Sleep was stealing over him, and Edwin did not venture to reply.
A sympathetic drowsiness was visiting him also, but he was roused out of it by seeing Hal busily engaged in trying to capture the kaka.
"It is a good, fat bird," whispered the old man; "they are first-rate eating in a pie. We can cook him as we did the duck I found; put him in the boiling mud as the natives do!"
Up sprang Edwin to the rescue. "No, Hal, no; you must not touch that bird!"
He caught the old man's arm, and scared the kaka off. The frightened bird soared upwards, and concealed itself in the overarching boughs.
Whero was awakened by its screams, and got up, shaking the dry moss from his tangled shock of hair, and laughing.
Edwin called off attention from the kaka by detailing his father's plan.
The breakfastless trio were of one mind. It must be tried, as it offered the surest hope of relief. The river was so much safer than the road. Ottley might never have it in his power to send the promised help. Some danger might have overwhelmed him also. What was the use of waiting for the growing of the grass, if a readier way presented itself? Hal spread out the canvas of the tent to dry, and talked of putting it up in the new location. Legs and arms were wonderfully stiff from keeping on wet clothes. But the most pressing want was water. Dry ground and pure air were essential, but thirst was intolerable. They took the cup by turns and went down to a spring which Whero pointed out. Beauty had found for himself a little pond, which nature had scooped out, and the recent rains had filled with greenish water which he did not despise.
Whilst Hal was away, Edwin intimated to Whero that it was not very safe to leave his kaka with him; for he feared the bird would be killed and eaten as soon as they were gone, although he did not say so to his Maori friend.
Whero's eyes were ablaze with rage in a moment. "Let him touch it!" he snorted rather than hissed. "I'll meet him. If it's here on the hill, I'll hurl him over that precipice. If—if—" Edwin's eye was fastened on the boy with a steady gaze. Whero raised his clinched hand, as if to strike. "Tell him," he went on—"tell him in our country here the mud is ever boiling to destroy the Maori's foes. I'll push him down the first jet we pass." He looked around him proudly, and kicked away the skull beneath his foot, as if to remind his listener how in that very spot the threats in which he had been indulging found plenty of precedent.