I must not dwell upon those days and nights beneath the summer sky and the growing moon. They passed—as all fair days and nights must pass—and at length we pitched our camp upon the edge of the Table Land, hiding our fires behind a clump of high bush, lest they should be seen from the mountain wall on the other side. It was the open space of a little gully running down from the rounded hills that skirted the west of the plain.
When we had finished our evening meal, Te Makawawa took me aside round the clump of trees, and pointing to the mountain wall looming gigantic in the twilight, said: “The full moon is rising behind the brow of Ruatapu, as it has ever risen since that sunset long ago, when Hinauri said, ‘Here will I wait!’ Ngaraki will curse the Vile Tohungas of the Pit to-night, as they have ever been cursed since the day when the mighty city stood upon this rolling plain. When he has done that, I know not how soon he will leave the mountain. Therefore Tiki and I will go forward and watch for his going.”
“Good, O Chief,” I replied; “but tell me again why does he curse the Vile Tohungas of the Pit to-night?”
“The tradition says they will return in the flesh to destroy Hinauri; that is why from the beginning they have been cursed when the moon is full, for at that time their power is strongest.”
“But what will the curses do?” I asked, trying to penetrate into the depths of his belief.
“They will destroy those who would destroy Hinauri,” he answered simply, “even as the karakia sung before her in the stone will protect her when she moves to life. Our ancestors have taught us that a curse heaped upon a man’s image will find that man in the flesh. Many of these Vile Tohungas have returned, but they have never succeeded in their object. He Pakeha! Their heads are hung up in yonder mountain. Others will return, but when they do they will find the curse ready for them if they should stretch forth so much as a hand against the sacred person of Hinauri.”
“What is the result of the curse?” I asked again.
“Eta! O Pakeha! The result is makutu—not of the modern kind, which requires the belief and fear of the person bewitched, but the hidden magic of the ancients, which finds its mark like the weapon of a warrior crying ‘Utu! Utu!’[24] When it strikes it seethes like molten pitch in the vitals till sunrise or sunset. Then the cursed one dies. He leaves no star in the sky among those of the watching chiefs, but goes down, down to Porawa, with the curses of all time upon his head.”
He called to Tiki, and together they went into the night across the shadowy plain. If there was any doubt in my mind regarding this strange makutu the chief had spoken about, it was entirely dispelled before I saw him again.
Grey, Crystal, and myself remained by the camp fire, and a little distance away up the gully the two slaves cowered very close over a small heap of embers, such as the Maoris delight in. Grey, whose supply of cigars had not yet given out, sat smoking on the opposite side of the fire, smoking, dreaming much, and saying little, as was his wont. He was looking into the fire, and, as the glow lighted up his gentle face, I forecast the happy hour when his long-lost wife, the bride of two short weeks so long ago, and the mother of his only child, would tell him all the sweet things he had forgotten. Then my eyes wandered to the white figure of Crystal standing some little distance away in the darkness. She was looking at the mountain wall, where her mother was a prisoner. With the old chief’s consent, I had told her the legend of Hinauri that very day, and many other things as well, and she was no doubt building that city of long ago again upon the plain, or thinking of Kahikatea’s quest of the pure white woman who stood in the forehead of the mountain wall holding out her arms in her age-long petition to the sky.