It needed no searching scrutiny to tell me that this was the fierce Ngaraki, of whom Te Makawawa had spoken. The stately dignity of his tall form, and the easy grace of his movements as he turned himself about upon the bank, marked him out as a chief among his people. His neck was like a pillar of bronze. His hairless face was tatooed in a way to denote his high rank. In his arched nose there was an untamable pride, which his piercing, coal-black eyes made fierce and fiery. His brow bespoke him a learned man of his race—a tohunga versed in occult lore and ancient traditions, while the long wavy hair that rolled back from his forehead and fell dripping on his glistening shoulders, revealed the perfect shapeliness of his head. From my concealment I marked him down a magnificent savage—a terrible fellow; and yet—and yet, for all the wrath that slumbered in his eyes, I fancied I detected something gentle in the lines of his sensitive mouth; something which imparted to his whole rugged, tatooed face a pervading expression of melancholy sadness.
He looked up at the sun; then a forcible, nasal-guttural, which seemed to be spoken by his whole body at once, fell from him:
“Ngha!”
The ferocity of that single word was like the sudden snarl of an angry tiger. It seemed almost enough to knock a man down. With a quick pace he turned and strode towards the valley, where he disappeared in the gloom of the trees.
When he was gone I had time to consider the situation. This opening, then, was ‘the way of the fish’—“the way a brave man might take to enter the ancient temple”—but not so fast: a good swimmer might come out that way with the current, but could he go in against it? The coming out was evidently not an easy task, for while he had been standing on the bank, the Maori’s broad chest had heaved considerably with the exertion of it. What, then, must the going in against the current be like? Of course, it was possible that Ngaraki, knowing the habits of the stream, would wait for the water to cease flowing, and then simply walk in dry shod through the hole in the mountain side. In this case I determined to follow him, for I knew there must be a cavern of some sort within. What I should do when I got there I did not know. The thought of the Vile Tohungas of the Pit came to me and filled the supposed cavern inside with vague, shadowy horrors. But I shook them off and held to my resolve.
Presently I saw the chief emerge from the shade of the trees in the valley, carrying a heavy axe over his shoulder and some other rude agricultural implements in his hand. I guessed that he was going to till his kumara patch and cut firewood. In a few minutes I heard the sound of his axe from the bank of the stream further down, and knew that I was probably a prisoner until sunset, for I well understood that if Ngaraki became aware of my presence, my chances of exploring the mountain were gone.
Therefore, through the long hours of that summer afternoon, I lay beneath the fern thinking, imagining, wondering what the vast pile above me contained. For long intervals Ngaraki’s axe was silent, and I watched for his return, but, as he did not come, I knew his work was not finished. At length, when the sun was within half an hour’s journey of the hills, I caught sight of him returning into the valley, evidently to put his tools away. Arranging a few stray ferns as an extra precaution against his catching sight of me, I watched eagerly to see whether he would return to the bank.
In a few minutes his tall form emerged from among the trees. He approached the pool and stood for awhile looking down into the water meditatively. Then he raised his eyes and swept them slowly around the pool. Now they rested on the fern beneath which I was concealed, and I half closed my own eyes lest they should attract his notice through the screen.
“Ngha!”
For a moment I fancied he had seen me, but the next I knew that he had not, for he began striding up and down the bank without looking again in my direction. He was beginning a chant, for some purpose which as yet I could not ascertain. As he strode down the bank for half a dozen paces he hung his head in thought; then, turning, he quickened his steps and muttered a few low words which I could not catch. Again and again he repeated this movement, and each time his retreating form became more suggestive of repose and his on-rushing aspect more wild and fierce. He was working himself up for something. What it was I soon guessed, for the words of his chant began to be intelligible to me in places: