“Nay, that’s what it is; and what I say is this. It’s all wery well getting away from them cannibals, but don’t let’s let old Ngati—”
The chief looked sharply round.
“Yes, I’m a-talking about you, old chap. I say, you’re not to take us right up that mountain, and into a place where we shall tumble in.”
“Tapu! tapu!” said Ngati, nodding his head, and pointing toward the steaming cloud above the mountain.
“Oh, you aggrawating savage!” cried Jem.
Ngati took it as a compliment, and smiled. Then, pointing to a cluster of rocks where a jet of steam was being forced out violently, he led the way there, when they had to pass over a tiny stream of hot water, and a few yards farther on, they came to its source, a beautiful bright fount of the loveliest sapphire blue, with an edge that looked like a marble bath of a roseate tint, fringed every here and there with crystals of sulphur.
“Let’s have a bathe!” cried Jem eagerly. “Is there time?”
He stepped forward, and was about to plunge in his hand, when Ngati seized his shoulders and dragged him back.
“What yer doing that for?” cried Jem.
The Maori stepped forward, and made as if to dip in one of his feet, but snatched it back as if in pain. Then, smiling, he twisted some strands of grass into a band, fastened the end to the palm basket, and gently lowered it, full of eggs, into the sapphire depths, a jet of steam and a series of bubbles rising to the surface as the basket sank.