But Edwin, the eldest boy, had already followed the example of his father. He had wriggled himself out of the window, and was dropping to the ground down the back of the coach, which completely blocked the narrow road.
His father and the coachman both shouted to him to fetch the roadman to their help. It was not far to the hut at the entrance of the gorge, and the boy, who had been reckoned a first-rate scout on the cricket-field, ran off with the speed of a hare. The navvy's stentorian "coo"—the recognized call for assistance—was echoing along the rocky wall as he went. The roadman had heard it, and had left his dinner to listen. He saw the panting boy, and came to meet him.
"Coach upset," gasped Edwin.
"Here, lad, take my post till I come back; let nobody come this way. I'll be up with poor coachee in no time. Anybody hurt?"
But without waiting for a reply the man set off. Edwin sank into the bed of fern that clustered round the opening of the chasm, feeling as if all the breath had been shaken out of him. There he sat looking queer for an hour or more, hearing nothing, seeing nothing but the dancing leaves, the swaying boughs, the ripple of the waters. Only once a big brown rat came out of the underwood and looked at him. The absence of all animal life in the forest struck him: even the birds sing only in the most retired recesses. An ever-increasing army of sand-flies were doing their utmost to drive him from his position. Unable at last to endure their stings, he sprang up, trying to rid himself of his tormentors by a shake and a dance, when he perceived a solitary horseman coming towards him, not by the coach-road, but straight across the open glade.
The man was standing in his stirrups, and seemed to guide his horse by a gentle shake of the rein. On he rode straight as an arrow, making nothing of the many impediments in his path. Edwin saw him dash across the creek, plunge through the all but impenetrable tangle of a wild flax-bush, whose tough and fibrous leaves were nine feet long at least, leap over a giant boulder some storm had hurled from the rocks above, and rein in his steed with easy grace at the door of the roadman's shanty. Then Edwin noticed that the man, whose perfect command of his horse had already won his boyish admiration, had a big mouth and a dusky skin, that his cheeks were furrowed with wavy lines encircling each other.
IN THE MOUNTAIN GORGE. 15
"A living tattoo," thought Edwin. The sight of those curiously drawn lines was enough to proclaim a native.
Some Maori chief, the boy was inclined to believe by his good English-made saddle. The tall black hat he wore might have been imported from Bond Street at the beginning of the season, barring the sea-bird's feathers stuck upright in the band. His legs were bare. A striped Austrian blanket was thrown over one shoulder and carefully draped about him. A snowy shirt sleeve was rolled back from the dusky arm he had raised to attract Edwin's attention. A striped silk scarf, which might have belonged to some English lady, was loosely knotted round his neck, with the ends flying behind him. A scarlet coat, which had lost its sleeves, completed his grotesque appearance.
"Goo'-mornin'," he shouted. "Coach gone by yet?"