CHAPTER XXV.

THE SERVANT OF THE BROTHERHOOD OF HUO.

Hinauri took up her torch and came round the lake towards us, but Kahikatea met her half-way, his dripping sword still in his hand. I heard the sword clink as he cast it on the rocks--he had no further use for it as they stood facing each other in the torchlight. At this moment my attention was diverted by something brushing against my sleeve. I put out my hand and clutched what seemed to be a stick pointed towards the spot where the two stood. A quick horror shot through me, for at the instant I touched it I heard a peculiar hiss that I knew only too well. It was the reed tube of the negro wizard. But I had spoilt his aim, and before he knew what had happened I had thrust him backwards and wrenched the tube from his hand as he fell into the water, which had now risen above the aperture and was rapidly finding its level. My first impulse was to fling the accursed weapon of the Poisoner into the abyss; my second to keep it and use it against him, for I remembered how the darts had been arranged around the one I had taken from him at our first encounter. But, in case of accidents, Hinauri must be placed out of danger. With all my lungs I roared across the lake.

“Kahikatea! for God’s sake, and for her sake, get out of this infernal place as soon as you can.”

“Is it urgent?” he called back.

“Yes,” I yelled excitedly, “do as I say; go up the rope, quick!”

“All right,” he returned, and I knew he would not go alone.

Then I struck a match and directed my attention to the wizard, whom I could see struggling in the water below, surrounded by ghastly corpses. Not without an inward misgiving, even a feeling of dread, at what I was about to do, I turned away, and, detaching one of the poisoned darts from its receptacle, placed it in the tube. By the dying light of the match I saw the glistening of his skinny black back as he pushed his way between the floating bodies and made for the further wall. I raised the tube, took careful aim, and puffed the dart. The match, which was burning my fingers, fell into the water with a hiss, and all was dark. The wizard pushed on a little before he spoke, and then it was in a hollow guttural voice that rattled in his throat: “He got me!” he said, and this was followed by a harsh grating shriek which sounded like the final curse of an incarnate fiend who knew his time had come. Yet it seemed a trifle strange to me that he should not have cried out directly he was struck. Such an accurate aim with an untried weapon was a matter for self-congratulation, and having succeeded so far I went on to use his own black art against himself.

“You are powerless,” I said; “powerless to act except in obedience to my voice. Keep on swimming--you hear me?”

“Yes, I hear--and obey,” came from the wizard in meek, obedient tones.

I struck another match, and walked along the rim of the basin to the ledge of rock which Kahikatea had held against the Maoris. There I held the light so that he could see to ascend, and presently we were standing face to face. By still another match I examined his countenance. Hideous, repulsive it was, hate and malice written on every line, and in the piercing eyes was a suppressed alertness which did not seem natural in one in the passive state.

[image: img286.jpg caption: “I RAISED THE TUBE, TOOK CAREFUL AIM, AND PUFFED THE DART.”]

“Who are you?” I asked, fixing my eyes on his; “and why are you here?”

“I am the servant of Cazotl,” he replied in fairly good English; “and I have come here to look for gold hidden in this mountain.”

“Why did you attempt to carry off the white maiden?”

“She has the power of spirit-sight,” he said again. “A witch described her to us, and I have been looking for her for years among the Maoris. When I had found her my master came from Mexico, for she could tell us where the gold is hidden--many, many tons of gold--and sparkling stones.”

I was nonplussed. Was it merely a matter of gold after all? I paused and, while I paused, the match went out. As I drew another from my waistcoat pocket I heard a faint movement before me; it was very faint, but I heard it and stepped back. Then as the lucifer fizzed--I remember it was a double-headed one--I saw the negro in the act of springing towards me with arm uplifted and a small pointed thing in his hand. In a flash I saw that he had been shamming so as to take me unawares, that my dart had never struck him at all, that he had a spare one in his hand, that--but the end of this lightning grasp of the situation was finished in the air, and the whole was checked point by point beneath the water, for I had sprung aside into the lake to avoid the possibility of a prick with that poisonous thing. That spring saved me so far, and when I reached the surface, still grasping the reed tube, I realised it was now a level fight in the dark--a weird, subtle, creepy contest to be determined by a mere prick of the skin.

The hissing of the water as it welled up from below, laden with bubbles that burst all about me, made a cover of sound sufficient to conceal my movements from the listening ear of my enemy. Still I made no more noise than was necessary in reaching the margin. But in grasping the rock, which was scarcely a foot above the water, the tube in my hand came in contact with it and made a slight click. Instantly I pushed it back in my armpit, and made my way a yard or two further along, knowing that he must have heard the sound. My next move was to push off a little again and extract two darts from their places. With one I loaded the tube, and the other I retained in my left hand ready for use at close quarters. Then I held the rock with one finger and strained my ears to catch the faintest sound. The ceaseless seething of the water disturbed the silence as little as it lightened the utter darkness, and here in this terrible suspense I recalled a moment, not long since, when my arms had enclosed the form of Crystal not many yards away on the rock. At that time I had felt with a wild thrill of delight that the whole heaven of a world contained only us two, but now the same thing came over me with shudderings, and it was again as if the whole hell of a world held only the thing of evil and myself, both watching in the dark.

Suddenly something touched my finger on the rock. Instantly I threw myself back on the water and, raising the tube to my mouth, puffed a dart at a venture. No sound followed, and I cautiously approached the bank again at a different spot, loading the tube with my spare dart as I went. But a better idea occurred to me. A light would give me a great advantage, for, having the tube, I could fire from a short distance, while my antagonist could only strike at close quarters. I remembered that the smouldering punk was kept near the heap of pinehearts in the recess in the wall; perhaps with care I should be able to get a light before I was seen. Accordingly I struck out across the lake, guessing the direction as nearly as I was able, and finally grasped the rock at a distance which conveyed to me the idea that I had cut off a considerable arc of the lake’s circumference. With great care, and a horrible feeling that at any moment I might feel the prick of the skin which would place me and everything else in the power of the wizard, I raised myself on to the ledge and groped along the wall to find the recess. The vividness with which I could see my surroundings--all except the position of my enemy--in my mental eye, surprised me: yes, the recess should be just here; no, it was not there, and for a moment I grew giddy and lost my bearings. I recalled myself with an effort, and continued my way. Suddenly I stopped, and selecting another dart from the tube, held it at arm’s length before me with one hand, while I felt the wall with the other, and suspended the tube from between my teeth. It seemed hours before I found the recess, and hours more before I crouched, with the punk in one hand and a torch in the other, gently blowing to get a flame; and all that time I endured the most frightful suspense lest the light, carefully as I sheltered it in the furthest corner of the recess, should be seen too soon.

At last the pineheart ignited, and the resinous wood began to hiss and blaze. I held it aloft, and placing the tube ready to my lips, advanced on to the side of the lake. The light fell on the swelling bosom of the water, on the rocky wall above, and on the narrow margin at my feet, but I could not see any enemy at first. Yet I knew I had now the best of the situation, and proceeded boldly round towards the basin. When I had gone some dozen paces I stopped suddenly, for there was the figure of the wizard crouching down on the ledge, with his eyes fixed on the water and his arm upraised as if about to strike. He seemed unconscious of the light, and, as I advanced nearer, remained fixed in the same position. Had the dart I fired before striking across the lake reached its mark, or was this another piece of cunning? I drew still nearer, covering him with the tube, and saw that his frame was rigid, while on his set face there rested a look of the most diabolical hatred.

I was not in a mood to trust to appearances, however, and, to make certain, I puffed another of his own poisoned darts at him. It pierced his shoulder, but he did not move. Then I realised that at last he was at my mercy.

I passed behind him, told him to stand up and follow me, for my voice was the only thing, and he would obey it. He prepared to follow me like a dog.

“Throw away that dart,” I said, pointing to the small thing he still held in his hand.

He did so without any hesitation.

“Now follow.”

I went before him with the torch, past the landing-place, and on to the rim of the basin, where I made him proceed first to the outer lip.

“Stand there on the very brink and do not move from it,” I said, and held the torch so that he could see.

He obeyed. Now I would have the truth, for I was convinced the information he had volunteered before was false. I drew near him and stood at his side.

I said, “Again, who are you? Speak, and speak the truth, and nothing but the truth.”

No sooner had I spoken than I heard the most extraordinary scheme of echoes imaginable. My last word--truth, multiplied from crag to crag about the vaulted roof, ended in strange gurgling sounds, in which the meaning was wholly lost. I had not heard this echo from any other spot of the cavern, and I wondered if this, too, was a mysterious device of the ancient giants, or whether it was one of Nature’s more accurate calculations, with mighty pebbles, in acoustics. When the wailing sounds had almost died away the wizard answered:

“I am one of the Brotherhood of Huo,” he spoke in deep, hollow tones, “and I have come here at their command to carry out their will--to degrade and destroy one who threatens their power in the world.”

“What is their power? Answer from your own knowledge and intelligence.”

The terms in which he answered astonished me; they were those of a man well versed in occult things.

“The power of the Brotherhood of Huo is the power of the Single Eye looking downwards. They strive for what men call Evil--Pure Evil; and when they attain it, they become one with all Evil on the earth, with increased powers to further it.”

“And why,” I asked, “why was it worth your while to come half-way round the world to do this particular piece of evil?”

“It was revealed to us in the great mirror of the Daughter of Darkness, whom we worship, that the ancient spirit of Hia would return to this temple with a magic sign of motherhood which would undo our work in the world. Cazotl, our chief, and I, his servant, then came to degrade and darken the maiden Hia, so that she might forget, as other women have forgotten, this sign which threatens our power. But the magic of this place is stronger than ours: Cazotl was overpowered by his own evil flung back on him by one stronger than our strongest--one who must have mastered our own magic to do it. Many of our number have set out to find the magic which controls our own in this place, but none of them has ever returned. I, too, was struck and crawled away to die, but recovered, and came here to find Hia and destroy her.”

“The sign is already given,” I said. “Hear me and understand: the sign of motherhood, of birth and remembering, is already given. What does that mean to you?”

“It means that our power is doomed. Our ancient enemies, the giants in what men call Good, will be born again upon the earth. These strong ones can only come back by means of the pure white magic of the woman. It has been the aim of our Brotherhood from earliest times to bind woman down in darkness, to narrow her mind, to degrade and blind her lest she should recall this magic. But now the sign is given, and we are doomed.”

“And what is your punishment?”

“We have no punishment,” he said. “Punishment exists only for those who have a spark of good left in them. We have severed all connection with that. Remorse, the hell of those who vacillate between good and evil, has no existence for us.”

“But you can suffer physical pain?” I exclaimed.

“Yes; pain and pleasure are in our bodies,” he replied.

“Then before you go out into darkness”--my words hissed out in a voice that sounded strange to my own ears--“you must suffer. You cannot act except in obedience to my voice; but you are conscious, acutely conscious in all your body, to feel what my words will work in you. You cannot stir from this spot, neither can you move a limb nor yet cry out. Servant of the Vile Brotherhood of Huo, hear your punishment. You have a raging fire in your vitals, so that your blood seethes and hisses through your veins. For one hour as we count time, this fire will rage through your being with the most horrible pain. In the darkness before you, you will see the face of a great timepiece, and every second as marked there shall seem to you like the time that passes between sunset and sunset, fully stretched out and crammed with agony. Yet you will neither faint nor fall, but endure the whole.”

My voice was the voice of cursing, and, as the last words echoed round the cavern walls and finally died away on shapeless granite lips in the high vaults overhead, I recoiled at the awful nature of the thing I had uttered. The torch fell from my fingers; then, in the darkness that ensued, I staggered and fell backwards into the water in the great basin.

I struck out for the rim, but no sooner had I drawn myself up than I was startled by another voice than my own in the darkness near by.

“Ngha! the lizard looks in vain into Ngaraki’s eyes,” it said fiercely.

At the sound, I knew that the terrible chief, having, in consideration of the indignity heaped upon him, accepted _utu_[26] from Tu, the war-god; and, having, moreover, left a full receipt and acknowledgment thereof on the cracked and battered heads of his foes outside, had now just come in by the ‘way of the fish.’ I heard him shake the water from his hair and climb on to the ledge. The drops dripped, pattering on the rock as he stood up, and then his quick footfalls passed away round the margin of the lake. Presently I saw a faint glow in the recess, and in another minute he came out holding a blazing torch above his head, and stood looking across the lake towards the abyss. But the light of the torch did not carry far enough, and he passed with rapid strides round the further side.

When he reached the ledge by the partition between the lake and the abyss, and held his flaring torch out and gazed forward at the empty air where the spar had been, a wild yell of triumph came from his great chest, ringing like a clarion through the spaces of the cavern above and below. Hinauri had hurled the long spar and the rolling stone down upon the heads of his granite enemies of old time in the pit. His _meré_, still in his hand, was whirled again and again round his head. Then his furious outburst was checked and, with a sudden fierce pant of the breath like an escaping throb of energy at bursting pressure, he stood still. He would take it more methodically. A high triumph over the broken heads of the Vile Tohungas of the Pit was now for him, and he would hold that triumph in due form. This was in his manner as the _meré_ shook fiercely in his grasp, and he turned and strode, with head held high, along the path that led down into the abyss.

I knelt on the rock and watched him go, while my heart went out to him across the gulf. More than ever, the heroic bearing, the grand, fierce spirit, the noble and graceful dignity of this savage had my admiration. I would go and witness his triumph and hear the words he would speak to the Vile Tohungas.

Carefully I made my way round the lake, lighted another torch in the recess, and proceeded after Ngaraki; but when I came to the ledge where he had stood I began to wonder if the wizard negro on the other side of the abyss was suffering all the torture I had suggested. I stopped and pondered my doubt awhile. At last I determined to speak to him across the darkness, for the light of the torch fell short, and I could not see him standing there on the basin’s rim.

“Servant of the Brotherhood of Huo,” I called, “listen! my voice is the only thing. You cannot move from where you stand nor can you fall forward into the darkness, but your tongue is loosened for me to hear what you suffer and----”

But I proceeded no further, for as the words left my lips there came out of the darkness on the further side a sudden harsh roar, rising to a shriek, that seemed to strike and grate against the rocks of the gloomy place, wringing harsh echoes of an indescribable agony from their time-worn sides, and calling hollow murmurs of woe out of the abysmal abode of the Vile Tohungas. Weirder and more terrible came the cries of the tortured wizard, mingled with articulate gnashing of words that sounded like curses in a barbarous tongue. From the echoes of his cries the whole place seemed filled with the shrieking and moaning and dismal wailing of the vile ones of far time come back to be torn by fiends in the darkness. Had every granite facet of every crag on the walls and roof of that terrible place been a rack on which was stretched a living, shrieking victim, the effect could not have been more awful. My God! What had I done! Who was I to judge this man? The voice of mercy rose up in my soul, and I thought to retrace my steps in the hope of undoing this horrible curse, but before I could turn to carry out my purpose a strange thing happened. A chill blast of air came from across the abyss and struck my face. A thrill shot down my spine. My flesh crept and my hair rose. Then, far within my brain--it seemed to come from an immeasurable distance--a voice spoke, “Let him alone! it is our will, the will of the One above us. Who are you to show mercy when we, the Lords of Compassion, have set our seal to this man’s doom?”

I passed my hand across my forehead: it was cold and wet. Awed and full of tremblings, I turned and walked swiftly towards the giants’ window, hurrying away from those awful sounds which were still ringing in my ears like the imagined cries of hell. In the twilight that pushed the thick darkness back from the huge grating, I partly recovered myself and stood for a moment on the sill, looking out. I wanted a breath of air--some tonic sign of human life from the outside world, and chance gave it me in a small sweetened draught, for which I was thankful.

It came in this way. While I was looking out into the blue sky and listening to the faint music of the wind across the great stone bars, I heard a murmur of voices without, speaking in low tones. I set down my torch and stepped outside to listen. The sounds came from behind the rock on my left. It was the sweet, plaintive, happy-sad voice of a woman that spoke:

“And through all these long years you have forgotten me. I have had no existence to you, no part in your life, no place in your heart. I know the reason of it only too well, dear--Te Makawawa offered me the same forgetfulness, but I would not.” The owner of this voice evidently knew nothing of the terrible things which had just taken place in the interior of the cavern.

“I had no option,” replied a man’s voice, which I knew to be Grey’s; “but I did not wholly forget. Many times in the day and night a strange reminiscence of a tender face flitted across my memory like the face of an angel I might have seen long ago in dreams. They called me ‘Dreamer Grey,’ because at odd times I would stop in what I was saying or doing, and look into the air, trying to follow this fleeting glimpse which was all I knew of some forgotten heaven. But, as I told you just now, the memory of these intervening years is fading away, and I recall these things but dimly. It is beginning to seem but yesterday when I came with you a prisoner to this place. Strange--but I almost think that soon those eighteen years without you will be crowded out, and I shall take up my life again where I left it off--my old life and my old love for you, dear.”

The voice ceased and a happy sigh, breathed all about the one word “Husband!” fell upon my ears. It dismissed the faint, far-off wailings that came from the interior of the mountain; it swept away even the consciousness that I was playing the part of a paltry listener. When this did occur to me some time later the lump that had risen in my throat, and the mist that had gathered in my eyes seemed to take away the paltriness of my part.

Again the sigh, again the tender word as the happy wife replied: “When you saw my face it was when I, too, paused in what I was doing or woke from sleep and stretched out my arms to you. Oh! how I have loved you night and day through all these long years of my imprisonment, and now we are together again, never to be sep----”

The voice stopped, arrested perhaps by some sudden doubt.

“What is it, dearest?”

“You told me just now”--her words had a ring of pain in them--“that your old memory was coming back and the intervening years were slipping away.”

“Yes, they are almost gone. It seems as if some powerful hand is slackening its hold on my brain, and long-forgotten memories are flooding in and taking up their old places. Even now the eighteen years is a mere blank covered with flitting dreams.”

As I listened I remembered the aged chief’s words concerning the spell he had cast over Grey, and a strange thought came to me. I said within my breath, “Te Makawawa is dying. His aged face is turned to the golden west. Soon the lights of heaven will come out in the depths of the sky; soon the eyes of the great chiefs gazing down to see what noble needs are done among mortals will be opened, and Te Makawawa’s eye will shine there--a new star.”

But Miriam Grey spoke again, and her voice was like a moan of pain.

“Dear husband, tell me--I did not think of it before--and forgive me for thinking of it now--but when you forgot me--forgot that--that you ever had a wife, dear--did you--was there anyone----”

“Good God!” said Grey suddenly, “it’s too late; it’s all a blank--I remember nothing--nothing!”

And then I knew that the aged chief Te Makawawa was dead.

“No, it can’t be,” she cried, in answer to his words. “I should have seen it in your face before. I am certain it can’t be; I should have felt it. Dear husband! take me in your arms again and call me wife. No one has ever come between us.”

“And no one ever shall,” he replied.

In the silence that followed I withdrew, and when the manifold sound of agony and wailing, coming out of the far darkness of the interior, again fell upon my ears, I felt toned up to endure it. But another voice, rising up out of the abyss, high and jubilant, told me that Ngaraki was there holding his grim triumph. I picked up my torch and made my way down.

When at last my feet found the great granite steps at the bottom of the vast place, I saw lights flickering below. The chief was preparing many torches and placing them all about, chanting in measured tones the while. I put out my own light and crept down almost to the lowest step, where I stood and witnessed a scene of a savage drama so wild and strange that I must lay down my pen awhile before attempting to describe it.