'I did not,' returned George with equal earnestness. 'It seems to me that I had no knowledge of it whatever until Paeroa struck his blow.'
Terence rumpled his fiery curls. 'It is all very odd and uncanny. How do you account for it?' he asked.
'I can't account for it,' George answered. 'Perhaps the mystery, if there is one, will explain itself some day. Meantime, where are we?'
'One thing is certain,' said Terence, ignoring the change of subject. 'That greenstone club always seems to be interposed, or to interpose itself, between you and danger—if not death—in the nick of time. Well, it's no use speculating. Where are we? In goblin-land, I should say. The very place for them.'
They walked on for the best part of an hour and then found themselves at the bottom of a shallow gully, in the opposite steep of which gaped a large rent, which looked as if it might be the mouth of a cave.
The impulsive Terence dashed into the black opening, followed more sedately by George, and the cave turned out to be a short tunnel with a sloping floor, which descended to the level and then quickly sloped again upwards. Small rills of water trickled from the walls or splashed musically upon the floor, where, as from the roof, stalactites and stalagmites had formed during the slow march of centuries.
'I believe we have passed under the river,' said George, 'and that tunnel was made by the hand of man—though how long ago it is impossible to guess. Ah! Here is a poser.'
'Had we not passed through that tunnel, I should think that we had been walking in a circle all this time,' remarked Terence, rather hopelessly; for the scene upon which they issued was the counterpart of that which they had left behind them on the other side of the passage.
Still they walked on, always ascending now, as it seemed to them, and at last, just as they came to the base of a slope, between which and the opposite ridge a wide, shallow gully extended, Terence halted suddenly and gripped George's wrist with a warning 'Hush!'
He pointed to the left, where a number of Maoris sat in a circle; but none of them turned round or took the least notice of the intruders.