The geographer’s opinion prevailed. Lady Helena preferred to pass the last night in the open air rather than to expose her companions. Neither she nor Mary Grant required a halt, and they therefore continued to follow the banks of the river.
Two hours after, the first shadows of evening began to descend the mountains. The sun before disappearing below the western horizon had glinted a few rays through a rift in the clouds. The eastern peaks were crimsoned with the last beams of day.
Glenarvan and his friends hastened their pace. They knew the shortness of the twilight in this latitude, and how quickly night sets in. It was important to reach the junction of the two rivers before it became dark. But a dense fog rose from the earth, and made it very difficult to distinguish the way.
Fortunately, hearing availed in place of sight. Soon a distinct murmur of the waters indicated the union of the two streams in a common bed, and not long after the little party arrived at the point where the Waipa mingles with the Waikato in resounding cascades.
“Here is the Waikato,” cried Paganel, “and the road to Auckland runs along its right bank.”
“We shall see tomorrow,” replied the major. “Let us encamp here. It seems to me as if those deeper shadows yonder proceeded from a little thicket of trees that has grown here expressly to shelter us. Let us eat and sleep.”
“Eat,” said Paganel, “but of biscuits and dried meat, without kindling a fire. We have arrived here unseen; let us try to go away in the same manner. Fortunately, this fog will render us invisible.”
The group of trees was reached, and each conformed to the geographer’s rigorous regulations. The cold supper was noiselessly eaten, and soon a profound sleep overcame the weary travelers.
XLVIII
Introduction to the Cannibals
The next morning at break of day a dense fog was spreading heavily over the river, but the rays of the sun were not long in piercing the mist, which rapidly disappeared under the influence of the radiant orb. The banks of the stream were released from their shroud, and the course of the Waikato appeared in all its morning beauty.
A narrow tongue of land bristling with shrubbery ran out to a point at the junction of the two rivers. The waters of the Waipa, which flowed more swiftly, drove back those of the Waikato for a quarter of a mile before they mingled; but the calm power of the one soon overcame the boisterous impetuosity of the other, and both glided peacefully together to the broad bosom of the Pacific.
As the mist rose, a boat might have been seen ascending the Waikato. It was a canoe seventy feet long and five broad. The lofty prow resembled that of a Venetian gondola, and the whole had been fashioned out of the trunk of a pine. A bed of dry fern covered the bottom. Eight oars at the bow propelled it up the river, while a man at the stern guided it by means of a movable paddle.
This man was a native, of tall form, about forty-five years old, with broad breast and powerful limbs. His protruding and deeply furrowed brow, his fierce look and his sinister countenance, showed him to be a formidable individual.
He was a Maori chief of high rank, as could be seen by the delicate and compact tattooing that striped his face and body. Two black spirals, starting from the nostrils of his aquiline nose, circled his tawny eyes, met on his forehead, and were lost in his abundant hair. His mouth, with its shining teeth, and his chin, were hidden beneath a network of varied colors, while graceful lines wound down to his sinewy breast.
There was no doubt as to his rank. The sharp albatross bone, used by Maori tattooers, had furrowed his face five times, in close and deep lines. That he had reached his fifth promotion was evident from his haughty bearing. A large flaxen mat, ornamented with dog-skins, enveloped his person; while a girdle, bloody with his recent conflicts, encircled his waist. From his ears dangled earrings of green jade, and around his neck hung necklaces of pounamous, sacred stones to which the New Zealanders attribute miraculous properties. At his side lay a gun of English manufacture, and a patou-patou, a kind of double-edged hatchet.
Near him nine warriors, of lower rank, armed and of ferocious aspect, some still suffering from recent wounds, stood in perfect immobility, enveloped in their flaxen mantles. Three dogs of wild appearance were stretched at their feet. The eight rowers seemed to be servants or slaves of the chief. They worked vigorously, and the boat ascended the current of the Waikato with remarkable swiftness.
In the centre of this long canoe, with feet tied, but hands free, were ten European prisoners clinging closely to each other. They were Lord Glenarvan and his companions.
The evening before, the little party, led astray by the dense fog, had encamped in the midst of a numerous tribe of natives. About midnight, the travelers, surprised in their sleep, were made prisoners and carried on board the canoe. They had not yet been maltreated, but had tried in vain to resist. Their arms and ammunition were in the hands of the savages, and their own bullets would have quickly stretched them on the earth had they attempted to escape.
They were not long in learning, by the aid of a few English words which the natives used, that, being driven back by the British troops, they were returning, vanquished and weakened, to the regions of the upper Waikato. Their chief, after an obstinate resistance, in which he lost his principal warriors, was now on his way to rouse again
