Presently a piece of raupo, detached from the thatch, fell upon the floor. The visitor, whoever he was, had penetrated the roof. George stole to the widening hole, Terence to the door, and so they waited, holding their revolvers by the barrel, ready for whatever might chance.
'Hortoni!' Just the whispered word; but George's heart leaped, for the voice was Paeroa's, and he knew that his faithful ally, and not an enemy, stood without.
'I am here, O Whispering Wind,' he breathed back. 'Why——'
'Hush! Speak not, Hortoni. Do you and Mura take these knives and widen the hole. I will return.'
Presently, as they ripped and cut, the Maori returned and whispered with his mouth at the hole: 'Te Taroa, whom the Hawk set to guard you, is asleep. Hasten, Hortoni, for there are evil spirits in the air, and Life and Death contend which shall have you.'
Hurriedly he told them how he had come back to the entrance of the underground world, vaguely suspecting mischief, and found it blocked. Alarmed, he had fetched Kawainga, wormed a way out, and sent the girl down the hill to the flax-patch on the west. Then he had crept under the stockade and learned from the chatter of the sentries that Te Karearea had suffered a crushing defeat and had fled to the pah to renew his supplies and ammunition. Further, he learned of the loss of the greenstone club, the withdrawal of the prisoners' parole, and, knowing well the consequences to Hortoni if the mere were really gone, had scaled the palisades in order to urge his friends to escape without loss of time.
The hole in the roof being now wide enough for them to pass through, Terence very unwillingly went first. George was half-out and half-in when a sneeze was heard in front of the hut, followed by a yawn and the comfortable grunt of a man stretching himself. Te Taroa was awake, and, more, was coming round the hut, as though to atone for his carelessness.
Suddenly he stopped, every keen sense alert, and sprang back, open-mouthed; but, before he could yell an alarm, the butt of Terence's revolver crashed down upon his head, and he fell back stunned.
George was now out, and by Paeroa's directions he and Terence removed their boots, lest they should clatter as they climbed the palisades. The Maori went first, then Terence passed down the boots and swung himself over, and, lastly, George jumped on to the platform and laid his hands on the top of the stockade.
Ten seconds more and he would have been over, but, as he straddled the fence, the roar of a gun at close-quarters and the 'wheep' of a bullet past his head so startled him that he lost his balance and fell headlong. But, instead of rolling into the ditch he banged against the fence and remained suspended there, unable for the moment to free himself. His sock had caught upon a projecting stake near the top of the stockade.