“Look! Look!” cried Crystal; “the water’s growing less; see! it’s sinking—it’s drying up.”
I gave a sigh of relief, for I saw the water was rapidly diminishing, and knew that the old chief had gained the ledge inside, passed round the lake, and pushed the great lever up to stop the flow of the water.
Gradually the surface of the pool sank below the aperture in the mountain wall and, finally, left the way perfectly clear. Grey made a movement as if to climb down and go in through the black opening, but I restrained him.
“We must wait till he returns,” I said. “We can do nothing without him.”
Accordingly we waited with our eyes fixed upon the dark round opening, level with the bed of the channel as to its lower margin, while its upper part was considerably higher than a man’s head. Presently there was a glimmer of light approaching through the darkness of the interior, and then a figure appeared in the aperture, standing erect with a blazing torch in his hand. The sight startled me, for the figure was enveloped in a large war cloak made of dog’s fur, and the whole solemn bearing of the wearer, as he held his torch aloft and stood looking at us, was that of the guardian priest of the ancient temple.
In another moment, however, I recognised Te Makawawa as he might have been eighteen years before, when he first brought Grey and his wife to this strange place. He beckoned to us, and we climbed down the bank as quickly as possible, and hurried along the shingly bed of the channel towards him.
“Speak few words, O pakeha people,” he said solemnly; “but follow in my footsteps.”
He turned and led the way. Grey went first in his wake, Crystal followed, and I came last. When we had gained the level rock above, by means of the rough, but not difficult, niches in the wall, the torchlight shed a fitful glare upon the nearer rim of the great basin, and upon part of the lake. The water, flung up tumultuously in the centre, boiled and effervesced and lapped against the rocky rim on which we stood. Far away at the end of the narrowing gulf could be seen the giants’ window, through which the sunlight streamed like silver, but grew golden as it fell obliquely into the denser darkness of the abyss. The wall of the cavern beyond the lake was lost in gloom, into which I knew the great spar was tapering off to its wooden sprit near the overhanging crags of the vaulted roof.
But we saw these things in a glance, for Te Makawawa passed on along the margin of the lake, bearing his torch, and we followed. He halted at the part of the cavern wall by the lake side, where I had seen Ngaraki’s kit of kumaras ascend by a cord.
“O Friend of the Forest Tree,” he said, drawing me a little aside, “the mysteries of this ancient temple are great and wonderful. I am going by the ‘way of the fish,’ which no man can find without a guide, nor, if he found it, could he pass that way without being taught. Now stand there close to the wall, and hold the mountain lily by the hand, lest she fall in the darkness. I go. And, when you hear the roaring of the sea overhead, and the great god Tangaroa lets loose the flood, then you will know that Te Makawawa has passed in safety, that his end is not yet.”