"But the Government surely won't call out the troops in the face of the reports of Busby and McLean, and the opinion of Maning, anent native titles?"
"People of ordinary sense would think so, but they're 'running amok' just now, and what between the Company, the Provincial Council, the Ministry, and the Governor, who has been over-persuaded or duped in the matter, I believe that war, and nothing else, will be the outcome. The British Government has acquired much territory in different parts of the world, but this is going to be one of the biggest land-bills in men and money that Old England ever drew cheque for. That's what I'm telling my directors at home, and I hope they'll like the news."
Here Mr. Slyde resumed his pen, and with a brief adieu the chance friends separated.
Discovering from reliable sources that nothing in the way of battle, murder, and sudden death was likely to take place for a few weeks, Mr. Massinger decided that he would pay a visit to those wondrous lakes of which he had heard and read. He had pictured in his mind, how often, the strange aspect of a country where snow-crowned mountains or active volcanoes looked down upon Nature's daring colour-effects dashed off in her most fantastic moods; where the central fires of the globe sent up their steam in jets, and the angry gnome, "the mid-earth's swarthy child," still murmured audibly; where boiling fountains hissed and gurgled, unchilled by the wintry blast; where fairy terraces, lustrous in lace-like tracery, lay shining, translucent, under summer moon or winter dawn; where the unsophisticated inhabitants of this weird and magical region, all ignorant of the clothes philosophy, revelled from morn to eve in the luxurious warmth of medicated baths, curative of all the ills that flesh is heir to.
When he communicated his intentions as to visiting the far-famed land of the geyser and the fumarole to his friends, they all advised him to make the journey without delay.
"It is one of the wonders of the world, and by no means the least," said Mr. Lochiel. "I thank God that I have seen it; and though I have travelled much in other lands, I have never beheld the place that equals that strange and grand landscape, terrible even in its beauty. The delicate loveliness of the pink and white terraces 'beggars all description.' I shall not attempt it. They alone are well worth coming from the other end of the world to see."
"And I wouldn't delay either," said Captain Macdonald. "This Waitara business may bring on war at any time, and then no white man, except a missionary, is safe—hardly he, indeed."
"I will start next week," said Massinger, "if I can get a horse and guide. I should never forgive myself if I lost the chance by delay."
"Horses of any kind you can pick up at the bazaar within an hour," said Mr. Lochiel; "and I will send you a guide who could find his way to Taupo in the dark. It is scarcely a road to travel alone just now, and the forest tracks are neither easy to keep nor to find again when lost. The rivers, too, are of a violent nature, and dangerous unless you know the fords."