiki, for in his condition I felt I had something to go by. It calmed my fears a little to find that his pulse was uniformly regular, that his breathing was normal, and that there were no signs of anything more alarming than a very deep sleep which, as far as I could judge, was perfectly natural. In this way, taking Tiki’s state to represent hers, I watched over Crystal in my imagination the whole day long, now tortured with fears for the issue, and now relieved by the healthy symptoms.

In my wanderings in and out and about the house I remembered the wizard’s reed tube, and found it again in the place where I had hidden it. It was a strange-looking reed, seven knotted, and marked with peculiar characters and signs. The darts were arranged in little receptacles round the mouthpiece. Three were left. I extracted one and inspected it. There was a blood-red tip to it, and this crimson dye I knew was the poison. The safest course would be to burn the accursed things, lest they should do damage by accident. Accordingly, I took them to the kitchen grate and burnt them. What the poison was I have no idea, but, as I threw them in one by one, each emitted a jet of some gas, which burned many colours in succession, giving a peculiar wail, like the cry of a tortured dumb animal. So horrible, and yet so plaintive and pathetic was this faint sound, that I was inclined to confess there was more than poison in those accursed messengers of evil. Then I burned the tube and returned to my restlessness.

At length, late in the afternoon, I was standing beneath the nut-trees, whither I had wandered in my anxiety, when, hearing a rustle of a dress outside, I looked up and encountered Crystal as she parted the screen of leaves and came towards me. My fears bounded off in an instant, for her face was the picture of buoyant health, and the flush of confusion on her cheeks made her look radiant.

She extended her hand to me and said, “It’s very absurd for people to walk in their sleep, but I am very grateful to you all the same.”

“What are you grateful for?” I asked, wondering how much of the affair she remembered.

“Why, father told me you found me walking in the garden and brought me in,” she replied, looking hard at me with unwavering eyes, though her cheeks were crimson.

“Oh! he told you that, did he?”

“Yes, but not until I made him. He wouldn’t tell me anything about it at first.”

“You remembered something of what happened, then, and questioned him for the rest?”

“Yes, I remembered a little and insisted on being told the whole story.”

“Will you tell me what you remember?” I urged.

She passed beneath the head of the hammock, and walking up to the hedge, plucked a piece of the pink geranium-bloom. Turning to me with a shy smile she held it out towards me.

“I will give you this pretty flower,” she said lightly, “if you will never speak about it again--it was all so absurd.”

“I’m not joking, Miss Grey,” I said half angrily; “I must know--I _will_ know.” I had a horrible fear that could only be dispelled by the knowledge that she could account for all the acts of that infernal wizard.

The smile faded from her lips. She drew herself up and anger darted from her black eyes.

“You dare to ask me what I do not choose to tell?” she said, and never was a man so withered in spirit by a look from a woman’s eyes as I was then. What was the mystery in them? They seemed to belong not to this age, but to be looking at me from the beginning of the world. For a moment I could hardly understand that they should be set in the lovely face before me.

But the flash of anger passed, and, before I could falter a crestfallen apology, she said, “Forgive me; I was forgetting all I owe to you. My temper was too hasty.”

“I think I was too hasty in demanding to know what did not concern me,” I ventured. “Perhaps I have been too hasty all along in meddling with affairs that----”

“Ah! don’t say that,” she broke in, with a sharp pain in her voice; “you have found me a father, you will give me back my mother, and I--I have spoken angrily to you.” A tear glistened on her lashes; her bosom heaved beneath the white folds of her dress, and in her eyes was a tender light of love.

A wild thrill passed through me. In another moment I should have done a rash thing--indeed, in after years I often wished I had done that rash thing, that I had clasped that lovely one in my arms for a brief second and then been struck dead. But the lapse of half that time showed that the love-light was not for me. She raised her eyes, but not to mine, and said with sweet repetition, “My mother! My mother!”

With a slight start she recalled herself and turned to me.

“Do you know, I feel there is hardly anything I could not tell to you,” she said. “That was why I told you my dream, which I have never told to another living soul, not even to my father. And now, if, after what I said a minute ago, you would care to hear what I remember of last night I will tell you--but it is all very stupid.”

“If I think it is stupid I will say so,” I said.

Crystal seated herself upon the hammock, and, taking off her hat, placed it in her lap, where she proceeded to fasten the geranium-bloom among the other fresh flowers therein, as an excuse for keeping her eyes cast down in shyness at what she considered the stupidity of her story. I remained standing, for my suspense was keen, and I felt that I should understand it better than she did.

“Well,” she said, “I dreamed that I was sitting on a bank, when a black snake suddenly hissed and darted at my shoulder. The pain of the bite and the horror of the thing woke me, or I suppose I dreamed that it woke me, for what followed was exactly as if I had been awake, though of course it was nothing more than a vivid dream. Is it possible to dream that you are sitting up in bed, wide awake? It was very strange, but I thought that I was awake, and that I had lost all power to move. For a moment I listened to the thunder. Then I heard a voice--a peculiar, harsh, hollow voice, telling me that I must follow its directions, and be oblivious of all other things--for this, the voice, was the only thing. It may seem strange, but I did as it directed without the slightest hesitation. It seemed the most natural thing in the world to get up and walk downstairs in obedience to this ugly voice. Out of the house and across the lawn I followed it, until I came to the way that leads through the plantation. There for a moment I seemed to be at a loss. Then something--I cannot tell what, except that it was not the voice--must have stood in my way and held me, for, when I could again hear the only thing there was in the world, I was unable to follow, although I struggled to do so. At last the obstacle let me pass, and soon afterwards I caught up with the voice, which guided me back again into the house, where it told me that it had no further authority over me, and that other voices should command me for awhile. After that I heard it no more, and I have confused memories of taking a hot bath, with Jane and Mary fussing about me. Then I must have gone to bed, but I can remember nothing more till I awoke an hour ago. Was it not absurd? But some of it must have been real, for I did walk out into the garden.”

I reflected a moment before I spoke. Her memory evidently covered every inch of the ground. The pain in the shoulder, which must have been the prick of the negro’s dart discharged during the first flash of lightning after he gained her room; the falling under the influence of the poison a moment later; the hearing of the voice in the darkness, and the ready obedience to its suggestions; the struggling with an obstacle which was not the voice, but myself, and subsequently the finding of what she mistook for the voice and followed back to the house--these were the points of a story, the details of which must have taken place in the few minutes which elapsed between my missing the grotesque fragment in the burnt patch of scrub, and walking round the plantation to re-enter the grounds again through the opening where I had encountered the embodied “voice” and its would-be victim.

I glanced up from my rapid reflection, and, encountering Crystal’s smile at what she supposed was the absurdity of her story, said: “Your dreams affect me just as if you were recounting an adventure that had really taken place. Why do you make them so vivid?”

Then we both laughed the matter away.

Later in the evening I visited Tiki again, and found him sitting up with a puzzled expression on his face.

“Is the little maiden safe?” he asked on seeing me.

“Quite safe,” I replied, and narrated briefly what had happened. “Where were you all last night?” I inquired when I had finished.

“_He_ Wanaki,” he replied, shaking his head slowly, “I have it somewhere in my mind where I was, but it slips away from my grasp like an eel from the hand. I have the head of the lizard, but the tail is cut off, and, though I can hear it rustling among the leaves, I cannot find it. This is the head of the lizard, O Wanaki. I watched the great canoe from sunset on into the night, and, when it was very dark, I heard a small canoe leave it and take its way towards the end of the water. I followed it along the shore, and when it came to the beach down there I stood near by in the darkness and heard some voices. Then someone made his way up the beach, and I followed the sound of his footsteps. He must have heard me, for he stopped and made a noise like the word of the _weka_[22] when it is hiding. _E Tama!_ I was mad to take his head, for I knew he was going to steal the little maiden. I rushed towards the ‘word’ and laid about me with my stick. Again and again I did this, rushing at the ‘word’ in the dark to take the head of it and lay it at the feet of the little maiden. But every time I beat the air and nothing more, and every time I heard someone laugh far away in Reinga. _Eta!_ my only fear was for the little maiden, so I followed the footsteps again up the valley until we came to the field out there. The footsteps stopped. Tawhaki was beginning to move overhead. The light of his eyes would soon show me where to strike. The light came. I saw the _taepo_ near at hand and rushed at him. He raised a long stick to his mouth, and some stinging thing struck me in the shoulder. Then, O Wanaki, I rushed on and on over all the earth, and the darkness of Porawa closed on me as I went.

“That is the head of the lizard, O Wanaki, but the tail of it is cut off and wriggles away when I stretch out my hand to grasp it. What has happened to me between that and this is gone--gone like last year’s _kohu_ leaves.”

For a space neither of us spoke, but my thoughts were busy. At length, jumping to a conclusion I said:

“Tiki! did you know that we are to leave here the day after to-morrow?”

“Yes; the little maiden told me so.”

“Did you know that we are going to land in Golden Bay?”

“Yes, and go overland to the Great Tapu.”

“Ah! all right--very well--now you’d better go and get something to eat.”

I rose and walked round the verandah, sick at heart. It was as I had feared. That infernal wizard had, without a doubt, gleaned all our plans from Tiki while in the obedient condition, and then sent him home to sleep, with the assurance that on waking he would remember nothing of what had taken place from the moment he fell under his influence up to the time he came out of it. There was but one conclusion to all this. Cazotl had sailed for Golden Bay to await our arrival.