The Adventures of Don Lavington Part 60

"G'long with you."

"It is, Jem; and that water is naturally hot."

"What, like it is at Bath?"

"To be sure."

"Well, that caps all. Some one said so the other day aboard ship, but I didn't believe it. Fancy a set o' savages having hot water all ready for them. I say, though, Mas' Don, it's very nice."

Just then Ngati came up smiling, but as Jem afterwards said, looking like a figure-head that was going to bite, and they were led off to a _whare_ and furnished with a good substantial meal.

CHAPTER TWENTY NINE.

AN UNWELCOME RECOGNITION.

"It arn't bad," said Jem; "but it's puzzling."

"What is?" said Don, who was partaking of broiled fish with no little appet.i.te.

"Why, how savages like these here should know all about cooking."

The breakfast was eaten with an admiring circle of spectators at hand, while Ngati kept on going from Don to his tribesmen and back again, patting the lad's shoulder, and seeming to play the part of showman with no little satisfaction to himself, but with the effect of making Jem wroth.

"It's all very well, Mas' Don," he said, with his mouth full; "but if he comes and says 'my pakeha' to me, I shall throw something at him."

"Oh, it's all kindly meant, Jem."

"Oh, is it? I don't know so much about that. If it is, why don't they give us back our clothes? Suppose any of our fellows was to see us like this?"

"I hope none of our fellows will see us, Jem."

"Tomati Paroni! Tomati Paroni!" shouted several of the men in chorus.

"Hark at 'em!" cried Jem scornfully. "What does that mean?"

The explanation was given directly, for the tattooed Englishmen came running up to the _whare_.

"Boats coming from the ship to search for you," he said quickly, and then turned to Ngati and spoke a few words with the result that the chief rushed at the escaped pair, and signed to them to rise.

"Yes," said the Englishman, "you had better go with him and hide for a bit. We'll let you know when they are gone."

"Tell them to give us our clothes," said Jem sourly.

"Yes, of course. They would tell tales," said the Englishman; and he turned again to Ngati, who sent two men out of the _whare_ to return directly with the dried garments.

Ngati signed to them to follow, and he led them, by a faintly marked track, in and out among the trees and the cleared patches which formed the natives' gardens, and all the while carefully avoiding any openings through which the harbour could be seen.

Every now and then he turned to speak volubly, but though he interpolated a few English words, his meaning would have been incomprehensible but for his gestures and the warnings nature kept giving of danger.

For every here and there, as they wound in and out among the trees, they came upon soft, boggy places, where the ground was hot; and as the pressure of the foot sent hissing forth a jet of steam, it was evident that a step to right or left of the narrow track meant being plunged into a pool of heated mud of unknown depth.

In other places the hot mud bubbled up in rounded pools, spitting, hissing, and bursting with faint cracks that were terribly suggestive of danger.

Over these heated spots the fertility and growth of the plants was astounding. They seemed to be shooting up out of a natural hothouse, but where to attempt to pa.s.s them meant a terrible and instant death.

"Look out, Mas' Don! This here's what I once heard a clown say, 'It's dangerous to be safe.' I say, figgerhead, arn't there no other way?"

"Ship! Men! Catchee, catchee," said Ngati, in a whisper.

"Hear that, Mas' Don? Any one'd think we was babbies. Ketchy, ketchy, indeed! You ask him if there arn't no other way. I don't like walking in a place that's like so much hot soup."

"Be quiet, and follow. Hist! Hark!"

Don stopped short, for, from a distance, came a faint hail, followed by another nearer, which seemed to be in answer.

"They're arter us, sir, and if we're to be ketched I don't mean to be ketched like this."

"What are you going to do, Jem?"

"Do?" said Jem, unrolling his bundled-up clothes, and preparing to sit down, "make myself look like an ornery Chrishtun."

"Don't sit down there, Jem!" cried Don, as Ngati gave a warning cry at the same moment, and started back.

But they were too late, for Jem had chosen a delicately green mossy and ferny patch, and plumped himself down, to utter a cry of horror, and s.n.a.t.c.h at the extended hands. For the green ferny patch was a thin covering over a noisome hole full of black boiling mud, into which the poor fellow was settling as he was dragged out.

"Fah!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Jem, pinching his nose. "Here, I've had 'most enough o' this place. Nice sort o' spot this would be to turn a donkey out to graze. Why, you wouldn't find nothing but the tips of his ears to-morrow morning."

Another hail rang out, and was answered in two places.

"I say, Mas' Don, they're hunting for us, and we shall have to run."

He made signs to the chief indicative of a desire to run, but Ngati shook his head, and pointed onward.

They followed on, listening to the shouts, which came nearer, till Ngati suddenly took a sharp turn round a great b.u.t.tress of lava, and entered a wild, narrow, forbidding-looking chasm, where on either side the black, jagged ma.s.ses of rock were piled up several hundred feet, and made glorious by streams which coursed among the delicately green ferns.

"Look's damp," said Jem, as Ngati led them on for about fifty yards, and then began to climb, his companions following him, till he reached a shelf about a hundred feet up, and beckoned to them to come.

"Does he think this here's the rigging of a ship, and want us to set sail?" grumbled Jem. "Here, I say, what's the good of our coming there?"

The chief stamped his foot, and made an imperious gesture, which brought them to his side.

He pointed to a hole in the face of the precipice, and signed to them to go in.

"Men--boat," he said, pointing, and then clapping his hand to his ear as a distant hail came like a whisper up the gully, which was almost at right angles to the beach.

"He wants us to hide here, Jem," said Don; and he went up to the entrance and looked in. A hot, steamy breath of air came like a puff into his face, and a strange low moaning noise fell upon his ear, followed by a faint whistle, that was strongly suggestive of some one being already in hiding.