The daughter of the dawn

by William Reginald Hodder

All this while I was groping among the rocks for some place of concealment. At length I found a rock about three parts of the way round, which stood out a little way from the cavern side, offering a very narrow passage between itself and the main rock. Slipping behind this, I felt comparatively safe, and stood there awaiting events.

A glance round my barrier showed the shadowy form of the tohunga busy with something half-way round the lake. It appeared to me as if he was hanging the basket to a peg on the wall of the cavern, for when he stood away it remained there. Then he disappeared in the dark recess, and I conjectured he was going to light a torch. But no—he reappeared almost immediately with his kaitaka, which he wrapped about him after the fashion of a Roman toga, and sat down on the margin of the lake. Apparently he was waiting for something.

The morning light now streamed brighter round the bend of the wall, and I could see more clearly the great spar sloping upwards to the roof above. A little beyond my place of concealment was a broad space of rock, where the partition that held the water up out of the abyss met the rim of the lake on my side of the cavern. Keeping close in the dark shadow of the crags I ventured to approach this ledge. A feeling of awe crept over me as I peered into what seemed to be a vast bottomless pit—black, profound, and impenetrable. The overflow of the lake rushing through the gap in the partition made a faint swishing, hurtling sound as it poured down into the darkness, but no roar as of falling water came up from below. This fact appalled me: was there, then, no bottom to that awful abyss? Above the dark, forty feet or more from where I crouched, hung the gigantic spar, tapering upwards until its point almost touched the top of the overhanging crags against the roof. It presented the appearance of a mighty lever, the fulcrum of which was the lip of the basin on the other side of the abyss.

A faint glow now struck across past the craggy buttress which at present concealed the gulf from my view. It hung above the pit and fell upon the wall of the cavern high on the other side of the lake. It was the first red ray of the rising sun coming in through the giants’ window at the end of the gulf. It was this for which Ngaraki had been waiting, for, with one eye always on him sitting there, I saw him get up and replace his garment in the recess. Now he was coming round the lake towards me, and I hurried back to my hiding-place. He passed on the other side of the rock, which I carefully kept well between us, and proceeded to climb the crags of the buttress.

While I stood wondering what he was going to do the red glow deepened, glinting on the long arm of the spar, and falling on the waters of the lake with a vivid emerald. The deep, high reaches of the cavern wall showed up in russet light and dark shadow, but most strange and terrible of all was the lowest shaft, which cut sheer through the inky blackness of the abyss, and fell upon its steep, smooth wall some thirty feet below the basin, showing the down-pouring overflow of the lake like a flying greenstone arch. The light increased, and small clouds of mist rising out of the abyss threw fleeting rainbows upon the sides of the basin, upon the under surface of the long spar, and into the vaulted arches of the vast granite walls.

It was with a hasty glance round that I noted these strange effects, for all the while I was intent upon Ngaraki’s doings. He had climbed up the rocks, and was now standing erect upon a narrow ledge high up, almost on a level with the point in space where the spar’s jagged and flinty-looking sides tapered off to a fine point. Looking more closely, I saw that to the extreme end of the spar was lashed a wooden sprit, which reached a point on a level with Ngaraki’s shoulders, and about six feet from him. I stood and gripped the rock with nervous hands, as it slowly dawned upon me what the Maori was going to do. Surely he was mad—none but a maniac would take such a leap as that!

The sunlight streamed past a corner of the cavern wall beyond, and tipped the end of the spar with light. The wooden sprit attached now showed clear and well defined. This was evidently what he was waiting for. Gathering himself together he took the daring leap without the slightest hesitation, and in another moment his long figure was suspended above the dark abyss.

It was with difficulty that I suppressed a cry at witnessing this, but what followed took my breath away altogether. The long arm began gradually to swing downwards through space, descending towards the abyss. Slowly and ponderously the great spar moved until its point, with the depending figure of the Maori, passed out of the line of sunlight into the gloom cast by the overhanging crags. Leaning forward, I strained my eyes towards the dark, moving mass. Surely he was not going to descend into the abyss! No—he evidently knew what he was doing. His feet touched a broad ledge of rock a few yards on this side the buttress, and his body straightened as if for an effort. The sprit descended upon his shoulder. It bent beneath the weight of the spar, which quivered at the shock; but the downward course of the lever was arrested; and, as he stood aside leaving it suspended there balanced by its own weight, my eye ran along its whole length, and the cause of this strange equilibrium was at once apparent. A huge round stone of many tons in weight rested in a hollow of the spar just above the basin’s rim. The working of the thing was simple, and could be seen at a glance. The part of the lever in the basin contained a large hollow, into which the round stone rolled when the arm was raised, thus forcing the lower part of the head of the spar against the aperture at the bottom of the basin, and stopping the flow of the water. When, on the other hand, the arm was lowered, as had just been effected by the Maori, the stone rolled up from the hollow and settled in a groove immediately above the fulcrum, thus maintaining the whole spar in a state of equipoise. So neatly balanced it was that when Ngaraki let go and stood away, it remained stationary, quivering throughout its whole length, as the rolling stone oscillated for a few moments in its socket. In the very centre of the arm that stretched across the abyss was a narrow constriction. So thin was the rock at this point that it offered an explanation of the artifice of the supple sprit at the end, and also of the Maori’s action in steadying the spar before standing aside, for it was evident that if it were brought to a standstill by a sudden impact against the rocky ledge, there was danger of a breakage at the constricted point—in which case the whole thing, rolling stone and all, would go hurtling down into the abyss below. As my eye fell on the gap in the partition, I noticed that there was a change in the overflowing torrent. It was reduced to half its bulk. This was the work of the stupendous lever; its head, rising out of the aperture in the basin, had liberated the water, which was now escaping through the hole in the mountain side, and, thus relieved of half its flood, the torrent which poured down into the abyss was diminished accordingly.

Strange thoughts flashed through my mind in the few seconds that had passed since the descent of the spar. Was this the work of some race of giants, long since dead and gone? Who had hewn that round stone out of the solid granite? What giant hand had shaped that colossal bowl and balanced the long spar so neatly on its lip? For answer I considered two things: first, the saying of Te Makawawa that the giant sorcerers of old had fashioned a false image of Hinauri as a long spar in the lower parts of the temple, and had bound it down with a great round stone, and, second, that science would call these things freaks of nature, formed by the age-long action of water.

Between these two things I was unable to choose, for they flashed through my mind just as Ngaraki was coming along the edge of the abyss towards me. There was now considerable danger that I should be seen, for it was fairly light, even in the shadow of the crags. However, the spot behind the rock was dark enough, and I crouched there thinking he would pass, but what was my dismay to hear the sound of his footsteps coming round my barrier. He stood still. Surely he had seen me. I was preparing for a struggle, to be concluded either beneath the water of the lake or in the depths of the abyss, when I heard the Maori climbing up the rock above me.