CHAPTER XXI.

CRYSTAL AND HINAURI MEET.

When we reached the open space about the stream Te Makawawa was still sitting there on the bank with his head bowed. Dreamer Grey, on catching sight of us, threw away his unlighted cigar and came to meet us.

“I am the most patient of men,” he said, “but--I suppose the old chief there knows what he’s about.”

“We can do nothing but wait,” I said, and we all sat down on the mossy sward to do so.

But we had not to wait long, for presently the chief started to his feet and began striding rapidly up and down the bank. His head was erect, his step was firm, and but for his grey hair and aged face one would have said he had not grown old. His pace quickened to a run. He stopped and performed an imaginary fight with the empty air, thrusting with his spear and shouting battle cries as he had done in his early years. Then he dashed down his spear with the air of a man whose mind is made up, threw off his outer robe, and, with a short run, plunged from the bank.

We rose from the ground and ran forward to see if the ancient one was really equal to this daring feat. Two, three, four minutes we stood looking at the dark pool, and then Grey said:

“If he hasn’t got through he certainly won’t come up alive now.”

“He must be through,” I said, “he must be through.” But I was getting anxious.

“Look! Look!” cried Crystal; “the water’s growing less; see! it’s sinking--it’s drying up.”

I gave a sigh of relief, for I saw the water was rapidly diminishing, and knew that the old chief had gained the ledge inside, passed round the lake, and pushed the great lever up to stop the flow of the water.

Gradually the surface of the pool sank below the aperture in the mountain wall and, finally, left the way perfectly clear. Grey made a movement as if to climb down and go in through the black opening, but I restrained him.

“We must wait till he returns,” I said. “We can do nothing without him.”

Accordingly we waited with our eyes fixed upon the dark round opening, level with the bed of the channel as to its lower margin, while its upper part was considerably higher than a man’s head. Presently there was a glimmer of light approaching through the darkness of the interior, and then a figure appeared in the aperture, standing erect with a blazing torch in his hand. The sight startled me, for the figure was enveloped in a large war cloak made of dog’s fur, and the whole solemn bearing of the wearer, as he held his torch aloft and stood looking at us, was that of the guardian priest of the ancient temple.

In another moment, however, I recognised Te Makawawa as he might have been eighteen years before, when he first brought Grey and his wife to this strange place. He beckoned to us, and we climbed down the bank as quickly as possible, and hurried along the shingly bed of the channel towards him.

“Speak few words, O pakeha people,” he said solemnly; “but follow in my footsteps.”

He turned and led the way. Grey went first in his wake, Crystal followed, and I came last. When we had gained the level rock above, by means of the rough, but not difficult, niches in the wall, the torchlight shed a fitful glare upon the nearer rim of the great basin, and upon part of the lake. The water, flung up tumultuously in the centre, boiled and effervesced and lapped against the rocky rim on which we stood. Far away at the end of the narrowing gulf could be seen the giants’ window, through which the sunlight streamed like silver, but grew golden as it fell obliquely into the denser darkness of the abyss. The wall of the cavern beyond the lake was lost in gloom, into which I knew the great spar was tapering off to its wooden sprit near the overhanging crags of the vaulted roof.

But we saw these things in a glance, for Te Makawawa passed on along the margin of the lake, bearing his torch, and we followed. He halted at the part of the cavern wall by the lake side, where I had seen Ngaraki’s kit of kumaras ascend by a cord.

“O Friend of the Forest Tree,” he said, drawing me a little aside, “the mysteries of this ancient temple are great and wonderful. I am going by the ‘way of the fish,’ which no man can find without a guide, nor, if he found it, could he pass that way without being taught. Now stand there close to the wall, and hold the mountain lily by the hand, lest she fall in the darkness. I go. And, when you hear the roaring of the sea overhead, and the great god Tangaroa lets loose the flood, then you will know that Te Makawawa has passed in safety, that his end is not yet.”

“And what then, O chief? Do we follow, or will you return?”

“I will let a rope down from above by the wall where you stand. Climb up the rope, O Friend. Then the Man-who-has-forgotten will tie the mountain lily to it, and together we shall draw her up, and let the rope down again for the Man-who-has-forgotten to ascend. Is my word clear?”

“Yes, O Chief,” I replied; “but if you fail, what then?”

“Then my end will have come,” he said, “and the ancient spell I cast over the Man-who-has-forgotten will return to me, his memory of all these years will be blotted out, and his new thought will link on to the old as if it were but yesterday. He will remember all--even the secret of the ‘way of the winged fish,’ for he has passed through it from above. Most clearly he will remember the ‘way of the lizard’ beyond the giants’ window, for by that path did he leave before forgetting the things he knew. Thus, if I perish, you shall escape through him.”

“It is good, O Tohunga,” I said, wondering at his strange words.

He turned and, torch in hand, passed round the lake to the rock behind which, on a former occasion, I had hidden while Ngaraki had plunged from it into the depths. I went back to the spot where Crystal and Grey were standing, close to the wall.

“Let me hold your hand,” I said to Crystal, and explained briefly to them both what strange thing would happen. I found her hand in the darkness, and as I held it in mine even the thought of Kahikatea did not intrude. Thus in silence we watched the movements of the tohunga across the lake. He removed his war-cloak and hung it somewhere in the shadows of the wall. Then he approached the edge of the lake and dipped the end of the torch in the water. The faint hiss reached us over the seething tide, and then there was darkness, in which, as I held Crystal’s warm hand, it seemed to me that we two were alone in space.

A sudden plunge in the lake aroused me; then all was still, except for the ghostly movements of the welling flood. Half a minute went by, in which my thoughts were with the chief who had undertaken I knew not what dangerous task in the depths. Would he fail?

As I asked myself the question my ears detected a change in the sound of the water. The boiling, seething motion ceased gradually, and there was a commotion in the depths of the lake--a commotion conveyed suggestively by a wave rolling round the margin, flapping over as it went, and again by the peculiar sucking sounds of whirling eddies which seemed to close together with little claps of the water here and there.

Ah! there was a sound I could interpret in the darkness. It was made by the water rolling off the sides of some object which had risen above the surface not four yards from us. It was, I knew, the head of the great stone lever in the depths. Then the profound silence which followed was broken by a hollow roar like that of some wild beast pent in a cave within the roof. Louder and louder it grew until, with a booming sound like thunder, the waters gushed from an opening above, and, their forefoam showing vaguely in the darkness, fell with a deafening tumult into the lake. The spray dashed up in our faces and I drew a long breath, for I knew that Te Makawawa had passed by the ‘way of the winged fish.’

Against the din of the cascade I heard Crystal trying to make herself heard.

I raised the hand I was clasping, and, placing her finger and thumb on the lobe of my ear, bent my head towards her.

“He is safe!” she cried, and I felt her warm breath on my cheek. Then she guided my hand to her own ear, and I cried back: “Yes; he will soon let down the rope.”

My hand still retained hers, and as I spoke in her ear a wisp of her hair strayed across my lips. I forgot everything. The roar of the cataract seemed to drown all except my passion, and that overwhelmed me. Suddenly I enclosed her in my arms and, drawing her to me, kissed her wildly on the brow and cheek and lips. For a moment she lay still in my arms, then she pushed herself gently away from me as if she were saying, “I do not know what a woman will do.… I owe you everything, but not this--at least not yet.”

At length, after waiting several minutes, I felt something swing against my shoulder. I stretched out my hand and caught it. It was the rope. When I had shouted the old chief’s directions again in the ears of my companions--that Crystal was to come second and Grey last--I tried my weight on the rope, and, finding it firm, climbed up. It seemed a long way in the darkness, and I was nearly exhausted when at length a hand slid down over the rope and touched me. Another hand found my other wrist and, as I climbed a little further, both gripped me beneath the armpits, raised me over a barrier of rock, and set me on my feet on a level foothold.

“_He Pakeha!_” said the deep voice of the chief; “is the mountain lily safe?”

“Quite safe,” I replied.

My first thought was to strike a match to see what space there was to move about in. I did so, and found that the old chief and myself were standing on a level platform let into the wall of the cavern. He went into the shadows and returned with a torch, which I lighted from the match, and set in an upright position in a crevice. He then unwound the rope from a rounded knob of rock on the inside of the barrier, and let down a few more yards for Grey to make a kind of swing for Crystal. A rough flax mat protected the rope from the irregularities of the rock, and the barrier itself projected far enough from the wall to enable her to keep clear of it in the ascent.

It was not until, by our united efforts, she was drawn up and stood safely beside us, that I breathed freely. The rope was let down, and Grey came up soon afterwards like an acrobat. Te Makawawa then made a sign to me to draw the rope up again, and, as I was doing so, it resisted my efforts for a moment, as if someone was holding it; however, it came loose, and I thought that perhaps a knot on the end must have caught on some projecting piece of rock. Yet the matter puzzled me a little, especially when I felt the end of the rope soon afterwards and found there was no knot there.

But it was no time for fancies. Te Makawawa took the torch from Crystal, and showed the way into a high tunnel which, as we followed him, led us right into the backbone of the rock, and gradually took the form of a spiral ascent, though I could only guess at this from the somewhat steep grade, and the continual curve to the left. We soon lost the roar of the cataract as we circled up higher and higher into the silent heart of the mountain.

After toiling up in this way for some time we came to a hollow place of many chambers. Here also was a lever-like structure similar to the great spar in the lower part of the cavern, though very much smaller and more delicately fashioned. Upon the arm of the lever I saw, by the light of the torch, some peculiar figures. I drew Te Makawawa’s attention to them and asked him what they signified.

“There is an ancient tradition,” he said doubtfully, “that this stone will be raised when Hinauri returns, and that when it is done all the ways of the temple will be closed; but its secret has been lost. See! the end hangs over an abyss--the secret is hidden in the depths.”

It was balanced on a breast-high ridge of rock, and beyond was a gulf which the light of the torch could not span.

“Remain here, O white people,” said the chief, after we had wondered at this strange contrivance; “wait here in the Place-of-Many-Chambers, and I will go and speak with Miriami, and bring her to you. But,” he added, drawing me aside, “I will say nothing of the little maiden. I cannot face the stars in her eyes.”

Leaving us the torch, he vanished through another tunnel, and left us in this Place-of-Many-Chambers to await his return with the lost Miriam Grey. Crystal stood with her hand on the tapering end of the stone lever, which stretched its arm horizontally into the centre of the chamber in which we stood.

“It would be easy to raise this,” she said. “I wonder that no one of the long line of priests, which you say has guarded the secrets of this place for ages, has had enough curiosity to try it.”

“According to Te Makawawa,” I said, “it seems to be a means of hiding the temple and its secrets for ever when the ancient queen returns, the reason being perhaps that there is immense wealth hidden somewhere here. Let us see what the other end of the lever is like.”

I held the torch over the barrier, and we peered into the gloom. Resting in the hollow of the head of the lever, some little distance out, we discerned a large round stone of many tons in weight, its outline dimly defined against the blackness beyond. Below this yawned a pit, in which the rays of the torch were lost.

“It seems to me like a system of rolling stones,” I said. “If this lever were raised and that stone launched into the gulf below, there is no telling in what way it might carry out some design originated by the founders of this strange place. No doubt there are levers below, balanced in such a way that this stone would move them and liberate other rolling stones, which would run in grooves prepared for them to execute some errand connected with the various openings into the mountain. Why not? Could anything be more gigantic and wonderful in design than the great levers in the cavern below?”

“There were giants in those days,” said Grey, joining us and glancing round as he spoke. “This must all have been hewn out with design. There are six little caves, I have counted them by matchlight, all opening into this larger one, and some of them contain the openings of other tunnels leading goodness knows where.”

Little by little Crystal and her father gravitated towards the opening through which the old chief had disappeared, and by which he was soon to return with the one for whom we had undertaken our journey. Hand in hand they stood together with their eyes fixed on that opening. I placed the torch so that its fitful glare fell upon their now pale faces, and retired into the shadows, where I stood leaning upon the arm of the lever to watch this reunion between husband and wife, between mother and daughter.

The two stood silent and motionless. I saw, by the uncertain light which revealed their faces, that their feelings were too deep for speech; I saw by the nervous clasp of their hands that their suspense was great.

But it came to an end. Grey made a sudden movement and bent his head forward. I knew his ear had caught the sound of approaching footsteps. In another moment Te Makawawa issued from the darkness, and, standing aside, folded his arms and remained with his chin on his breast. By the brief glance I caught of his features I saw that his expression was even more troubled and perplexed than before.

Presently in the opening of the tunnel appeared one whom at first glance I took to be a Maori woman of high rank. She was clothed in a rich silky kaitaka, her feet were sandalled, her bare left arm and breast glistened through the masses of dark hair which fell loose about her. As she stood there a moment between the dim light and the darkness, like a tall Maori chieftainess, a leaping flame of the torch showed her face more clearly. It was like the pale face of a madonna, sweet, tender, and good. The high brow, the magnetic-looking eyes, with delicately pencilled eyebrows, gave a look of tremendous artistic and concentrative power to the face; and this power seemed only equalled by the pervading tenderness of her expression. I saw at a glance that this “woman with the stars in her eyes” must without doubt be the remarkable creator of that remarkable work in the marble cave above.

But Dreamer Grey had taken a step towards her and stood gazing at the woman who, it was slowly dawning on him, must be his wife. She drew near to him, at first hesitatingly; then, without passion, but with a ring of great tenderness in her voice, she cried: “My husband!” and, placing her arms about his neck, laid her cheek upon his. Held in each other’s arms, they remained silent for a moment, while, in the shadow near by, Crystal stood watching them with I know not what emotions in her heart, what dawn of joy upon her face.

At last a little cry escaped her: “Mother!”

It came like a note of pathetic music, like the last beat of a long-sustained chord before it is resolved, and all is plain to the listener. Te Makawawa raised his head. A tremor shook some depth of my matter-of-fact being, which had never been touched before. Husband and wife who had found each other lifted their faces at the word, and their eyes met. Grey disengaged one arm, and, stretching it out towards Crystal, said in a voice unsteady with emotion:

“It is our daughter!”

Slowly, and as if she did not understand, the mother turned her face towards the white figure standing near by. In the half light she scanned Crystal’s features. Then she started, giving a quick interjection in the Maori tongue. The hand which had rested on Grey’s neck slid down and clutched his arm. “My daughter? hush! our daughter is dead, dear. Te Makawawa!” she gasped hoarsely, speaking again in his own tongue, “the light! the light! quick!”

Why was she so eager? She knew, or thought she knew, that her child was dead, and yet she was gazing at Crystal’s face like one struck dumb with astonishment.

The chief drew near with the torch and held it up so that its light clearly showed the faces of all. Crystal was holding her arms out to her mother with a yearning look upon her face.

“I live,” she said sweetly; “I live, dear mother--why do you not take me in your arms?”

As the light fell upon the lovely face and form, all white and sculpturesque, Miriam Grey drew a quick breath--I heard it as I stood in the shadows--a gasp of unutterable astonishment. Her free hand clutched at the air, then swept quickly across her brow, while I wondered, for how could there be anything in that face for her to recognise after so many years? Yet it seemed there was something.

“Ah! God in heaven!” she cried. “Am I mad--or is this thing true? Te Makawawa, Chief and Tohunga! are you blind?”

I walked from the shadows round to where Crystal and Grey were standing, and together we watched this strange scene. I motioned silence to them, whispering that the chief would explain.

“I am not blind, O Miriami,” he said quietly; “but what my eyes see my thoughts put aside. My two eyes and your two eyes may speak false words in this dim light. The Light of Tane is in the cave above, and here are many eyes that may see and judge.”

He waved his hand towards us as he spoke. I was perplexed by his words, for as I understood the matter it was not a question of seeing clearly, but of simple confession on the part of the old chief.

“Your words are wise, O Friend of the Great Tohungas,” she said thoughtfully, with an almost terrified look at Crystal. “Give me the torch.”

He handed it to her and she moved towards the tunnel, holding it before her, and motioning us to follow.

“What did the chief mean?” asked Crystal, when I had translated his words to Grey; “he did not explain. My mother still thinks that I died when I was three years old. I do not understand.”

“Nor I,” said Grey. “Why was my wife so startled? I can understand her refusing to accept my statement when she had such good evidence that Crystal was dead, but why did she look so amazed? Surely she could not have imagined that Crystal had risen from the dead!”

“Yet she seemed to recognise me in some way,” said Crystal again.

“That is impossible,” I exclaimed. “The colour of your eyes would be the only thing that would not have altered, and in torchlight all dark eyes would look black. No! there is something to be explained. Do you know where we are going?”

“To the white cave you told us about?”

“Yes, the marble cave where Hinauri stands--Hinauri, the Daughter of the Dawn.”

Crystal was silent. Presently she said: “I don’t see how she can help us.”

The tone of her voice told me that the bitterness of her heart had come uppermost again. But I did not reply, for at that moment we came to some smooth white steps cut in the rock. Te Makawawa stood aside upon these steps, and as we passed him I saw, by the light of the torch moving into a dim but growing daylight before us, that he fixed his piercing eyes upon Crystal’s face in a long, bewildering scrutiny.

The steps led round to the right, and finally we stood upon the threshold of a pure white marble cave, lofty and spacious. Beyond the facts that the level floor was covered with snow-white dust, and that there was a large opening communicating with the outer air, I took small note of the details of the place, for there, standing where the fine, clear morning light flooded in, was the marble image of Hinauri, her arms held out in longing towards some vision she could see in the western sky through the opening of the cave. Her face was concealed from the side view by some of the waves of sculptured hair that fell over her left shoulder, but the lifelike pose of the figure showed the perfect body and lovely soul of one who had seen a vision of joy long sought, and, in yearning towards it, had for the moment “forgot herself to marble.”

Miriam Grey had now thrown down her torch, and was standing beyond the image with her hands clasped together, waiting. I was the first to move into the daylight and gaze into the face of Hinauri. What I saw there dashed to the ground my hopes of a heaven on earth. For one brief moment I looked upon that lovely face, startled, bewildered, dazed--but not at its loveliness. Then I staggered back into the shadow of the rocks and leaned against them, looking on at the scene in a helpless fashion. Grey, too, after one quick glance, started back and passed his hand over his brow, as if he doubted his senses. Then Crystal, who followed him, paused before the image. With a little cry she took a step towards it and stood in mute wonder. For a time they remained facing each other, the girl of to-day and the goddess of ancient night, for whom the giants of old had fought their grim battles--the pure woman whom the vile Cazotl had sought to degrade by his magic, and Hinauri who, from the time of Zun the Terrible, had been fiercely guarded from the Vile Ones of all time by a greater magic--Crystal Grey, who loved my perfect man, and the cold white being, which, set in the high solitudes of the world, my perfect man had loved. Crystal raised her arms to the radiant Daughter of the Dawn, and a single word fell upon the silence of the place: “_Myself!_”

Like a note of heavenly music the word fell from Crystal’s lips; like a discord of the tuneless earth it rankled through my brain. Then for a moment--so paramount is self--life and love forsook my heart, leaving it cold, like the stone on which I leant despairingly.

For some seconds no one stirred, and during that time I, grasping at the matter-of-fact, cast about for an explanation of this strange thing. Instantly there rolled through my mind that time when, before Crystal was born, Miriam Grey worked at the stone, absorbed in the contemplation of the vision she had seen--the vision of Hinauri. Was it possible that her work had been twofold? that, while her whole being, with all the concentrative power one might read in her eyes, was absorbed in contemplation of the beautiful image of her imagination, she had “found” that image at once actually in the marble and potentially in her unborn child? Kahikatea was right, but only half right, for the mother who had conceived the beauty of Hinauri in the stone had also conceived her wondrous image in the flesh.

Then came the same dull roar that we had heard from beneath the rimu in the valley, thundering down from the roof of the mountain above us. Crystal heard it, and as she raised her face I saw the love-light leap into her eyes and a radiant smile spread over her face. I saw her lips move, and the unspoken word seemed to fall like lead upon my heart: “Kahikatea!”

I turned my face away and laid my cheek against the marble wall. There was nothing between them now.