While the Maoris murmured together, Te Karearea addressed George in a voice a little less firm than usual: 'I thank you, Hortoni. There is a bond between us; for I owe you my life.'
'Not so, O Chief,' answered George coldly. 'You saved my life aboard the brig; so now we are quits.'
Te Karearea merely nodded his head and echoed George's remark: 'Very well, Hortoni; we are quits.'
'I wish you had let the rascal slip through your hands,' remarked Terence, as they ascended the slope. 'It would have been a good riddance of a particularly bad form of rubbish. No, no,' he went on, reddening as George looked at him; 'I don't mean that. You couldn't have done it. Original instincts too strong and all that. I—oh, you know.'
'You need not apologise.' George smiled. 'The thought actually crossed my mind as I held him up.'
'He is brave, George. He bore that ordeal as few could or would have done. Perhaps it is a pity that he is not on our side.'
'No, no,' said George, with a passionate gesture. 'If there be any excuse for his slyness, his lies, his murders, it is in the fact that he acts as he does in the sacred name of patriotism. Were he in arms against his own race, and still displayed his present characteristics, he would be intolerable.'
'Here he comes back,' exclaimed Terence; 'and beaming, by Jove! What a man!'
The wily Te Karearea had been quick to perceive the effect of his accident upon the emotional minds of his countrymen, and with characteristic effrontery set himself to efface the unfavourable impression. Standing between the friends, he began a stirring address to the warriors, who had now crossed the bridge and were waiting to enter the pah, by the outer gate of which were grouped the tohunga and his small garrison, ready to welcome the conquering chief.
With every trick of gesture and impassioned tone of the born orator, he spoke to them until their fierce eyes were fastened upon his own, and the sullen apathy dropped from their stern faces. Then, pausing, he stepped back a pace, and, pointing to George and Terence, cried: 'But here, my friends, are two Pakehas whose hearts are even as those of the Maori. You have seen for yourselves. For if Hortoni and Mura had not been my friends, they would have left me to perish. Here they stand, and'—his voice swelled to a triumphant shout—'friends, they are ours!'