them with a scowl.

Nga-Hepé met it with a laugh. A Maori scorns to lose his temper, come what may. As he leaped the steaming ditch and left the village by a gap in the decaying wall, he turned to Edwin, observing, with a pride which bordered on satisfaction: "The son of Hepé is known by all men to be rich and powerful, therefore the chief has spoken against him."

"Much you care for the chief," retorted Edwin.

"I am not of his tribe," answered Nga-Hepé. "I come of the Ureweras, the noblest and purest of our race. Our dead men rest upon the sacred hills where the Maori chiefs lie buried. When a child of Hepé dies," he went on, pointing to the mountain range, "the thunder rolls and the lightning flashes along those giant hills, that all men may know his hour has come. No matter where the Hepé lay concealed, men always knew when danger threatened him. They always said such and such a chief is dying, because the thunder and lightning are in such a place. Look up! the sky is calm and still. The hills are silent; Mount Tarawera rears its threefold crest above them all in its own majestic grandeur. Well, I know no real danger menaces me to-night."

"I trust you are right, Nga-Hepé, but—" began Edwin quickly. The Maori turned his head away; he could admit no "buts," and the English boy made vain endeavours to argue the question.

A noisy, boisterous jabbering arose from the village as the crowd outside the grand whare hailed the decision of the elders holding council within. Dogs, pigs, and boys added their voices to the general acclamation, and drowned Edwin's so completely he gave up in despair; and after all he thought, "Can any one wonder at Nga-Hepé clinging to the old superstitions of his race? In the wild grandeur of a spot like this it seems in keeping."

So he said no more. They crossed the broken ground. Before them gleamed the waters of the lake, upon whose bank Nga-Hepé's house was standing—the old ancestral whare, the dwelling-place of the Hepés generation after generation. Its well-thatched roof was higher than any of the roofs in the pah, and more pointed. The wood of which this whare was built was carved into idol figures and grinning monsters, now black and shining with excessive age.

The garden around it was better cultivated, and the ample store of roots and grain in the smaller whare behind it told of the wealth of its owner. Horses and pigs were snorting and squealing beneath the hoary trees, overshadowing the mud-hole and the geyser spring, by which the Maori loves to make his home. The canoe was riding on the lake, the lovely lake, as clear and blue as the sky it mirrored.

The sight of it recalled Edwin to his purpose, and he once more questioned Nga-Hepé as to the whereabouts of the ford.

"Enter and eat," said the Maori, alighting at his low-browed door.

The gable end of the roof projected over it like a porch, and Edwin paused under its shadow to take in the unfamiliar surroundings. Beneath the broad eaves huge bundles of native flax and tobacco were drying. In the centre of the long room within there was a blazing fire of crackling wood. But its cheerful welcome seemed to contend with a sense of desertion which pervaded the place.

Nga-Hepé called in vain for his accustomed attendant to take his horse. No one answered his summons. He shouted; no answer. The wooden walls of the neighbouring pah faintly echoed back his words. All his men were gone. He muttered something in his own tongue, which Edwin could not understand, as he led the way into the long room. In so grand a whare this room was divided into separate stalls, like a well-built stable. An abundance of native mats strewed the floor.

The Maori's eyes fell upon the corner where his greenstone club, the treasured heirloom of many generations, leaned against an English rifle, and on the boar's tusks fixed in the wall at intervals, where his spears and fishing-rods were ranged in order. By their side hung a curious medley of English apparel. The sweeping feathers of a broad felt hat drooped above a gaudy table-cloth, which by its many creases seemed to have done duty on the person of its owner. Edwin's merriment was excited by the number of scent-bottles, the beautiful cut-glass carafe, and many other expensive articles suspended about the room—all bearing a silent testimony to the wealth of which Nga-Hepé had spoken. Two happy-looking children, each wearing a brightly-coloured handkerchief folded across their tiny shoulders in true Maori fashion, were grinding at a barrel-organ. One fat little knee served as a pillow for a tangle of rough black hair, which a closer inspection showed him was the head of a sleeping boy.

Nga-Hepé's wife, wearing a cloak of flowered silk, with a baby slung in a shawl at her back, and a short pipe in her mouth, met him with soft words of pleading remonstrance which Edwin could not understand.

Her husband patted her fondly on the arm, touched the baby's laughing lips, and seated himself on the floor by the fire, inviting Edwin to join him.

The sleeping boy gave a great yawn, and starting to his feet, seemed to add his entreaties to his mother's. He held a book in his hand—a geography, with coloured maps—which he had evidently been studying; but he dropped it in despair, as his father only called for his supper.

"Help us to persuade him," he whispered to Edwin in English; "he may listen to a pakeha. Tell him it is better to go away."

"Why?" asked Edwin.

"Why!" repeated the boy excitedly; "because the chief is threatening him with a muru. He will send a band of men to eat up all the food, and carry off everything we have that can be carried away; but they will only come when father is at home."

"A bag of talk!" interrupted Nga-Hepé. "Shall it be said the son of the warrior sneaks off and hides himself at the first threat?"

"But," urged Edwin, "you promised to row back for Mr. Bowen."

"Yes, and I will. I will eat, and then I go," persisted Nga-Hepé, as his wife stamped impatiently.

Two or three women ran in with the supper which they had been cooking in a smaller whare in the background. They placed the large dishes on the floor: native potatoes—more resembling yams in their sweetness than their English namesakes—boiled thistles, and the ancient Maori delicacy, salted shark.

They all began to eat, taking the potatoes in their hands, when a wild cry rang through the air—a cry to strike terror to any heart. It was the first note of the Maori war-song, caught up and repeated by a dozen powerful voices, until it became a deafening yell. Hepé's wife tore frantically at her long dark hair.

The Maori rose to his feet with an inborn dignity, and grasped the greenstone club, taking pride in the prestige of such a punishment. Turning to Edwin he said: "When the ferns are on fire the sparks fall far and wide. Take the horse—it is yours; I give it to you. It is the last gift I shall have it in my power to make for many a day to come. There lies your path through the bush; once on the open road again the ford-house will be in sight, and Whero shall be your guide. Tell the old pakeha the canoe is mine no more."

The woman snatched up the children and rushed away with them, uttering a wailing cry.

Edwin knew he had no