"The pakeha will not die," he exclaimed. "My art has saved him. It will be good for the Ngapuhi tribe, and for the maiden Erena, whose mother I so much loved."
Arriving at the couch of the stricken pakeha, he looked upon him with solemn and mysterious regard. He felt his pulse, and minutely scrutinized the cicatrice of the newly healed wound. Meanwhile the eyes of the girl, dilated with terror and anxiety, watched his inscrutable countenance, as the mother of the sick child in more conventional abodes fixes her gaze on the physician, whose words contain the issues of life or death.
"Speak, O Tiro-hanga! Say whether he will die—and I also. One word will serve for both."
The tohunga placed his hand upon the shoulder of the excited girl, whose every nerve seemed quivering, as if the tension of mind and body had exhausted the limit of human endurance.
"As you are, so was your mother in her youth," he said, speaking with deep though restrained feeling in the Maori tongue; "in those days when the tall pakeha rangatira came to Hokianga from Maketu—he whose arm was strong as the lancewood of the hillside, and whose counsel was wise in the day of battle. I would have killed him, though my own life was forfeit, had I not seen that she would follow him to the reinga. But I could not cause a hair of her head to be harmed, such was my bondage to her mana. And you, O pakeha, will I save, likewise, for her sake. Comfort yourself, O Erena; the pakeha will not die."
"Is it so? Truly do you say it?" almost gasped the frenzied maid. "Is there anything more that we can do? Have you the healing medicine for him?"
"I will prepare the bitter draught for him—that draught which will bring a man back to life, though the jaws of death were closing over him," said the tohunga. "When the sun is high, a change will come upon him."
"Are you sure? Are you indeed aware that he will begin to gain strength?" she asked eagerly. "He has been so terribly weak, and was beginning to lose heart."
"Did the daughter of the Toa-rangatira ever know my saying to prove false?" asked the priest, haughtily.