"Much worse than could happen now?" asked Massinger.
"Worse—worse a hundredfold. First of all, the old and helpless would be killed and eaten—yes, eaten before their blood was cold. Any particular family among the captors that had lost relatives would have men or women handed over to them to torture at their pleasure; and great pleasure it seemed to be to prolong the agony and refine the cruelty. All the able-bodied men and women would be carried off as slaves—not only to be used as beasts of burden, but to be held degraded for life as having been slaves. Their lot was a hard one, though occasionally some lived through it, and were now and then freed. Others became distinguished, like Te Waharoa."
"I have heard his history," said Massinger. "What a remarkable man he must have been!"
"He was indeed. Found crying, a small child, among the ruins of his pah at Wanganui, and carried away to Rotorua by Pango, a chief of the Ngatiwhakane, who in after-years piously repented (in 1836) that he had not there and then ended the life of one fated to become the destroyer of his tribe. It did seem ungrateful when he, forty years afterwards, declared war against the tribe that had liberated him, and slaughtered them wholesale at Ohinemutu."
Sleep did not appear to be likely to visit Massinger after what he had heard from Warwick. Long after his comrades had retired he remained on watch, gazing into the forest, as if he expected the Ngapuhi to debouch thence, with Mannering and Waterton at the head of their warriors, and Erena beside her father, a warrior-maid too proud to remain behind when the great Ngapuhi tribe was on the war-path.
What would be the fate of this strange girl, so subtly compounded of diverse elements, the twin natures within her—the forest life and the civilized—each struggling for the mastery?
And what were his feelings now with respect to her? Could he deny that her image was constantly in his thoughts; that the recollection of her haughty, graceful bearing, her superb form, her lustrous eyes, her radiant smile, combined to form a picture dangerously enthralling? From one fateful syren, so destructive to his peace, his every aim and prospect in life, he had been removed. And now, must a newer "phantom of delight" reappear to disturb his faculties and assail his reason? Whatever might be the result, one thing was certain—his heart swelled with unwonted emotion at the thought of seeing her again.
And under what circumstances were they once more to meet? Not under the fern-arched glades of that enchanted forest, wherein they had wandered side by side so many a mile, carelessly gay as the bird that called above them, looking forward but to the halt by rushing stream or fire-lit camp, amid the silent splendours of the antarctic night. He had thought to regard this fantastic friendship as one of the inevitable episodes of a roving life, productive, doubtless, of a transient series of pleasurable emotions and interesting experiences, but to be disengaged from his career when serious action was demanded, like the drifting weeds and flowers that for a time impede the flowing tide.
How many men have so judged! How many have discovered that the fragile bonds, to be cast aside as pleasure or interest might dictate, have changed mysteriously into shackles and fetters that hold with inflexible tenacity a long life through?