“Warnock is right, my dear,” said Grey, “no one believes in previous existences nowadays.”
Miriam Grey turned to me, leaving Crystal listening to her father, as he attempted to uphold and justify his view.
“Mr. Warnock!” she said gently, touching my arm; “what you say explains only the means employed. I recognise the law that we become, more especially in our offspring, what we contemplate; yet would I say that this was merely the means by which Hinauri’s spirit clothed itself in flesh.” She had lowered her voice almost to a whisper, and now she drew me further aside. A breath of the rising wind wailed about the ancient crags as it swept the side of the mountain without. It awoke strange feelings in me, as I stood in that high cave where Hinauri had waited through the ages. “There are strange things in this ancient temple,” she resumed, “things which point to the possibility of beings, who lived when the temple was founded, returning to earth again.”
I remembered the Vile Tohungas and replied: “Yes, I have seen a granite image and its living replica—do you mean that?”
“The one who stands apart I mean,” she said. “His face is that of Ngaraki, and what is more, the meaning of that granite statue that gazes ever upwards through the dark is the meaning of Ngaraki’s life.”
I was silent, wondering if this could be. I recalled the other thing in favour of her belief—the resemblance that Cazotl had borne to the chief of the Vile Tohungas, not only in face, but in purpose. I did not speak of it, but I began to detect a deep underlying connection between things that seemed formerly to be isolated. The ancient traditions, the happenings of the past month, the more immediate revelations of that very day—all seemed to be woven together in a definite pattern, real and visible to my inner eyes. I realised that, given this belief of Miriam Grey’s, the whole matter was a unity such as is made by independent witnesses who speak the truth. I could now understand, too, Te Makawawa’s bewilderment and hopeless confusion in finding what he regarded as a discrepancy in this unity, viz.: that Hinauri seemed to have moved to life, while yet the image remained immovable. These thoughts, which take so long to write, passed through my mind while the woman before me was dwelling on her last words.
“Come here!” she said again, leading me into the darkness round a buttress which divided the cave into two apartments; “you have matches. I will show you one of the strange things this place contains—a thing which will prove, if anything can, whether my child is that ancient one reclothed in flesh.”
I struck a match, and she lighted a torch that stood upright in a crevice in a ledge of rock. By the glow of the clear-burning pineheart I glanced quickly round the place. The jagged stone walls were not of marble, but of fine granite, and the furthest ray of the torch revealed no closing in of the rocks overhead. Dim reaches and shadows I could see, but no roof—indeed, by the freshness and purity of the air alone it was evident that there was an outlet above. That was surely the way by which Kahikatea had first entered the cave. As I swept my eyes round the lower walls and floor of this inner apartment I saw that in former times it must have been the abode of some of the savage priesthood who had in turn guarded the sacred stone. Thick Maori mats were laid about the level floor. Maori spears occupied the recesses of the rocks, and merés of jade rested on the ledges. Rich garments of dog’s-hair or woven flax hung from points upon the walls, and ranged around the place were the grotesquely carved wooden gods of the Maori, lolling their tongues and caressing their bodies with three-fingered hands, while their eyes of paua shell glistened in the torchlight.
While I had been engaged in looking at these things Miriam Grey had withdrawn a little stone box from a part of the wall. With this in both hands she approached, and, saying it was heavy, bade me place it on the ledge where the torch blazed. I did so, and the light of the pineheart revealed the frosty glitter of gold dust. She plunged her hands into this and withdrew a curiously wrought circlet of gold, set with a large diamond at one part and with a brilliant sapphire at another.
“This,” she said in a whisper, “so legend tells, is Hinauri’s crown. The very ancient giant priests took it from the city which stood on the plain below, and, when they brought the queen to this cave, it was placed in this receptacle, where it has remained until now.”