But the record of Wanaki’s adventures—what of it? If the reader will permit me to stand talking a little longer in another man’s doorway, as an old writer of prefaces puts it, I have yet something to say in reference to the ‘Pakeha Maori’s’ manuscript. At first I tossed it aside as worthless, willing to take my chance of the wrath of the Great Tohungas of the Earth, for it was written in such an indecipherable hand that I could not bring myself to bear upon it. I then set to other work that had to be completed by a certain date; but, though all was plain sailing with this other work, I could make no headway. My subject was void of difficulties, but I seemed to be beating against a heavy wind. Several days passed in this fashion, and it struck me that if the cursing power of Aké Aké and all his ancestors was not at work upon me, I was afflicted with some obscure nervous ailment.
At length, late one night, after many days of unrest, I took up the manuscript again and managed to get through the first page, from which I gathered that Wanaki’s adventures were of a remarkable character. Then I felt drawn to follow his narrative, and would certainly have done so but for the fact that his handwriting was a thing that made me long for a cursing power of my own; I could not arrive at its hidden meaning. When almost in despair, however, a bright idea came to me. I would send the record to a man skilled in the art of deciphering the indecipherable—I refer to my typist. I sent it to him, and before one moon had died I received it back with the mortifying assurance that as my handwriting had proved considerably clearer than usual, he would be pleased to make a proportionate abatement of the usual terms.
Now the second moon is nearly dead, and I have prepared the work for the press. I am resolved it shall leave my hands this very night, for, after a careful study of this remarkable history of Wanaki’s adventures, I am fain to admit that, even when I smile most incredulously at his experiences of the ancient magic of the Maori, and the terrible cursing power of the hereditary priesthood, I shiver most coldly at the thought that if the third moon sees my task unfinished, I shall again be listening for a cab to stop at the street door, for a bell to ring, and then—and then it will come to facing the inscrutable eyes of Aké Aké. Reader, I will be frank with you. The set scientific smile of scorn with which I, as a sane and sober medical man, am wont to ornament my face at the mention of the cursing formulæ of savage magic, and at other things contained in the record of Wanaki, is now a matter of long habit, and will continue until death comes with a powerful screw-wrench to remove it; but behind that bold front of second nature there lies a disquieting memory of a moment when, laughing, I encountered the gaze of Aké Aké, and was bound by some mysterious spell to do his bidding.
The Maori chief has not visited me again, but I have just received a letter from him with another, from a third person, enclosed. Both of these I have inserted at the close of Wanaki’s narrative, which I now lay before the reader in the following pages.
The Editor.
WANAKI’S FOREWORD.
As I sit down to write this history of strange adventures the words of my aged friend, the chief and tohunga Te Makawawa, come up in my mind:
“O Son, the word of our ancient law is death to any who reveals the secrets that are hidden in the Brow of Ruatapu. The secret of Hinauri, the Daughter of the Dawn; the Mystery of the Vile Tohungas of the Pit, the traditions of far time preserved in the heart of the Great Rock—all, everything, is a death-blow returning on the head of him who reveals it. Yet, O Son of the Great Ocean of Kiwa, I, who was once the guardian priest of the Temple of Hia and the hereditary curser of the Vile Ones of the Abyss of Huo, now show these things to you, for I am weary of climbing the snows of Ruahine and long for rest and Tane’s Living Waters. The Great Tohungas of the Earth have taught me in my sleep with words like the voice of the wind in the forest trees: ‘O Tohunga of the Great Rock, the mystery of Hinauri is not for the Maori unless thou tell it first to the Sons of the Sea, but know, if thou tell it, thou must die.’ Therefore, Son, I show it to you, for, what though I fear the eye of the fierce Ngaraki, I fear not death. Friend! perchance, when I have descended by the sacred Pohutukawa root, you, too, will tire of life and tell this thing to your brethren, ‘but know, if thou tell it, thou must die.’ ”
Well may I pause here, for after what I have seen in the Brow of Ruatapu, in the Temple of Hia, and in the Abyss of Huo, disbelief in the ancient laws of the priesthood of the Great Rock is not for me. But for me is the truth of the aged tohunga’s words, and for me also is the rest that he longed for and the living waters of Tane; for so clearly do I read the truth of a civilised world in the truth of Maori lore, that I believe when I am bathed in those Waters of Life and pass through the darkness into the Light, I shall look into her eyes again—the dark eyes of Hinauri, the Daughter of the Dawn, the Bright One who came out of ancient night to give a sign, and withdrew again into the skies, leaving my world all desolate. The mystery of her coming was that sign, and I will reveal it, partly because the sorrow of her going is such that the penalty of death is welcome to me, and partly because a voice—I know not if it is the voice of the Great Tohungas of the Earth—teaches me, too, in dreams, that my brethren, the Sons of the Sea, of whom the dark-skinned children of Ira might with justice ask much, should hear and consider this Sign of Power. Not to be buried at last in oblivion has it been nursed and guarded by an unbroken priesthood of hereditary succession extending back, through Maori and pre-Maori races, through the dark night of Time, even to the glorious sunset of a former Day. Not for naught has it come down from a remote age, whence, O Reader, you have heard only the voices of seers telling, in whispered tones, of
“Mighty pre-Adamites who walked the earth
Of which ours is the wreck.”