"I'll see it out," said Warwick.
"So we will, dear boy," said Mr. Slyde. "Have Ngarara's scalp. Revival of ancient customs. Must have rational amusement now the war's over."
What did really happen to Massinger was this. He felt himself struck under the right shoulder from behind by a hard blow as from a stone, such being the sensation of a bullet-wound from undoubted personal evidence. Before he had turned round to see who had given him such a hurt, he felt a queer faintness, and noticed a stream of blood running down his breast, while the evil face of Ngarara, lit up with revengeful triumph, glared at him, partly covered by a huge kawaka tree.
Before he could combine the concrete and the abstract sufficiently to formulate a theory, "darkness covered his eyes," and a sudden death rehearsal was in full operation.
When he recovered his senses, the night was so far advanced that he glanced upward to the stars with a half-conscious, wondering doubt as to his condition and circumstances. On a rude litter, formed of branches and twisted flax, the bed of grass and fern-leaves beneath him being by no means uncomfortable, he was moving slowly along a forest path, on which four bearers were trying to carry him as smoothly as circumstances would admit of. Two women in native dress walked in front, in one of whom, as she stopped to speak a word to the bearers, he had no difficulty in recognizing Erena.
After an answering sentence from the bearer nearest him, she held up her hand, and the little party halted. Coming close to his head, which he was as yet unable to raise, she looked anxiously in his face, and in softest accents said—
"You have awakened."
The loss of blood had been great, but by some styptic known to the natives, a people much acquainted with wounds of all degree of severity, it had been arrested. He tried to speak; a faint inarticulate murmur was all the reply he could furnish. He raised himself; but the effort was too painful, and again he became unconscious.
When he awoke once more he was aware that locomotion had ceased, and that he was lying upon a couch covered with mats. All was darkness, with the exception of flickering gleams thrown from a fire which was lighted at the entrance of the vault or cave in which he was lodged. Becoming more used to the dim uncertain light, he discerned the limestone walls and roof, which were festooned with stalactites in all sorts of fantastic, delicate shapes. There was a sound as of falling water, so that the difficulty of assuaging thirst would not be among the privations suffered by the inmates of this singular retreat. After a while he was relieved by the appearance of his good angel, as he felt impelled to call her.
"Tell me," he said, "how has all this come to pass? I am anxious to hear about the fall of the Gate Pah, and the way I have been removed to this place."