"Not yet," answered Whero; "I would see the spot where the great hot stone used to be."
"It is buried," Edwin went on, "too deep in the mud for us to find, I'm afraid."
Whero flung himself on the ground, exclaiming wildly, "All lost! all gone! why don't you tangi over me?"
"I would, if it would do you any good; but I don't know how," said Edwin, bluntly. "We are not sure yet, Whero; your people may have rushed away in the night as we did. We will hope to the last."
In his despair Whero had let the kaka fly, and Edwin watched it wheeling over the space between them and the lake, until it settled down in what appeared to him to be a hole in the all-pervading mud.
"He has found something," cried Edwin, hurrying down the steep descent in a wave of excitement. Whero shrieked after him to stop him; so once again the boys rested awhile, and ate up the remainder of the bread in Whero's pockets. It was Edwin's last resource to revive the wild boy's failing courage, and it partially succeeded.
"Edwin," he said, "am I alone in the world—the last of the proud race who owned the fastness in this steep hill-top and the hot stone by yonder lake? Have I nothing left to me but this awful place where my grim forefathers held their victory-feast? Will you come and live with me there?"
"In that ogre's castle!" exclaimed Edwin, with a shudder. "A moment ago you dare not follow me to its threshold, and now—"
"I have been thinking," interrupted Whero, "I must not slight so strange an omen as the kaka's call. Are the mighty dead using his voice to call me back (for I should have fled the place); to remind me what I have now become—a chief of the hills, who can make and unmake tapu as he pleases? Let us go up and swear to be true to each other for ever and ever and ever, as my forefathers used to swear on the eve of battle."
"I will stand by you," said Edwin, earnestly; "on the honour of an Englishman I will. I'll go down to the lake with you. Better see what the kaka has found than climb the hill again. Come."