“My first thought was to turn back and restore the child to her mother, but when I had taken some steps I hesitated. Another thought held me, and I stood still. Miriami would conquer her grief; the worst of it was over. The tohungas had spoken, and I saw their meaning. The child was to live, but not, O Pakehas, not with its mother, not within the tapu of Hinauri. Yes, it was plain. My heart bled for Miriami, but there was something more important: Hinauri was first.
“Keritahi opened her eyes and looked up at me. Her little lips moved, and I heard the only part of my name that she could say: ‘Wawa.’ Then the eyes closed again, and my breast melted. How could I play this trick upon the woman whose magic had done so much? Miriami’s soft eyes came up before my mind, and my body shook like the kahikaha’s leaf. But I must do it. It was for Hinauri. ‘Besides,’ I said, ‘the child must have the spirit of a great witch—none but a witch could come back out of the Land of Silence. Yes, the Great Ones have spoken—she is a witch, and that is why my karakias have been powerless.’
“Need I tell you, O my sons, how I coaxed the child to sleep on a stone that I had warmed with fire—then how I dug a grave beneath the rimu and buried a large stone there—and afterwards how I went back to Miriami with a lie in my throat and took her again into the mountain, where in the white cave she remained alone with her grief? But I will tell you, O Friend of the Forest Tree, what I did with the child, for that word is for you, to guide you in the search.
“I went back to her lying on the warm stone. I bent over her and listening for her breathing. It was regular and deep.
“ ‘She is a witch,’ I said, ‘she will live.’
“When she awoke I took her to my tribe, though on the way I sat down many times to cover my head, for, with her arms round my neck, she asked me questions that I could not answer. I gave her to a young chief of my tribe, and said to him, ‘Take a band of warriors and journey on towards the south, and when you come to a pakeha’s house leave the child there in safety without any word, so that the one into whose care the child falls knows neither whence it comes nor who brings it.’
“They went forth, and the child was under my word of protection.
“O Friend of the Forest Tree, within two moons they returned, and the young chief spoke a strange thing in my ear. ‘We have ended the work you set us to do, O Te Makawawa, and lo! a moon ago we came to a hut on the bank of a river southwards, and within sat a pakeha asleep by a fire. With my own hand I unfastened the door and set the child inside. Then I closed the door with a loud noise, and looked in at the window. The man awoke, and when I looked upon his face I saw that it was the face of him we captured with the woman many moons ago. That is truth, O chief.’
“Then I, having heard this, returned to the temple and sought rest, saying to myself: ‘It is not such a bad deed you have done, Te Makawawa—you have stolen a child from its mother and have restored it to its father.’ But no rest came to me, neither did the tohungas speak to me again in dreams. In the many years that followed I grew weary of life, for Hinauri came not, and I felt the displeasure of the tohungas heavy upon me. I still kept the woman a sacred prisoner, and she lived in peace, for was she not matakite,[14] and a lover of solitude?
“At length my son Ngaraki, the Fierce One, arrived at the age when he should take up the duties of the ancient temple, and I came forth to die. But lo! I cannot go hence until I have undone the wrong that I did, until I have restored the child to her mother. Make haste, O Friend, and find the little maiden in the south. The sun lingers over the hills, but cannot set—my eyes grow dim, and I see your faces in a mist—my head is bowed to the ground, but my spirit cannot pass hence till this is done. O Sons of the Shining Sea, my words to you are ended.”