"And may again," interposed Warwick. "These people were not worse than others long ago. The Druids, with their wicker cages filled with roasting victims, were as well up to date as my Maori ancestors. Luckily, such things have passed away for ever."
"Let us trust so," said Massinger, feelingly.
Erena made no answer, but walked forward musingly on the track which led in the direction of the camp.
"Though narrow, it appears to have been much used," he remarked.
"It is an old war-path," replied the guide. "When the Ngapuhi came down from Maketu on their raids, they mostly used this route. I am not old enough to have seen anything of Heke's war in '45. It was the first real protest against the pakeha. The natives were beginning to be afraid, very reasonably, that the white man would take the whole country. If the tribes had been united, they could have defied any force then brought against them, and driven your people into the sea."
"And why did they not make common cause?"
"The old story. Blood-feuds had embittered one tribe against another. Chiefs of ability and forecast, like Waka Nene and Patuone, his brother, saw that they must be beaten in the long run. They allied themselves with the British. They had embraced Christianity, and remained faithful to the end, fighting against the men of their own blood without the least regard to their common origin."
"I need not ask you," said Massinger, "on which side your sympathies are enlisted."
"No! it goes without saying," answered the guide. "I have had a fair education; I have been about the world, and I cannot help recognizing the resistless power of England, against which it would be madness to contend. I should never think of joining the natives in case of war. A war which is coming, from all I hear. At the same time, I cannot help feeling for them. Amid these woods, lakes, and through these mountains and valleys, their ancestors roamed for centuries. No people in the world are more deeply attached to their native land. Think how hard for them to be dispossessed."
"And have you an alternative to offer?"