It was in an unnamed creek of the New Zealand coast, six weeks before the end of the appointed year, that Bude received a telegram in cipher from the trustees. Bearded, and in blue spectacles, clad rudely as a mariner, Bude was to all, except Logan, who had accompanied him, plain Jones Harvey. None could have recognised in his rugged aspect the elegant aristocrat of Mayfair.
Bude took the message from the hands of the Maori bearer. As he deciphered it his fingers trembled with eagerness. ‘Oh, Heaven! Here is the Hand of Destiny!’ he exclaimed, when he had read the message; and with pallid face he dropped into a deck-chair.
‘No bad news?’ asked Logan with anxiety.
‘The port of rendezvous,’ said Bude, much agitated. ‘Come down to my cabin.’
Entering the sumptuous cabin, Bude opened the locked door of a state-room, and uttered some words in an unknown tongue. A tall and very ancient Maori, tatooed with the native ‘Moka’ on every inch of his body, emerged. The snows of some eighty winters covered his broad breast and majestic head. His eyes were full of the secrets of primitive races. For clothing he wore two navy revolvers stuck in a waist-cloth.
‘Te-iki-pa,’ said Bude, in the Maori language, ‘watch by the door, we must have no listeners, and
your ears are keen as those of the youngest Rangatira’ (warrior).
The august savage nodded, and, lying down on the floor, applied his ear to the chink at its foot.
‘The port of tryst,’ whispered Bude to Logan, as they seated themselves at the remotest extremity of the cabin, ‘is in Cagayan Sulu.’
‘And where may that be?’ asked Logan, lighting a cigarette.