"I saw it all, Mrs. Hirpington; I know how it happened. Nga-Hepé gave me his horse, that I might escape in safety to you."
"Well, well," she answered, resigning herself to the inevitable. "If you will go out and meet them and bring them here, Dunter shall clear the barn to receive them."
Edwin slid down the rough stem of the honeysuckle and let himself out, and ran along the road for about half-a-mile, waving his hat and calling to the fugitives to come on, to come to the ford.
The gray-haired woman in the counterpane, now begrimed with mud and smoke, was the first to meet him.
She shouted back joyfully, "The good wahini [woman] at the ford has sent to fetch us. She hear the cry of the child. Good! good!"
But the invitation met with no response from Whero and his mother.
"Shall it be said by morning light Nga-Hepé's wife was sleeping in the Ingarangi [English] bed, and he a dead man lying on the floor of his forefathers' whare, with none to do tangi above him!" she exclaimed, tearing fresh handfuls from her long dark hair in her fury.
"Oh to be bigger and stronger," groaned Whero, "that I might play my game with the greenstone club! but my turn will come."
The blaze of passion in the boy's star-like eyes recalled his mother to calmness. "What are you," she asked, "but an angry child to court the blow of the warrior's club that would end your days? A man can bide his hour. Go with the Ingarangi, boy."
"Yes, go," urged her companion.