The way in which the record of Wanaki, which it has been my compulsory task to edit, was placed in my hands forms not the least remarkable episode between these covers. On a certain night two months ago I was sitting in my library in Harley Street, writing. It was late, and I could hear the tinkling of many little bells in the street as the cabs brought home the gay theatre-goers. As I wrote on, the tinkling of these little bells grew to a merry chorus, yet it did not disturb me: I was used to it. But the night advanced, and the bells seemed to grow tired as the cabs rolled by less frequently. Then gradually I began to feel that a disturbing element was creeping in between me and my work. Indefinable at first, this feeling grew, until at last I recognised it as a vague expectancy, and, as each cab passed, I caught myself listening to hear if it would stop at the street door. This struck me as being a very absurd state of mind, for no one was due, and a patient would hardly call at that time of night. Yet the strange feeling of expecting someone grew upon me at such a rate that I put down my pen and listened in spite of myself as the cabs with the tinkling bells went by. At last, after a longer interval than usual, my ears fastened upon the bells of a vehicle that seemed to be approaching from beyond the horizon. They drew near rapidly, and the absurd feeling of expecting someone grew still more intense. Laughing at the stupidity of it, I rose from my chair and walked to and fro, wondering what had happened to my nerves, usually so strong. Suddenly I stood still. The rapid motion of the horse’s hoofs was slacking down. Would the cab pull up at the street door? Of course not—it would pass. It had almost done so when there was the sound of the scraping hoofs of a horse suddenly reined in, a violent agitation of the little bells, and then the cab drew up at the street door. I heard a ring at the bell, and then sat down in my chair to wonder what this late visitor wanted, and, above all, to ask myself again and again how I could account for my extraordinary feeling of expecting someone who was unexpected, and yet had arrived. While I was thus engaged my man Gapper came in with a face that announced the end of the world, and spoke in a voice which betrayed, in the same trembling breath, an overwhelming desire to impart news and a suffocating fear of being heard.
“There’s a strange man in the ’all, sir,” he said, “as wants to see you. I gave ’im to understand, sir, as you wouldn’t hever see no one after eleving, but ’e looks at me ’ard and says quiet like, ‘You will do as I tell you,’ ’e says.”
“What is he like?” I asked.
“Well, ’e looks to me as hif ’e ’ad just come ’ome from a fancy-dress ball. ’E’s got feathers in ’is ’air and drorin’s on ’is face, and a sort of long fur cloak and—but there it is, sir, I can’t describe ’im; ’e’s a-standin’ there hin the ’all just as if the ’ole place belonged to ’im. Shall I ask him to go away?”
Gapper’s knees were knocking together. I saw that he was morally incapable of asking this strange visitor to go. I myself felt slightly unstrung, and it may have been my fear of showing this that prompted me to say abruptly:
“Show him in, Gapper; I expect it’s some friend playing a joke upon me. At all events I will see him.”
Evidently relieved by these words, my man retired, and presently, with a humility born of a fresh access of fear, ushered in my visitor. He then retreated nimbly and closed the door behind him.
As the stranger stood in the centre of the room I rose from my seat in unfeigned astonishment. Well might Gapper have thought that he had just returned from a fancy-dress ball, except for the simple, and to me obvious, fact that he was not an impersonation at all, but the genuine thing. In fact, my visitor, who had been, so to speak, heralded by my inexplicable sensations, was a tall and stately Maori chief, dressed in a long robe or war-cloak of dog’s hair, which fell almost to his sandalled feet. He had both spear and meré, and in his hair were the white-tipped feathers of the huia. He was young, almost handsome, and his face was tatooed in a way that denoted an exalted rank, while in his fierce black eyes, in his noble bearing, in his profound composure as he waited for me to speak, one might have read his right to lead men, or else to drive them before him. He seemed to have come right out of the far King Country into my library at one stride, so uncivilised was his appearance. My surprise was immediately giving way to a feeling, half of admiration, half of fear, for, after my unwonted sensations preceding his arrival, I was assailed with the thought that there was a mysterious power about the man—a thought materially strengthened by his perfect ease and conscious dignity.
“May I ask your name?” I said with a brave attempt to appear complaisant.
“I am Aké Aké,” he replied, speaking in good English; “Aké Aké Rangitane, the son of Ngaraki, who was the son of Te Makawawa, who was the son of——, but O man of another race, who is to do my bidding, I will not relate to you my ancestry. It would take many moons to do that; many thousand generation boards would not contain it, for lo! it stretches back to a far-off age of which your wise men know nothing. O Pakeha, the blood of the Great River of Heaven, which flowed down from the skies before the darkness of ancient night fell upon the earth, runs in my veins.”