"Very pleased to make his acquaintance," said the tall man, whose shrewd, intellectual, kindly face impressed him most favourably. "If he is of my mind, he will have reason to congratulate himself on his choice of a colony. I have never regretted my decision, and the greater part of my life has been spent here."
"You seem to have a diplomatic difficulty on hand," remarked Massinger, "if I may judge from an experience this morning."
"Oh! you witnessed that affair in Shortland Street, did you? My friend and I were just about to walk over to the Maori camp and get their notion of it. We're both 'Pakeha Maoris' of long standing, and the chief, Te Rangitake, has heard our names before. Would you care to accompany us?"
"There is nothing I should like better. I begin to wish for a more intimate acquaintance with our native friends, and trust to be an authority on their manners and customs by-and-by."
"It's odds but that we may know a lot more about their ways before long," said Captain Macdonald; "more than we shall like, if I don't mistake. In the mean time we had better look them up at the Kiki."
The newly made friends—for such they were fated to be in the after-time—walked on a path parallel to the sea, over several deep ravines crossed by temporary bridges, until they came to a clear space, in front of which a bold bluff looked out upon the harbour. Here a collection of huts, made of the raupo, or reed-rush, and the smoke of fires, denoted the presence of the ambassadors of the former lords of the soil.
"Haere Mai! Haere Mai!" was the cry with which they were greeted, which Massinger rightly interpreted as a note of welcome. His companions replied with a phrase which appeared to be the correct antiphonal rejoinder. As they reached the camp, in which they noted a number of women and children, it was evident that they were favourably known to the hapu, or family section, of the by no means inconsiderable Ngatiawa tribe.
The chief himself, an intelligent and determined-looking man, thus addressed them—
"Welcome! My welcome is to you, captain! You have been a friend to the Ngatiawa as long ago as when Honii Heke cut down the flagstaff; and my welcome is to you—Herekino. When your ship was in Kororarika, your heart was to our tribe."