In Search of the Castaways; or the Children of Captain Grant

CHAPTER XIII THE SACRED MOUNTAIN

THE sum­mit of the moun­tain was still a hun­dred feet above them. The fugi­tives were anx­ious to reach it that they might con­tin­ue their flight on the east­ern slope out of the view of their pur­suers. They hoped then to find some prac­ti­ca­ble ridge that would al­low of a pas­sage to the neigh­bor­ing peaks that were thrown to­geth­er in an oro­graph­ic maze, to which poor Pa­ganel’s ge­nius would doubt­less have found the clew.

They has­tened up the slope, spurred on by the loud cries that drew near­er and near­er. The aveng­ing crowd had al­ready reached the foot of the moun­tain.

“Courage! my friends,” cried Gle­nar­van, urg­ing his com­pan­ions by voice and look.

In less than five min­utes they were at the top of the moun­tain, and then they turned to judge of their po­si­tion, and de­cide on a route that would baf­fle their pur­suers.

From their el­evat­ed po­si­tion they could see over Lake Taupo, which stretched to­ward the west in its set­ting of pic­turesque moun­tains. On the north the peaks of Piron­gia; on the south the burn­ing crater of Ton­gariro. But east­ward noth­ing but the rocky bar­ri­er of peaks and ridges that formed the Wahi­ti ranges, the great chain whose un­bro­ken links stretch from the East Cape to Cook’s Straits. They had no al­ter­na­tive but to de­scend the op­po­site slope and en­ter the nar­row gorges, un­cer­tain whether any out­let ex­ist­ed.

Gle­nar­van could not pro­long the halt for a mo­ment. Wea­ried as they might be, they must fly or be dis­cov­ered.

“Let us go down!” cried he, “be­fore our pas­sage is cut off.”

But just as the ladies had risen with a de­spair­ing ef­fort, Mc­Nabbs stopped them and said:

“Gle­nar­van, it is use­less. Look!”

And then they all per­ceived the in­ex­pli­ca­ble change that had tak­en place in the move­ments of the Maories.

Their pur­suit had sud­den­ly stopped. The as­cent of the moun­tain had ceased by an im­pe­ri­ous com­mand. The na­tives had paused in their ca­reer, and surged like the sea waves against an op­pos­ing rock. All the crowd, thirst­ing for blood, stood at the foot of the moun­tain yelling and ges­tic­ulat­ing, bran­dish­ing guns and hatch­ets, but not ad­vanc­ing a foot. Their dogs, root­ed to the spot like them­selves, barked with rage.

What stayed them? What oc­cult pow­er con­trolled these sav­ages? The fugi­tives looked with­out un­der­stand­ing, fear­ing lest the charm that en­chained Kai-​Koumou’s tribe should be bro­ken.

Sud­den­ly John Man­gles ut­tered an ex­cla­ma­tion which at­tract­ed the at­ten­tion of his com­pan­ions. He point­ed to a lit­tle in­clo­sure on the sum­mit of the cone.

“The tomb of Kara-​Tete!” said Robert.

“Are you sure, Robert?” said Gle­nar­van.

“Yes, my Lord, it is the tomb; I rec­og­nize it.”

Robert was right. Fifty feet above, at the ex­treme peak of the moun­tain, fresh­ly paint­ed posts formed a small pal­isad­ed in­clo­sure, and Gle­nar­van too was con­vinced that it was the chief’s buri­al place. The chances of their flight had led them to the crest of Maun­gana­mu.

Gle­nar­van, fol­lowed by the rest, climbed to the foot of the tomb. A large open­ing, cov­ered with mats, led in­to it. Gle­nar­van was about to in­vade the sanc­ti­ty of the “oudoupa,” when he reeled back­ward.

“A sav­age!” said he.

“In the tomb?” in­quired the Ma­jor.

“Yes, Mc­Nabbs.”

“No mat­ter; go in.”

Gle­nar­van, the Ma­jor, Robert and John Man­gles en­tered. There sat a Maori, wrapped in a large flax mat; the dark­ness of the “oudoupa” pre­vent­ing them from dis­tin­guish­ing his fea­tures. He was very qui­et, and was eat­ing his break­fast quite cool­ly.

Gle­nar­van was about to speak to him when the na­tive fore­stalled him by say­ing gay­ly and in good En­glish:

“Sit down, my Lord; break­fast is ready.”

It was Pa­ganel. At the sound of his voice they all rushed in­to the “oudoupa,” and he was cor­dial­ly em­braced all round. Pa­ganel was found again. He was their sal­va­tion. They want­ed to ques­tion him; to know how and why he was here on the sum­mit of Maun­gana­mu; but Gle­nar­van stopped this mis­placed cu­rios­ity.

“The sav­ages?” said he.

“The sav­ages,” said Pa­ganel, shrug­ging his shoul­ders. “I have a con­tempt for those peo­ple! Come and look at them.”

They all fol­lowed Pa­ganel out of the “oudoupa.” The Maories were still in the same po­si­tion round the base of the moun­tain, ut­ter­ing fear­ful cries.

“Shout! yell! till your lungs are gone, stupid wretch­es!” said Pa­ganel. “I dare you to come here!”

“But why?” said Gle­nar­van.

“Be­cause the chief is buried here, and the tomb pro­tects us, be­cause the moun­tain is tabooed.”

“Tabooed?”

“Yes, my friends! and that is why I took refuge here, as the male­fac­tors used to flee to the sanc­tu­ar­ies in the mid­dle ages.”

“God be praised!” said La­dy He­le­na, lift­ing her hands to heav­en.

The fugi­tives were not yet out of dan­ger, but they had a mo­ment’s respite, which was very wel­come in their ex­haust­ed state.

Gle­nar­van was too much over­come to speak, and the Ma­jor nod­ded his head with an air of per­fect con­tent.

“And now, my friends,” said Pa­ganel, “if these brutes think to ex­er­cise their pa­tience on us, they are mis­tak­en. In two days we shall be out of their reach.”

“By flight!” said Gle­nar­van. “But how?”

“That I do not know,” an­swered Pa­ganel, “but we shall man­age it.”

And now ev­ery­body want­ed to know about their friend’s ad­ven­tures. They were puz­zled by the re­serve of a man gen­er­al­ly so talkative; on this oc­ca­sion they had to drag the words out of his mouth; usu­al­ly he was a ready sto­ry-​teller, now he gave on­ly eva­sive an­swers to the ques­tions of the rest.

“Pa­ganel is an­oth­er man!” thought Mc­Nabbs.

His face was re­al­ly al­tered. He wrapped him­self close­ly in his great flax mat and seemed to dep­re­cate ob­ser­va­tion. Ev­ery­one no­ticed his em­bar­rass­ment, when he was the sub­ject of con­ver­sa­tion, though no­body ap­peared to re­mark it; when oth­er top­ics were un­der dis­cus­sion, Pa­ganel re­sumed his usu­al gayety.

Of his ad­ven­tures all that could be ex­tract­ed from him at this time was as fol­lows:

Af­ter the mur­der of Kara-​Tete, Pa­ganel took ad­van­tage, like Robert, of the com­mo­tion among the na­tives, and got out of the in­clo­sure. But less for­tu­nate than young Grant, he walked straight in­to a Maori camp, where he met a tall, in­tel­li­gent-​look­ing chief, ev­ident­ly of high­er rank than all the war­riors of his tribe. The chief spoke ex­cel­lent En­glish, and he salut­ed the new-​com­er by rub­bing the end of his nose against the end of the ge­og­ra­pher’s nose.

Pa­ganel won­dered whether he was to con­sid­er him­self a pris­on­er or not. But per­ceiv­ing that he could not stir with­out the po­lite es­cort of the chief, he soon made up his mind on that point.

This chief, Hi­hi, or Sun­beam, was not a bad fel­low. Pa­ganel’s spec­ta­cles and tele­scope seemed to give him a great idea of Pa­ganel’s im­por­tance, and he man­ifest­ed great at­tach­ment to him, not on­ly by kind­ness, but by a strong flax rope, es­pe­cial­ly at night.

This last­ed for three days; to the in­quiry whether he was well treat­ed, he said “Yes and no!” with­out fur­ther an­swer; he was a pris­on­er, and ex­cept that he ex­pect­ed im­me­di­ate ex­ecu­tion, his state seemed to him no bet­ter than that in which he had left his un­for­tu­nate friends.

One night, how­ev­er, he man­aged to break his rope and es­cape. He had seen from afar the buri­al of the chief, and knew that he was buried on the top of Maun­gana­mu, and he was well ac­quaint­ed with the fact that the moun­tain would be there­fore tabooed. He re­solved to take refuge there, be­ing un­will­ing to leave the re­gion where his com­pan­ions were in du­rance. He suc­ceed­ed in his dan­ger­ous at­tempt, and had ar­rived the pre­vi­ous night at the tomb of Kara-​Tete, and there pro­posed to re­cruit his strength while he wait­ed in the hope that his friends might, by Di­vine mer­cy, find the means of es­cape.

Such was Pa­ganel’s sto­ry. Did he de­signed­ly con­ceal some in­ci­dent of his cap­tiv­ity? More than once his em­bar­rass­ment led them to that con­clu­sion. But how­ev­er that might be, he was hearti­ly con­grat­ulat­ed on all sides. And then the present emer­gen­cy came on for se­ri­ous dis­cus­sion. The na­tives dare not climb Maun­gana­mu, but they, of course, cal­cu­lat­ed that hunger and thirst would re­store them their prey. It was on­ly a ques­tion of time, and pa­tience is one of the virtues of all sav­ages. Gle­nar­van was ful­ly alive to the dif­fi­cul­ty, but made up his mind to watch for an op­por­tu­ni­ty, or make one. First of all he made a thor­ough sur­vey of Maun­gana­mu, their present fortress; not for the pur­pose of de­fence, but of es­cape. The Ma­jor, John, Robert, Pa­ganel, and him­self, made an ex­act map of the moun­tain. They not­ed the di­rec­tion, out­let and in­cli­na­tion of the paths. The ridge, a mile in length, which unit­ed Maun­gana­mu to the Wahi­ti chain had a down­ward in­cli­na­tion. Its slope, nar­row and jagged though it was, ap­peared the on­ly prac­ti­ca­ble route, if they made good their es­cape at all. If they could do this with­out ob­ser­va­tion, un­der cov­er of night, they might pos­si­bly reach the deep val­leys of the Range and put the Maories off the scent.

But there were dan­gers in this route; the last part of it was with­in pis­tol shot of na­tives post­ed on the low­er slopes. Al­ready when they ven­tured on the ex­posed part of the crest, they were salut­ed with a hail of shot which did not reach them. Some gun wads, car­ried by the wind, fell be­side them; they were made of print­ed pa­per, which Pa­ganel picked up out of cu­rios­ity, and with some trou­ble de­ci­phered.

“That is a good idea! My friends, do you know what those crea­tures use for wads?”

“No, Pa­ganel!” said Gle­nar­van.

“Pages of the Bible! If that is the use they make of the Holy Book, I pity the mis­sion­ar­ies! It will be rather dif­fi­cult to es­tab­lish a Maori li­brary.”

“And what text of scrip­ture did they aim at us?”

“A mes­sage from God Him­self!” ex­claimed John Man­gles, who was in the act of read­ing the scorched frag­ment of pa­per. “It bids us hope in Him,” added the young cap­tain, firm in the faith of his Scotch con­vic­tions.

“Read it, John!” said Gle­nar­van.

And John read what the pow­der had left vis­ible: “I will de­liv­er him, for he hath trust­ed in me.”

“My friends,” said Gle­nar­van, “we must car­ry these words of hope to our dear, brave ladies. The sound will bring com­fort to their hearts.”

Gle­nar­van and his com­pan­ions has­tened up the steep path to the cone, and went to­ward the tomb. As they climbed they were as­ton­ished to per­ceive ev­ery few mo­ments a kind of vi­bra­tion in the soil. It was not a move­ment like earth­quake, but that pe­cu­liar tremor that af­fects the met­al of a boil­er un­der high pres­sure. It was clear the moun­tain was the out­er cov­er­ing of a body of va­por, the prod­uct of sub­ter­ranean fires.

This phe­nomenon of course ex­cit­ed no sur­prise in those that had just trav­eled among the hot springs of the Waika­to. They knew that the cen­tral re­gion of the Ika-​na-​Mani is es­sen­tial­ly vol­canic. It is a sieve, whose in­ter­stices fur­nish a pas­sage for the earth’s va­pors in the shape of boil­ing gey­sers and sol­fa­taras.

Pa­ganel, who had al­ready no­ticed this, called the at­ten­tion of his friends to the vol­canic na­ture of the moun­tain. The peak of Maun­gana­mu was on­ly one of the many cones which bris­tle on this part of the is­land. It was a vol­cano of the fu­ture. A slight me­chan­ical change would pro­duce a crater of erup­tion in these slopes, which con­sist­ed mere­ly of whitish si­li­cious tu­fa.

“That may be,” said Gle­nar­van, “but we are in no more dan­ger here than stand­ing by the boil­er of the DUN­CAN; this sol­id crust is like sheet iron.”

“I agree with you,” added the Ma­jor, “but how­ev­er good a boil­er may be, it bursts at last af­ter too long ser­vice.”

“Mc­Nabbs,” said Pa­ganel, “I have no fan­cy for stay­ing on the cone. When Prov­idence points out a way, I will go at once.”

“I wish,” re­marked John, “that Maun­gana­mu could car­ry us him­self, with all the mo­tive pow­er that he has in­side. It is too bad that mil­lions of horse-​pow­er should lie un­der our feet un­avail­able for our needs. Our DUN­CAN would car­ry us to the end of the world with the thou­sandth part of it.”

The rec­ol­lec­tions of the DUN­CAN evoked by John Man­gles turned Gle­nar­van’s thoughts in­to their sad­dest chan­nel; for des­per­ate as his own case was he of­ten for­got it, in vain re­gret at the fate of his crew.

His mind still dwelt on it when he reached the sum­mit of Maun­gana­mu and met his com­pan­ions in mis­for­tune.

La­dy He­le­na, when she saw Gle­nar­van, came for­ward to meet him.

“Dear Ed­ward,” said she, “you have made up your mind? Are we to hope or fear?”

“Hope, my dear He­le­na,” replied Gle­nar­van. “The na­tives will nev­er set foot on the moun­tain, and we shall have time to de­vise a plan of es­cape.”

“More than that, madam, God him­self has en­cour­aged us to hope.”

And so say­ing, John Man­gles hand­ed to La­dy He­le­na the frag­ment of pa­per on which was leg­ible the sa­cred words; and these young wom­en, whose trust­ing hearts were al­ways open to ob­serve Prov­iden­tial in­ter­po­si­tions, read in these words an in­dis­putable sign of sal­va­tion.

“And now let us go to the ‘oudoupa!’” cried Pa­ganel, in his gayest mood. “It is our cas­tle, our din­ing-​room, our study! None can med­dle with us there! Ladies! al­low me to do the hon­ors of this charm­ing abode.”

They fol­lowed Pa­ganel, and when the sav­ages saw them pro­fan­ing anew the tabooed buri­al place, they re­newed their fire and their fear­ful yells, the one as loud as the oth­er. But for­tu­nate­ly the balls fell short of our friends, though the cries reached them.

La­dy He­le­na, Mary Grant, and their com­pan­ions were quite re­lieved to find that the Maories were more dom­inat­ed by su­per­sti­tion than by anger, and they en­tered the mon­ument.

It was a pal­isade made of red-​paint­ed posts. Sym­bol­ic fig­ures, tat­tooed on the wood, set forth the rank and achieve­ments of the de­ceased. Strings of amulets, made of shells or cut stones, hung from one part to an­oth­er. In the in­te­ri­or, the ground was car­pet­ed with green leaves, and in the mid­dle, a slight mound be­to­kened the place of the new­ly made grave. There lay the chief’s weapons, his guns load­ed and capped, his spear, his splen­did ax of green jade, with a sup­ply of pow­der and ball for the hap­py hunt­ing grounds.

“Quite an ar­se­nal!” said Pa­ganel, “of which we shall make a bet­ter use. What ideas they have! Fan­cy car­ry­ing arms in the oth­er world!”

“Well!” said the Ma­jor, “but these are En­glish firearms.”

“No doubt,” replied Gle­nar­van, “and it is a very un­wise prac­tice to give firearms to sav­ages! They turn them against the in­vaders, nat­ural­ly enough. But at any rate, they will be very valu­able to us.”

“Yes,” said Pa­ganel, “but what is more use­ful still is the food and wa­ter pro­vid­ed for Kara-​Tete.”

Things had been hand­some­ly done for the de­ceased chief; the amount of pro­vi­sions de­not­ed their es­teem for the de­part­ed. There was food enough to sus­tain ten per­sons for fif­teen days, or the dead man for­ev­er.

The veg­etable al­iments con­sist­ed of ed­ible ferns, sweet pota­toes, the “con­volvu­lus batatas,” which was in­dige­nous, and the pota­to which had been im­port­ed long be­fore by the Eu­ro­peans. Large jars con­tained pure wa­ter, and a dozen bas­kets ar­tis­ti­cal­ly plait­ed con­tained tablets of an un­known green gum.

The fugi­tives were there­fore pro­vid­ed for some days against hunger and thirst, and they need­ed no per­sua­sion to be­gin their at­tack on the de­ceased chief’s stores. Gle­nar­van brought out the nec­es­sary quan­ti­ty and put them in­to Ol­bi­nett’s hands. The stew­ard, who nev­er could for­get his rou­tine ideas, even in the most ex­cep­tion­al cir­cum­stances, thought the meal a slen­der one. He did not know how to pre­pare the roots, and, be­sides, had no fire.

But Pa­ganel soon solved the dif­fi­cul­ty by rec­om­mend­ing him to bury his fern roots and sweet pota­toes in the soil. The tem­per­ature of the sur­face stra­tum was very high, and a ther­mome­ter plunged in­to the soil would have marked from 160 to 170 de­grees; in fact, Ol­bi­nett nar­row­ly missed be­ing scald­ed, for just as he had scooped a hole for the roots, a jet of va­por sprang up and with a whistling sound rose six feet above the ground.

The stew­ard fell back in ter­ror.

“Shut off steam!” cried the Ma­jor, run­ning to close the hole with the loose drift, while Pa­ganel pon­der­ing on the sin­gu­lar phe­nomenon mut­tered to him­self:

“Let me see! ha! ha! Why not?”

“Are you hurt?” in­quired Mc­Nabbs of Ol­bi­nett.

“No, Ma­jor,” said the stew­ard, “but I did not ex­pect–“

“That Prov­idence would send you fire,” in­ter­rupt­ed Pa­ganel in a jovial tone. “First the larder of Kara-​Tete and then fire out of the ground! Up­on my word, this moun­tain is a par­adise! I pro­pose that we found a colony, and cul­ti­vate the soil and set­tle here for life! We shall be the Robin­sons of Maun­gana­mu. We should want for noth­ing.”

“If it is sol­id ground,” said John Man­gles.

“Well! it is not a thing of yes­ter­day,” said Pa­ganel. “It has stood against the in­ter­nal fire for many a day, and will do so till we leave it, at any rate.”

“Break­fast is ready,” an­nounced Ol­bi­nett with as much dig­ni­ty as if he was in Mal­colm Cas­tle.

With­out de­lay, the fugi­tives sat down near the pal­isade, and be­gan one of the many meals with which Prov­idence had sup­plied them in crit­ical cir­cum­stances. No­body was in­clined to be fas­tid­ious, but opin­ions were di­vid­ed as re­gard­ed the ed­ible fern. Some thought the fla­vor sweet and agree­able, oth­ers pro­nounced it leath­ery, in­sipid, and re­sem­bling the taste of gum. The sweet pota­toes, cooked in the burn­ing soil, were ex­cel­lent. The ge­og­ra­pher re­marked that Kara-​Tete was not bad­ly off af­ter all.

And now that their hunger was ap­peased, it was time to de­cide on their plan of es­cape.

“So soon!” ex­claimed Pa­ganel in a piteous tone. “Would you quit the home of de­light so soon?”

“But, Mon­sieur Pa­ganel,” in­ter­posed La­dy He­le­na, “if this be Ca­pua, you dare not in­tend to im­itate Han­ni­bal!”

“Madam, I dare not con­tra­dict you, and if dis­cus­sion is the or­der of the day, let it pro­ceed.”

“First,” said Gle­nar­van, “I think we ought to start be­fore we are driv­en to it by hunger. We are re­vived now, and ought to take ad­van­tage of it. To-​night we will try to reach the east­ern val­leys by cross­ing the cor­don of na­tives un­der cov­er of the dark­ness.”

“Ex­cel­lent,” an­swered Pa­ganel, “if the Maories al­low us to pass.”

“And if not?” asked John Man­gles.

“Then we will use our great re­sources,” said Pa­ganel.

“But have we great re­sources?” in­quired the Ma­jor.

“More than we can use!” replied Pa­ganel, with­out any fur­ther ex­pla­na­tion.

And then they wait­ed for the night.

The na­tives had not stirred. Their num­bers seemed even greater, per­haps ow­ing to the in­flux of the strag­glers of the tribe. Fires light­ed at in­ter­vals formed a gir­dle of flame round the base of the moun­tain, so that when dark­ness fell, Maun­gana­mu ap­peared to rise out of a great brasi­er, and to hide its head in the thick dark­ness. Five hun­dred feet be­low they could hear the hum and the cries of the en­emy’s camp.

At nine o’clock the dark­ness be­ing very in­tense, Gle­nar­van and John Man­gles went out to re­con­noi­ter be­fore em­bark­ing the whole par­ty on this crit­ical jour­ney. They made the de­scent noise­less­ly, and af­ter about ten min­utes, ar­rived on the nar­row ridge that crossed the na­tive lines, fifty feet above the camp.

All went well so far. The Maories, stretched be­side the fires, did not ap­pear to ob­serve the two fugi­tives. But in an in­stant a dou­ble fusil­lade burst forth from both sides of the ridge.

“Back,” ex­claimed Gle­nar­van; “those wretch­es have the eyes of cats and the guns of ri­fle­men!”

And they turned, and once more climbed the steep slope of the moun­tain, and then has­tened to their friends who had been alarmed at the fir­ing. Gle­nar­van’s hat was pierced by two balls, and they con­clud­ed that it was out of the ques­tion to ven­ture again on the ridge be­tween two lines of marks­men.

“Wait till to-​mor­row,” said Pa­ganel, “and as we can­not elude their vig­ilance, let me try my hand on them.”

The night was cold; but hap­pi­ly Kara-​Tete had been fur­nished with his best night gear, and the par­ty wrapped them­selves each in a warm flax man­tle, and pro­tect­ed by na­tive su­per­sti­tion, slept qui­et­ly in­side the in­clo­sure, on the warm ground, still vi­olat­ing with the vi­olence of the in­ter­nal ebul­li­tion.