"A kainga?" interrupted Edwin, breathlessly. "What is a kainga?"
"That is our name for a little village without a wall," explained Whero, hurrying on. "He came. He called the men together. They have gone up with clubs and spears. They will come upon the ford-house with the dawn, and force their way in to find the bag. The master cannot resist so many. O Edwin, my brother, I said I saved my kaka when they would have killed it; shall I not save my friend? I wanted to go with the men, that I might tell my father again how you have stood by me. And should I not stand by you? But my mother, Marileha, held me back. My grandfather kept on saying, 'I knew from the first it was the farmer's son who had robbed you. Was it he who helped us out of the mud? I saw him not. It was Ottley, the good coachman. Have we not all eyes?' 'Go not with them,' said my mother. 'What is talk? Your father will make you the same answer. Do they know the young pakeha as we do?' So I listened to my mother, and we made our plan together. I knew our men could not conceal themselves in the water; they must all be hidden in the bush. I filled my canoe with rushes. I rowed after them up the river, gliding along in the shadows. I climbed up the bank, under the row of little windows at the back of the ford-house, and listened. I heard my kaka scream, and I guessed it was with you. I was sure you would take care of it. I could see the windows were all cracked and broken with the earthquakes. The shocks come still so often I knew I had only to wait, and when I felt the ground tremble under my feet I smashed the window. Nobody noticed the noise when everything around us was rocking and shaking. You know the rest. We have an hour before us yet. I am rowing for the coast as hard as I can. Once on board a steamer no Maori can touch you. I have plenty of money to pay for our passage. My grandfather came to see me when I was at school, and gave me a lot to persuade me to stay. He was taking his money to the Auckland bank, for fear another tana should come. Then we can go and live among the pakehas."
"But where shall we go?" asked Edwin, struck with the ability with which Whero had laid his plan, and the ease with which he was carrying it out. "I only wish I could have spoken to Dunter or Mr. Hirpington before we came away; for what will they think of me?"
"Think!" repeated Whero; "let them think. Could I betray my father to them? Our hearts are true to each other. We have given love for love. Would they believe it? No. Would they have let you come away with me, Nga-Hepé's son? No. One word, my brother, and you would have been lost. A steamer will take us to school. They told me at Tauranga there was a school in every great town on the island, so it does not matter where it lands us; the farther off the better."
Marileha was watching for them on the bank. Whero waved his arms in signal of success, and shot swiftly past in the cold gray light of the coming day.
The eastern sky was streaked with red when the first farm-house was sighted. Should they stop and beg for bread? Whero was growing exhausted with continued exertion. He lifted his paddle from the water, and Edwin sat upright; then caution whispered to them both, "Not yet! wait a little longer." So they glided on beneath the very window of the room where Mrs. Hirpington was sleeping. One half-hour later she might have seen them pass.
The ever-broadening river was rolling now between long wooded banks. Enormous willows dipped their weeping boughs into the stream, and a bridge became visible in the distance as the morning sun shone out. The white walls of many a settler's home glistened through the light gauzy haze which hung above the frosted ground. Whero's aching arms had scarcely another lift left in them, when they perceived a little river-steamer with its line of coal-barges in tow.
Should they hail it and ask to be taken on board? No; it was going the wrong way. But Edwin ventured, now that the hills were growing shadowy in the dim distance, to sit upright and take his turn with the paddle, whilst Whero rested.
How many miles had they come? how many farther had they yet to go?
They watched the settlements on either side of the river with hungry eyes, until they found themselves near a range of farm-buildings which looked as if they might belong to some well-to-do colonist, and were in easy hail of the river-bank. They ran the canoe aground, and walked up to the house to beg for the bread so freely given to all comers through the length and breadth of New Zealand.