“Why, Crystal of course; she went to bed before you came. But, by Heaven! I must go and wake her and tell her this news.”
Before he had finished speaking he was out of the room and half way up the stairs. Suddenly remembering Tiki waiting beneath the cedars, I went softly out of the house with half a loaf of bread in one hand and a large piece of cold pork in the other, with which, having found him, I advised him to regale himself. But, hungry as he was, he did not begin until he had asked the question which probably he had asked himself a hundred times since I had left him: “Is the little maiden in there?”
“Yes,” I replied, “she’s in there; you’ll see her to-morrow, perhaps. Stay here and I’ll come out again soon with Pakeha Kerei, and he’ll find you some place where you can pass the night.”
“He Wanaki,” was all he said, but it meant a great deal. It meant that eating and sleeping were matters of no moment now that he knew ‘the little maiden’ was alive.
Leaving him, I returned to the house and waited for Grey. When he came back some time later his face was full of a gentle happiness. The discovery that Crystal Grey was not an adopted child, but his own daughter, had touched the very depths of his soul.
“Warnock,” he said, grasping my hand, “how can I ever repay you for this?”
“I am already a paid servant,” I faltered, “drawing my salary from certain trustees of a large estate at home.”
“Ah! yes,” he replied, “money might repay you for your trouble, but how can I discharge the debt of gratitude I owe to you, who have brought me this great happiness?”
“I give it up,” I said laughing; “and I advise you to do the same. In the meantime, I have a Maori waiting outside, and I took the liberty of taking him some food while you were away. He’s a bit of a savage, and perhaps it would be best for him to sleep in the barn—he would be more comfortable.”
“Yes, yes; where is he?” he asked. Then, as I led the way, he added with a merry laugh: “I suppose he’d never forgive us if we put him between sheets in a feather bed—he’d think his days were numbered, eh?”