“About two miles.”
“What brings you so far, at this time of the morning?”
“You passed a settler’s house, half-a-mile back.”
“Yes, a house built of slabs.”
“I have been there to take the woman some fish—our people made a big haul this morning.”
Jack dismounted, and, hooking his arm through the bridle, he walked beside the Maori girl.
“Why didn’t you ride, Amiria?”
“My horse is turned out on the hills at the back of the pa, and it’s too much trouble to bring him in for so short a ride. Besides, the walk won’t hurt me: if I don’t take exercise I shall lose my figure.” She burst into a merry laugh, for she knew that, as she was then dressed, her beauty depended on elasticity of limb and sweetness of face rather than upon shape and fashion.
“I’ll show you the wreck,” she said. “It lies between us and the pa. It looks a very harmless place in calm weather with the sun shining on the smooth sea. The tide is out, so we ought to be able to reach the wreck without swimming.”
They had come now to the edge of the “bush,” and here Scarlett tied his horse to the bough of a tree; and with Amiria he paced the soft and sparkling sands, to which the road ran parallel.