“There’s only one thing I’m afraid of, Mas’ Don,” said Jem; “and that is that those convicts will smell us out.”
But as time went on that fear grew less, and just at sunset one evening, as Ngati turned the shoulder of one of the mountains and stood pointing, Don set up a shout which Jem echoed, for there beneath them in a valley, and about a quarter of a mile from the shimmering sea, lay a cluster of cottages, such as could only have been built by Europeans, and they realised now what had been the Maori’s thoughts in bringing them there.
Chapter Fifty Two.
Don has a Headache.
“Escaped from the Maoris, and then from a party of men you think were runaway convicts?” said the broad-shouldered, sturdy occupant of the little farm which they reached just at dusk. “Ah, well, we can talk about that to-morrow, my lads. It’s enough for me that you are Englishmen. Come in.”
“I cannot leave our friend,” said Don quietly, as he laid his hand on Ngati’s arm.
“What, the savage!” said the farmer, rubbing his ear. “Well, we—oh, if he’s your friend, that’s enough.”
They had no occasion to complain of the hospitality, for the farmer, who had been settled there, with a few companions only, for about four years, was but too glad to see fresh faces, and with a delicacy hardly to be expected from one leading so rough a life he refrained from asking any questions.