Maori and Settler Part 27

When the garment had been operated upon there remained a length of strong calico nearly three feet wide and three yards long. "That will do well," he said. "Now we have to fasten this to the poles. How would you do that? It is more in your way than mine."

"I should roll it twice round the pole and then sew it, if I had a needle and thread. If I had not that I should make holes in every six inches and tie it with string; but unfortunately we have no string either."

"I think we can manage that," Mr. Atherton said; and he walked rapidly away and returned in a few minutes with some long stalks that looked like coa.r.s.e gra.s.s.

"This is the very thing, Mrs. Renshaw," he said; "this is what is called New Zealand flax, and I have no doubt it will be strong enough for our purpose." In a quarter of an hour the litter was completed. Just as it was finished Mrs. Sampson uttered an exclamation of joy, and turning round, they saw that her husband had opened his eyes and was looking round in a dazed, bewildered way.

"It is all right, Sampson," Mr. Atherton said cheerfully; "we have thrashed the natives handsomely; they have bolted, and there is no fear of their coming back again. You have had a clip on the head with a tomahawk, but I do not think that you will be much the worse for it at the end of a week or two. We have just been manufacturing a litter for you, and now we will lift you on to it. Now, ladies, I will take him by the shoulders; will you take him by the feet, Mrs. Renshaw; and do you, Mrs. Sampson, support his head? That is the way. Now, I will just roll up my coat and put it under his head, and then I think he will do; lay our rifles beside him. Now, I will take the two handles at his head; do you each take one at his feet. The weight will not be great, and you can change about when your arms get tired. Yes, I see what you are thinking about, Mrs. Renshaw. We must go along bit by bit. We will carry our patient here for half a mile, then I will come back and fetch Wilfrid up to that point, then we will go on again, and so on."

"All the hard work falls on you, Mr. Atherton; it is too bad," Mrs.

Renshaw said with grateful tears in her eyes.

"It will do me a world of good, Mrs. Renshaw. I must have lost over a stone weight since yesterday. If this sort of thing were to go on for a few weeks I should get into fighting condition. Now, are you both ready?

Lift."

In a short time they came to the point where Wilfrid and the child were sitting down together. Wilfrid had been impressing upon her that her father was hurt, and that she must be very good and quiet, and walk along quietly by her mother's side. So when they came along she got up and approached them with a subdued and awe-struck air. She took the hand her mother held out to her.

"Is father very bad, mother?" she asked in a low tone.

"He is better than he was, dear, and we must hope and pray that he will soon be well again; but at present you must not speak to him. He must be kept very quiet and not allowed to talk."

"You sit where you are, Wilfrid, I will come back for you in half an hour," Mr. Atherton said.

"That you won't Mr. Atherton," Wilfrid said, getting up. "I have had a long rest, for, except for pulling my trigger and loading, I have done nothing since the first short walk when we started this morning. All this excitement has done me a lot of good, and I feel as if I could walk ever so far."

"Well, put your rifle in the litter, then," Mr. Atherton said; "its weight will make no difference to us, and it will make a lot of difference to you; when you are tired say so."

Wilfrid struggled on resolutely, refusing to stop until they reached a stream two miles from the starting-place. Here they rested for an hour.

The settler's wounds were washed and rebandaged, the others partook of a meal of bread and water, and they then continued the journey. At the end of another half-mile Wilfrid was obliged to own that his strength could hold out no longer, but he refused positively to accept Mr. Atherton's proposal to come back for him.

"I will not hear of it, Mr. Atherton," he said. "From what Mrs. Sampson says it is another eight or ten miles to the Mahia country. There is not the least fear of any of the Hau-Haus following on our track. The best way by far is this: I will go a hundred yards into the bush and lie down. You push on. It will be dark before you finish your journey as it is, you would not get there till to-morrow morning if you had to keep on coming back for me; besides, you would never get on with the litter after it is dark. Leave me a piece of bread, a bottle of water, my rifle and revolver, and I shall be as comfortable among the bushes there as if I were in bed. In the morning you can send out a party of Mahias to fetch me in. If you break down a small bough here by the side of the way, that will be quite sufficient to tell the natives where they are to turn off from the path to look for me."

"Well, I really think that is the best plan, Wilfrid. There is, as you say, no real danger in your stopping here alone. It would be a long job coming back for you every time we halt, and it is of importance to get Mr. Sampson laid down and quiet as soon as possible."

Mrs. Renshaw did not like leaving Wilfrid alone; but she saw that she could be of no real a.s.sistance to him, and her aid was absolutely required to carry the wounded man. She therefore offered no objections to the proposal.

"Don't look downcast, mother," Wilfrid said as he kissed her. "The weather is fine, and there is no hardship whatever in a night in the bush, especially after what we went through when we were following Te Kooti."

Wilfrid made his way a hundred yards back into the bush and then threw himself down under a tree-fern, and in a very few minutes he was sound asleep. The next time he awoke all was dark around him.

"I must have slept a good many hours," he said. "I feel precious hungry." He ate a hunch of bread, took a drink of water from the bottle, and soon fell asleep again. The morning was breaking when he again woke.

A quarter of an hour later he heard voices, and c.o.c.king his rifle and lying down full length on the gra.s.s, waited. In another minute to his joy he heard Mr. Atherton's voice shouting, "Where are you, Wilfrid?

Where have you hidden yourself?"

CHAPTER XVI.

THE PURSUIT OF TE KOOTI.

He leapt to his feet and ran forward. Mr. Atherton was approaching, accompanied by a party of six natives.

"Why, Mr. Atherton, I was not expecting you for another three hours."

"Well, you see, Wilfrid, your mother was anxious about you. She did not say anything, for she is a plucky woman, and not given to complaining or grumbling, still I could see she was anxious, so I arranged with these natives to be ready to start three hours before daybreak, so as to get here just as the sun was rising."

"It is awfully kind of you, Atherton; but surely the natives would have been able to find me without your troubling yourself to come all this way again. I am sure you must have been dreadfully tired after all your work yesterday."

"Well, Wilfrid, perhaps I was just a little bit anxious myself about you, and should have fussed and fidgeted until you got back, so you see the quickest way to satisfy myself was to come with the natives."

"What time did you get in last night?"

"About eight o'clock in the evening, I think. We were all pretty well knocked up, but the two ladies bore it bravely, so you see I had no excuse for grumbling."

"I am sure you would not have grumbled anyhow," Wilfrid laughed; "but I know that when one is carrying anyone the weight at the head is more than double the weight at the feet, and that was divided between them, while you had the heavy end all to yourself. And how is Sampson?"

"I think he will do, Wilfrid. The natives took him in hand as soon as he got there, and put leaf poultices to his wounds. They are very good at that sort of thing; and so they ought to be, considering they have been breaking each other's heads almost from the days of Adam. Well, let us be off. We have brought the stretcher with us, and shall get you back in no time."

Wilfrid lay down upon the stretcher. Four of the natives lifted it and went off at a light swinging pace. From time to time changes were made, the other two natives taking their share. Had they been alone the natives could have made the ten miles' journey under the two hours, but Mr. Atherton reduced their speed directly after they had started.

"I have not been killed by the Hau-Haus, Wilfrid, and I do not mean to let myself be killed by friendly natives. Three miles an hour is my pace, and except in a case of extreme emergency I never exceed it. I have no wish, when I get back to England, to be exhibited as a walking skeleton.

"It is good to hear you laugh again, lad," he went on as Wilfrid burst into a shout of laughter, to the astonishment of his four bearers. "I was afraid six weeks back that we should never hear you laugh again."

"Oh, Mr. Atherton!" Wilfrid exclaimed a few minutes later, "were there any other of the Poverty Bay people there last night; and have you heard what took place and whether many besides those we know of have lost their lives?"

"Yes; I am sorry to say it has been a very bad business. As we heard from b.u.t.ters, Dodd and Reppart were killed, and there is no doubt that their shepherd was also slaughtered. Major Biggs, poor fellow, has paid for his obstinacy and over-confidence with his life. His wife, baby, and servant were also killed. The news of this was brought by a boy employed in the house, who escaped by the back-door and hid in a flax bush.

Captain Wilson, his wife, and children have all been murdered. M'Culloch was killed with his wife and baby; the little boy managed to escape, and got to the redoubt at Taranganui. Cadel was also killed. Fortunately Firmin heard the sound of musketry in the night. He started at dawn to see what was the matter. He met a native, who told him that the Hau-Haus were ma.s.sacring the whites, and at once rode off and warned Wylie, Stevenson, Benson, Hawthorne, and Strong; and these all escaped with their families, and with Major Westrupp got safely to the Mahia people.

"The boy who escaped from Major Biggs's house reached Bloomfields, and all the women and children there managed to escape. How they did it heaven only knows, for the Hau-Haus were all round. That is all we know at present, and we hope that the rest of the settlers of the outlying stations round Matawhero succeeded in getting into Taranganui. Whether the Hau-Haus will be satisfied with the slaughter they have effected, or will try to penetrate further into the settlement or attack Taranganui, remains to be seen. Of course the people who have escaped are, like ourselves, ignorant of everything that has taken place except what happened in their immediate neighbourhood. I should fancy, myself, that however widespread the ma.s.sacre may have been, the Hau-Haus started last night on their way back. They would know that as soon as the news reached Wairoa the force there will be on the move to cut them off."

"Do you think they will succeed?" Wilfrid asked eagerly.

"I do not think so, Wilfrid. If Colonel Whitmore were there they would have routed out Te Kooti long ago, but Colonel Lambert seems a man of a different stamp altogether. Why, I heard last night that he marched six days ago to Whataroa, quite close to Te Kooti's place, and that a prisoner they took gave them positive information that the Hau-Haus there had all left to a.s.sist Te Kooti in a raid upon Poverty Bay. It seems they did not believe the news; at anyrate, although a mail left for Poverty Bay on the day after they returned to Wairoa, they sent no news whatever of the report they had heard. If they had done so there would have been plenty of time for the settlers to prepare for the attack.

"It is one of the most scandalous cases of neglect that I ever heard of, and Lambert ought to be tried by court-martial, though that would not bring all these people to life again. However there is one thing certain, the news of this affair will create such a sensation throughout the island that even the incapable government at Auckland, who have disregarded all the urgent requests for aid against Te Kooti, will be forced to do something, and I sincerely hope they will despatch Whitmore with a strong force of constabulary to wipe out Te Kooti and his band.

It is curious how things come about. Almost all these poor fellows who have been killed belonged to the Poverty Bay militia, who refused to press on with Whitmore in pursuit of Te Kooti. Had they done so, the addition of thirty white men to his force might have made all the difference in that fight you had with him, and in that case Te Kooti would have been driven far up the country, and this ma.s.sacre would never have taken place."

It was a great relief to Mrs. Renshaw when Wilfrid reached the village.

She was not given to idle fears, and felt convinced that he was running no real danger; for she knew Mr. Atherton would not have left him by himself had he not been perfectly convinced there was no danger of pursuit. Still she felt a weight lifted off her mind when she saw the party entering the village.

"Well, mother, you must have had a terrible journey of it yesterday,"

Wilfrid said, after he had a.s.sured her that he felt none the worse for what had pa.s.sed, and was indeed stronger and better than he had been two days before.

"It was a terrible journey, Wilfrid. Fourteen miles does not seem such a very long distance to walk, though I do not suppose I ever walked as far since I was a girl; but the weight of the stretcher made all the difference. It did not feel much when we started, but it soon got heavier as we went on; and though we changed sides every few minutes it seemed at last as if one's arms were being pulled out of their sockets.

We could never have done it if it had not been for Mr. Atherton. He kept us cheery the whole time. It seems ridiculous to remember that he has always been representing himself as unequal to any exertion. He was carrying the greater part of the weight, and indeed five miles before we got to the end of our journey, seeing how exhausted we were becoming, he tied two sticks six feet long to our end of the poles, and in that way made the work a great deal lighter for us, and of course a great deal heavier for himself. He declared he hardly felt it, for by that time I had torn two wide strips from the bottom of my dress, tied them together, and put them over his shoulders and fastened them to the two poles; so that he got the weight on his shoulders instead of his hands.