"I knew," she said, bending over him with the frank tenderness of a woman who loves passionately, and does not fear to disguise the fact, "that if you remained longer where you fell you would stand a chance of being tomahawked, if not worse treated. My father gave the order for you to be carried off, and at the same time signed to me that I and my cousin Riria were to accompany you. The cave in which you find yourself is only known to our hapu, and has always been regarded as being impenetrable to any one not acquainted with the secret approach."
"But it was evident to me," said he, "that I was shot through the body. How was the flow of blood stopped, and the wound found not to be dangerous?"
"We were told," she said, "that it was not mortal by a well-known tohunga of our tribe, who has been left a stage behind. He will be here tomorrow, and is a medicine-man of some repute, I can assure you. He applied a styptic, which was successful, and found that the bullet-wound, though it had grazed the lung, would not be dangerous, though hard to heal."
"I owe everything to you, dearest Erena," he said, pressing the hand which lay nearest to him; "and the life you have saved is yours for ever. If I come scatheless out of this war, you will have no reason to doubt my gratitude. How shall I ever repay you?"
"It is only too easy to do so," she said, as she gazed at him with eyes that glowed with all the intensity of a woman's love, for the first time awakened in that passionate nature. "But you must not talk of gratitude," she continued, with a smile, "or I shall begin to doubt whether you love me as we love—in life, in death, to the grave, and beyond it."
As she spoke, she wound her arms tenderly around him, and, kissing him upon the forehead, hastily left the cave.
When she reappeared, bringing such food as the natives had been able to secure, she said—
"Now you must eat all you can, and grow strong, as the sooner we leave this 'Lizard's Cave,' as it is called, and get back to my father, the better. I know that he will make for Rotorua as soon as the fighting is over."
"Tell me about the Gate Pah," he said. "Our men were falling fast, were they not?"