'Now, listen to me, all of you,' George said earnestly, as they gratefully stretched themselves on the fern and divided the food which Kawainga had carried. 'As soon as it is dawn Te Karearea will organise a hunt for us. If any of us should be captured, those who escape must not think of the plight of their friends, but hurry on to the camp of the British or the Friendlies. It is important that this nest of rebels should be cleared out. Is that agreed, Terence? Do you understand, Paeroa?'
After some hesitation Terence muttered 'Agreed!' and Paeroa, who had waited for him to speak first, answered, 'I hear, Hortoni!' and George was satisfied, knowing that with him to hear was to obey.
As Terence had had most sleep at the beginning of the night, he now took the first watch and, as the grey dawn stole through the bush in ghostly, almost ghastly silence, he thought how different it all was from Australia, where the morning would have been heralded in by the beautiful matin-hymn of the magpie, so called, the cheerful hoot of the laughing-jackass, and the exquisite treble and alto of hundreds of smaller birds. Here was nought but solitude and stillness—a stillness so profound that it began to get upon Terence's nerves, and he more than once stretched out his hand towards George; for the sense of companionship was somehow greater if he only touched his friend's coat—or so he thought.
Presently the sky grew lighter, and the outlines of various objects began to appear. Right ahead of him, a quarter of a mile away, was the hill where George and he had lain and watched the Hau-haus at their weird and blasphemous rites. Down that hill and through this very bush they had run until pulled up by that tumble into the underground world. If he could only find that hole again! Why should he not try? The desire grew with the idea.
'I believe I could find it,' he said within himself, rising and stretching his arms above his head. Then in the midst of a satisfying yawn he dropped noiselessly out of sight behind the tree against which he had been sitting.
From a hundred different points, ahead and on each side of him, brown forms were dodging from tree to tree, and from as many different spots among the fern scarred, brown faces peered, as it seemed, malevolently at him.
CHAPTER XXII
THE DOOM OF THE HOUSE OF TE TURI
Terence opened his mouth to shout a warning to the sleepers to be up and away, but, his bush training coming to his aid, he shut it with a snap.
'I don't think that they have seen me,' he thought; 'but it is too late to run now, at all events.'