“Very well, but you mustn’t talk.”
With this he placed his hands under me, and, lifting me up easily in his powerful arms, strode away down the bank of the stream. I was too weak to protest, and said nothing. At length, coming to a sequestered spot enclosed in thick bushy foliage, he put me down gently and set about preparing a soft bed of dry fern. This done, and myself placed comfortably upon it, with some turfs of dry moss for a pillow, he lighted a fire and made this strange sick-room in the wilderness comfortable. I dozed off into a troubled sleep, and when I awoke my nurse sat by me, and administered a pannikin of hot broth, the effect of which was invigorating.
The fear that I had killed the fierce but noble tohunga—the guardian priest of that ancient temple from which I had just escaped by a miracle—was weighing heavily upon my mind. In a few brief sentences I told Kahikatea what had occurred within the mountain, and we considered the question as to whether, if Miriam Grey were somewhere in that strange place,—and from what I had seen I firmly believed she was,—she would starve without Ngaraki. We came to the conclusion that this was improbable, for if anything happened to Ngaraki, the mutes would no doubt know what to do, for, in an hereditary priesthood such as this claimed to be, it was not likely that the order of succession would be dislocated by a sudden death. Considering these things we concluded that Miriam Grey, if there, was as safe as ever she had been. But we knew that the way to her prison far overhead, impossible without a guide at ordinary times, was even more so now; a strict watch would no doubt be kept; and ‘the way of the fish’ was a difficulty, to say nothing of the ‘way of the winged fish.’ Accordingly, after well considering the matter, I determined to follow the aged chief’s advice, and take up the search of the child, feeling convinced that if she was living I could find her.
For two days and two nights I lay on my bed of dry fern, and was attended by Kahikatea. By all the laws of medical science, except perhaps one or two not yet thoroughly laid down, I ought to have had concussion of the brain, or some such thing, but, strange to say, on the morning of the third day I awoke perfectly clear in the head, and with every sign of fever gone.
I determined, however, to accept Kahikatea’s advice and rest for the remainder of that day and night. We passed the time in telling each other our adventures and in drawing what conclusions we could from them. My friend’s search for the ‘way of the spider’ had not been as successful as my exploration of the ‘way of the fish.’ He had found the place where on the first occasion the rock had let him through into a kind of tunnel, and had followed this for a considerable distance, only to be stopped by a blank wall of rock which had all the appearance of a rude portcullis let down from the roof.
“From what you have told me of the strange contrivance in the interior of the mountain below,” he concluded, in relating this part of his adventures, “I can quite understand that this rock blocking up the tunnel might have been so contrived by the ancients that it could be let down and made to close the entrance to the cave from above. I don’t know how thick it is, but I am going to find means to cut through it. By the time you have found the child I shall probably have got through to Miriam Grey—by-the-bye, did you look for the grave which old Te Makawawa spoke about?”
I had quite forgotten it. “No,” I replied; “I was too busily employed inside the mountain looking for my own. But now’s our time—let us make use of it. There’s only one rimu of any size in the ravine; it is unmistakable.”
“ ‘Beneath the great rimu where the tui sings’—those were the old chief’s words,” said Kahikatea, as we made our way along the bank of the river and past the deep pool into the valley, which was shut in against the mountain wall by the descending spur. There was no stream running out of the ravine, and the place was carpeted with moss and kidney ferns, upon which the afternoon sun here and there got in a smile through some crevice in the foliage overhead. At length we came to a fairly open moss-grown space around a mighty vine-laced trunk, which supported the dark green velvety foliage of a magnificent monarch of the bush.
“Splendid tree,” said Kahikatea, taking off his hat and gazing up at the fantails and tuis chasing the gnats about its sunlit sides.
“Yes,” said I, the prosaic, “but where is the grave?”