"Hoké! hoké!" rang out the bird-like voice. "Whero, hoké!"
The lofty summit of the hill gave back the cry.
"Go up," urged Edwin. "Some of your people may have taken refuge here. Whatever you mean by tapu, it can't scare me. You daren't go! then let me try."
There was a rift in the scarped side of the hill, where human hands had cut a foothold here and there, making the ascent possible. Whero crept along the edge and swung himself over. Edwin crawled after him, and climbed up with less difficulty than he expected. "Hoké" was piped above their heads, and Whero's courage failed him once again. He sank upon a stone, with every nerve quivering. The English boy climbed on, and found himself at last upon a bit of table-land which from its height seemed to have escaped the general devastation; for the ground was still covered with the dried remains of summer vegetation. He passed between the tree-like ferns until he came upon a spot, bare and dry, without a sign of a scrap of undergrowth of any kind or at any time. It might have been about three-quarters of an acre, and was completely arched over by the inter-woven boughs of four or five gigantic trees, which even the storm of mud could not penetrate. Edwin gazed at their majestic trunks, full sixty feet in circumference, ranged around him like the columns of one of nature's temples, with a kind of awe.
The ground on which he stood was hard and dusty, and yet he knew, by the fern and the creeper through which he had reached it, this unusual clearance was not the work of the eruption. It looked as if it might have been thus barren for ages.
The roots of the trees had grown out of the ground, and were twisted and coiled over and over like a group of mighty serpents transfixed and fossilized by ancient sorcery. Among them lay the human relics of a barbarous age. The very stones on which he trod had once been fashioned by the hand of man. There were axe and spear heads, knives and chisels, embedded in the fibrous coils; and were they human skulls and bones which lay there whitening by their side? Edwin recoiled in horror. A bird flew down from the leafy dome, and alighted near him, renewing its wailing cry, "Hoké, hoké." Edwin saw by the crimson feathers of its breast it was a species of macaw—an escaped pet from some of the buried homes around him.
He called it a little nervously at first, as if it had dyed its plumage in the blood of the murdered captives whose bones lay white at his feet. The bird swooped round, beating the air with its outspread wings, and darting forward as if it had half a mind to perch upon his outstretched hand.
When were Edwin's pockets ever empty? He was feeling in them now for a few dry crumbs wherewith to tempt the wailing bird.
It fluttered nearer at the welcome sight, for grain or insects were nowhere to be found in that place of dearth. It came at last, and nestled, as it had evidently been taught to nestle by its unknown master, close against Edwin's cheek. He grasped it by the wings, and gently smoothed its ruffled feathers.
"Whero," he shouted, running back with it to the brow of the hill, "Whero, it is a bird."