“Is the little maiden safe?” he asked on seeing me.
“Quite safe,” I replied, and narrated briefly what had happened. “Where were you all last night?” I inquired when I had finished.
“He Wanaki,” he replied, shaking his head slowly, “I have it somewhere in my mind where I was, but it slips away from my grasp like an eel from the hand. I have the head of the lizard, but the tail is cut off, and, though I can hear it rustling among the leaves, I cannot find it. This is the head of the lizard, O Wanaki. I watched the great canoe from sunset on into the night, and, when it was very dark, I heard a small canoe leave it and take its way towards the end of the water. I followed it along the shore, and when it came to the beach down there I stood near by in the darkness and heard some voices. Then someone made his way up the beach, and I followed the sound of his footsteps. He must have heard me, for he stopped and made a noise like the word of the weka[22] when it is hiding. E Tama! I was mad to take his head, for I knew he was going to steal the little maiden. I rushed towards the ‘word’ and laid about me with my stick. Again and again I did this, rushing at the ‘word’ in the dark to take the head of it and lay it at the feet of the little maiden. But every time I beat the air and nothing more, and every time I heard someone laugh far away in Reinga. Eta! my only fear was for the little maiden, so I followed the footsteps again up the valley until we came to the field out there. The footsteps stopped. Tawhaki was beginning to move overhead. The light of his eyes would soon show me where to strike. The light came. I saw the taepo near at hand and rushed at him. He raised a long stick to his mouth, and some stinging thing struck me in the shoulder. Then, O Wanaki, I rushed on and on over all the earth, and the darkness of Porawa closed on me as I went.
“That is the head of the lizard, O Wanaki, but the tail of it is cut off and wriggles away when I stretch out my hand to grasp it. What has happened to me between that and this is gone—gone like last year’s kohu leaves.”
For a space neither of us spoke, but my thoughts were busy. At length, jumping to a conclusion I said:
“Tiki! did you know that we are to leave here the day after to-morrow?”
“Yes; the little maiden told me so.”
“Did you know that we are going to land in Golden Bay?”
“Yes, and go overland to the Great Tapu.”
“Ah! all right—very well—now you’d better go and get something to eat.”