Color Scheme

Chapter III Gaunt at the Springs

“Five days ago,” said Gaunt, “you dangled this place before me like some atrocious bait. Now you do nothing but bemoan its miseries. You are strangely inconsistent.”

“In the interval,” said Dikon, wrenching the car out of a pothole, and changing down, “I have seen the place. I implore you to remember, sir, that you have been warned.”

“You overdid it. You painted it in macabre colours. My curiosity was stimulated. For pity’s sake, my dear Dikon, drive a little further away from the edge of the abyss. Can this mountain goat-track possibly be a main road?”

“It’s the only road from Harpoon to Wai-ata-tapu, sir. You wanted somewhere quiet, you know. And these are not mountains. There are no mountains in the Northland. The big stuff is in the South.”

“I’m afraid you’re a scenic snob. To me this is a mountain. When I fall over the edge of this precipice, I shall not be found with a sneer on my lips because the drop was merely five hundred feet instead of a thousand. There’s a most unpleasant smell about this place.”

“It’s the thermal smell. People are said to get to like it.”

“Nonsense. How are you travelling, Colly?”

Fenced in by luggage in the back seat, Colly replied that he kept his eyes closed at the curves. “I didn’t seem to notice it so much this morning in them forests,” he added. “It’s dynamite in the open.”

The road corkscrewed its way in and out of a gully and along a barren stretch of downland. On its left the coast ran freely northwards in a chain of scrolls, last interruptions in its firm line before it tightened into the Ninety Mile Beach. The thunder of the Tasman Sea hung like a vast rumour on the freshening air, and above the margin of the downs Rangi’s Peak was slowly erected.

“That’s an ominous-looking affair,” said Gaunt. “What is it about these hills that gives them an air of the fabulous? They are not so very odd in shape, not incredible like the Dolomites or imposing like the Rockies — not, as you point out in your superior way, Dikon, really mountains at all. Yet they seem to be pregnant with some tiresome secret. What is it?”

“Perhaps it’s something to do with the volcanic silhouette. If there’s a secret the answer’s in the Maori language. I’m afraid you’ll get very tired of that cone, sir. It looks over the hills round the Springs.” Dikon waited for a moment. Gaunt had a trick of showing a fugitive interest in places, of asking for expositions, and of growing restless when they were given to him.

“Why is the answer in Maori?” he said.

“It was a native burial-ground in the old days. They tipped the bodies into the crater. It’s extinct you know. Supposed to be full of them.”

“Good Lord!” said Gaunt softly.

The car climbed higher, and the base of Rangi’s Peak, a series of broad platforms and slopes, came into sight. “You can see quite clearly,” Dikon said, “the route they must have followed. Miss Claire tells me the tribes used to camp at the foot for three days holding a tangi, the Maori equivalent of a wake. Then the body was carried up the Peak by relays of bearers. They said that if it was a chief who had died, and if the air was still, you could hear the singing as far away as Wai-ata-tapu.”

“Gawd!” said Colly.

“Can you look into the crater and see…?”

“I don’t know. It’s a native reserve, the Claires told me. Very tapu of course.”

“What’s that?”

“Tapu? Taboo. Sacred. Forbidden. Untouchable. I don’t suppose the Maori people ever climb up the Peak nowadays. No admittance to the Pakeha, of course; it would be much too tempting a hunting-ground. They used to bury the chiefs’ weapons with them. There is a certain adze inherited by the chief Rewi who died about a hundred years ago and was buried on the Peak. This adze, his favourite weapon, was hidden up there. It had featured prominently and bloodily in the Maori wars, and had been spoken of in their oral schools of learning for generations before that. Rewi’s toki-poutangata. It has a secret mark on it, and was said to be invested with supernatural power by the god Tane. There it is, they say, a collector’s plum if ever there was one, somewhere on the Peak. The whole place belongs to the Maori people. It’s forbidden territory to the white hunter.”

“How far away is it?”

“About eight miles.”

“It looks less than three in this uncanny atmosphere.”

“Kind of black, sir, isn’t it?” said Colly.

“Black and clear,” said Gaunt. “A marvellous back drop.”

They drove on in silence for some time. The flowing hills moved slowly about as if in a contrapuntal measure determined, by the progress of the car. Dikon began to recognize landmarks, He felt extremely apprehensive.

“Hullo,” said Gaunt. “What’s that affair down on the right? A sort of doss-house, one would think.”

Dikon said nothing, but turned in at a ramshackle gate.

“You don’t dare to tell me that we have arrived,” Gaunt demanded in a loud voice.

“Yes, sir.”

“My God, Dikon, you’ll writhe for this. Look at it. Smell it. Colly, we are betrayed.”

“Mr. Bell warned you, sir,” Colly said. “I daresay it’s very comfortable.”

“If anything,” said, Dikon, “it’s less comfortable than it looks. Those are the Springs.”

“Those reeking puddles?”

“Yes. And there, on the verandah, I see the Claires assembled. You are expected, sir,” said Dikon. Out of the tail of his eyes he saw Gaunt’s gloved fingers go first to his tie and then to his hat. He thought suddenly: “He looks terribly like a famous actor.”

The car rocked down the last stretch of the drive and shot across the pumice sweep. Dikon pulled up at the verandah steps. He got out, and taking off his hat approached the expectant Claires. He felt nervous and absurd. The Claires were grouped after the manner of an Edwardian family portrait that had taken an eccentric turn. Mrs. Claire and the Colonel were in deck-chairs, Barbara sat on the steps grasping a reluctant dog. Dikon guessed that they wore their best clothes. Simon, obviously under duress, stood behind his mother’s chair looking murderous. All that was lacking, one felt, was the native equivalent of a gillie holding a couple of staghounds in leash. As Dikon approached, Dr. Ackrington came out of his room.

“Here we are, you see,” Dikon called out with an effort at gaiety. The Claires had risen. Impelled by confusion, doubt, and apology, Dikon shook hands blindly all round. Barbara looked nervously over his shoulder and he saw with a dismay which he afterwards recognized as prophetic that she had gone white to her unpainted lips.

He felt Gaunt’s hand on his arm and hurriedly introduced him.

Mrs. Claire brought poise to the situation, Dikon realized, but it was the kind of poise with which Gaunt was quite unfamiliar. She might have been welcoming a bishop-suffragan to a slum parish, a bishop-suffragan in poor health.

“Such a long journey,” she said anxiously. “You must be so tired.”

“Not a bit of it,” said Gaunt, who had arrived at an age when actors affect a certain air of youthful hardihood.

“But it’s such a dreadful road. And you look very tired,” she persisted gently. Dikon saw Gaunt’s smile grow formal. He turned to Barbara. For some reason which he had not attempted to analyze, Dikon wanted Gaunt to like Barbara. It was with apprehension that he watched her give a galvanic jerk, open her eyes very wide, and put her head on one side like a chidden puppy. “Oh hell,” he thought, “she’s going to be funny.”

“Welcome,” Barbara said in her sepulchral voice, “to the humble abode.” Gaunt dropped her hand rather quickly.

“Find us very quiet, I’m afraid,” Colonel Claire said, looking quickly at Gaunt and away again. “Not much in your line, this country, what?”

“But we’ve just been remarking,” Gaunt said lightly, “that your landscape reeks of theatre.” He waved his stick at Rangi’s Peak. “One expects to hear the orchestra.” Colonel Claire looked baffled and slightly offended.

“My brother,” Mrs. Claire murmured. Dr. Ackrington limped forward. Dikon’s attention was distracted from this last encounter by the behaviour of Simon Claire, who suddenly lurched out of cover, strode down the steps and seized the astounded Colly by the hand. Colly, who was about to unload the car, edged behind it.

“How are you?” Simon said loudly. “Give you a hand with that stuff.”

“That’s all right, thank you, sir.”

“Come on,” Simon insisted and laid violent hands on a pigskin dressing-case which he lugged from the car and dumped none too gently on the pumice. Colly gave a little cry of dismay.

“Here, here, here!” a loud voice expostulated. Mr. Questing thundered out of the house and down the steps. “Cut that out, young fellow,” he ordered and shouldered Simon away from the car.

“Why?” Simon demanded.

“That’s no way to treat high-class stuff,” bustled Mr. Questing with an air of intolerable patronage. “You’ll have to learn better than that. Handle it carefully.” He advanced upon Dikon. “We’re willing,” he laughed, “but we’ve a lot to learn. Well, well, well, how’s the young gentleman?”

He removed his hat and placed himself before Gaunt. His change of manner was amazingly abrupt. He might have been a lightning impersonator or a marionette controlled by some pundit of second-rate etiquette. Suddenly, he oozed deference. “I don’t think,” he said, “that I have had the honour — ”

“Mr. Questing,” said Dikon.

“This is a great day for the Springs, sir,” said Mr. Questing. “A great day.”

“Thank you,” said Gaunt, glancing at him. “If I may I should like to see my rooms.”

He turned to Mrs. Claire. “Dikon tells me you have taken an enormous amount of trouble on my behalf. It’s very kind indeed. Thank you so much.” And Dikon saw that with this one speech, delivered with Gaunt’s famous air of gay sincerity, he had captivated Mrs. Claire. She beamed at him. “I shall try not to be troublesome,” Gaunt added. And to Mr. Questing: “Right.”

They went in procession along the verandah. Mr. Questing, still uncovered, led the way.

Barbara sat on the edge of her stretcher-bed in her small hot room and looked at two dresses. Which should she wear for dinner on the first night? Neither of them was new. The red lace had been sent out two years ago by her youngest aunt who had worn it a good deal in India. Barbara had altered it to fit herself and something had gone wrong with the shoulder, so that it bulged where it should lie flat. To cover this defect she had attached a black flower to the neck. It was a long dress and she did not as a rule change for dinner. Simon might make some frightful comment if she wore the red lace. The alternative was a short floral affair, thick blue in colour with a messy yellow design. She had furbished it up with a devilish shell ornament and a satin belt and even poor Barbara wondered if it was a success. Knowing that she should be in the kitchen with Huia, she pulled off her print, dragged the red lace over her head and looked at herself in the inadequate glass. No, it would never become her dress, it would always hark back to unknown Aunty Wynne who two years ago had written: “Am sending a box of odds and ends for Ba. Hope she can wear red.” But could she? Could she plunge about in the full light of day in this ownerless waif of a garment with everybody knowing she had dressed herself up? She peered at her face, which was slightly distorted by the glass. Suddenly she hauled the dress over her head, fighting with the stuffy-smelling lace. “Barbara,” her mother called. “Where are you? Ba!”

“Coming!” Well, it would have to be the floral.

But when, hot and desperate, she had finally dressed, and covered the floral with a clean overall, she pressed her hands together. “O God,” she thought, “make him like it here! Please, dear God, make him like it.”

“Can you possibly endure it?” Dikon asked.

Gaunt was lying full length on the modern sofa. He raised his arms above his head. “All,” he whispered, “I can endure all but Questing. Questing must be kept from me.”

“But I told you—”

“You amaze me with your shameless parrot cry of ‘I told you so,’ ” said Gaunt mildly. “Let us have no more of it.” He looked out of the corner of his eye at Dikon. “And don’t look so tragic, my good ass,” he added. “I’ve been a small-part touring actor in my day. This place is strangely reminiscent of a one-night fit-up. No doubt I can endure it. I should be dossing down in an Anderson shelter, by God. I do well to complain. Only spare me Questing, and I shall endure the rest.”

“At least we shall be spared his conversation this evening. He has a previous engagement. Lest he offer to put it off, I told him you would be desolated but had already arranged to dine in your rooms and go to bed at nine. So away he went.”

“Good. In that case I shall dine en famille and go to bed when it amuses me. I have yet to meet Mr. Smith, remember. Is it too much to hope that he will stage another fight?”

“It seems he only gets drunk when his remittance comes in.” Dikon hesitated and then asked: “What did you think of the Claires, sir?”

“Marvellous character parts. Overstated, of course. Not quite West End. A number-one production on tour, shall we say? The Colonel’s moustache is a little too thick in both senses.”

Dikon felt vaguely resentful. “You captivated Mrs. Claire,‘’ he said.

Gaunt ignored this. “If one could take them as they are,” he said. “If one could persuade them to appear in those clothes and speak those lines! My dear, they’d be a riot. Miss Claire! Dikon, I didn’t believe she existed.”

“Actually,” said Dikon stiffly, “she’s rather attractive. If you look beyond her clothes.”

“You’re a remarkably swift worker if you’ve been able to do that.”

“They’re extraordinarily kind and, I think, very nice.”

“Until we arrived you never ceased to exclaim against them. Why have you bounced round to their side all of a sudden?”

“I only said, sir, that I thought you would be bored by them.”

“On the contrary I’m agreeably entertained. I think they’re all darlings and marvellous comedy. What is your trouble?”

“Nothing. I’m sorry. I’ve just discovered that I like them. I thought,” said Dikon, smiling a little in spite of himself, “that the tableau on the verandah was terribly sad. I wonder how long they’d been grouped-up like that.”

“For ages, I should think. The dog was plainly exasperated and young Claire looked lethal.”

“It is rather touching,” said Dikon and turned away.

Mrs. Claire and Barbara, wearing their garden hats and carrying trowels, went past the window on tiptoe, their faces solemn and absorbed. When they had gone a little way Dikon heard them whispering together.

“In heaven’s name,” cried Gaunt, “why do they stalk about their own premises like that? What are they plotting?”

“It’s because I explained that you liked to relax before dinner. They don’t want to disturb you. I fancy their vegetable garden is round the corner.”

After a pause Gaunt said: “It will end in my feeling insecure and ashamed. Nothing arouses one’s self-abasement more than the earnest amateur. How long have they had this place?”

“About twelve years, I think. Perhaps longer.”

“Twelve years and they are still amateurs!”

“They try so terribly hard,” Dikon said. He wandered out onto the verandah. Someone was walking slowly round the warm lake towards the springs.

“Hullo,” Dikon said. “We’ve a caller.”

“What do you mean? Be very careful, now. I’ll see no one, remember.”

“I don’t think it’s for us, sir,” Dikon said. “It’s a Maori.”

It was Rua. He wore the suit he bought in 1936 to welcome the Duke of Gloucester. He walked slowly across the pumice to the house, tapped twice with his stick on the central verandah post and waited tranquilly for someone to take notice of him. Presently Huia came out and gave a suppressed giggle on seeing her great-grandfather. He addressed her in Maori with an air of austerity and she went back into the house. Rua sat on the edge of the verandah and rested his chin on his stick.

“Do you know, sir,” said Dikon, “I believe it might be for us, after all. I’ve recognized the old gentleman.”

“I won’t see anybody,” said Gaunt. “Who is he?”

“He’s a Maori version of the Last of the Barons. Rua Te Kahu, sometime journalist and M.P. for the district. I’ll swear he’s called to pay his respects.”

“You must see him for me. We did bring some pictures, I suppose?”

“I don’t think,” Dikon said, “that the Last of the Barons will be waiting for signed photographs.”

“You’re determined to snub me,” said Gaunt amiably. “If it’s an interview, you’ll talk to him, won’t you?”

Colonel Claire came out of the house, shook hands with Rua and led him off in the direction of their own quarters.

“It’s not for us, after all, sir.”

“Thank heaven for that,” Gaunt said but he looked a little huffy nevertheless.

In Colonel Claire’s study, a room about the size of a small pantry and rather less comfortable, Rua unfolded the purpose of his call. Dim photographs of polo teams glared down menacingly from the walls. Rua’s dark eyes rested for a moment on a group of turbaned Sikhs before he turned to address himself gravely to the Colonel.

“I have brought,” he said, “a greeting from my hapu to your distinguished guest, Mr. Geoffrey Gaunt. The Maori people of Wai-ata-tapu are glad that he has come here and would like me to greet him with a cordial Haere mai.”

“Oh, thanks very much, Rua,” said the Colonel. “I’ll tell him.”

“We have heard that he wishes to be quiet. If however he would care to hear a little singing, we hope that he will do us the honour to come to a concert on Saturday week in the evening. I bring this invitation from my hapu to your guests and your family, Colonel.”

Colonel Claire raised his eyebrows, opened his eyes and mouth, and glared at his visitor. He was not particularly surprised, but merely wore his habitual expression for absorbing new ideas.

“Eh?” he said at last. “Did you say a concert? Extraordinarily nice of you, Rua, I must say. A concert.”

“If Mr. Gaunt would care to come.”

Colonel Claire gave a galvanic start. “Care to?” he repeated. “I don’t know, I’m sure. We should have to ask him, what? Sound the secretary.”

Rua gave a little bow. “Certainly,” he said.

Colonel Claire rose abruptly and thrust his head out of the window. “James!” he yelled. “Here!”

“What for?” said Dr. Ackrington’s voice at some distance.

“I want you. It’s my brother-in-law,” he explained more quietly to Rua. “We’ll see what he thinks, um?” He went out to the verandah and shouted, “Agnes!”

“Hoo-oo?” replied Mrs. Claire from inside the house.

“Here.”

“In a minute, dear.”

“Barbara.”

“Wait a bit, Daddy. I can’t.”

“Here.”

Having summoned his family, Colonel Claire sank into an armchair, and glancing at Rua gave a rather aimless laugh. His eye happened to fall upon a Wild West novel that he had been reading. He was a greedy consumer of thrillers, and the sight of this one lying open and close at hand affected him as an open box of chocolate affects a child. He smiled at Rua and offered him a cigarette. Rua thanked him and took one, holding it cautiously between the tips of his fingers and thumb. Colonel Claire looked out of the corners of his eyes at his thriller. He was longsighted.

“There was another matter about which I hoped to speak,” Rua said.

“Oh yes?” said Colonel Claire. “D’you read much?”

“My eyesight is not as good as it once was, but I can still manage clear print.”

“Awful rot, some of these yarns,” Colonel Claire continued, casually picking up his novel. “This thing I’ve been dipping into, now. Blood-and-thunder stuff. Ridiculous.”

“I am a little troubled in my mind. Disturbing rumours have reached me…”

“Oh?” Colonel Claire, still with an air of absent-mindedness, flipped over a page.

“… about proposals that have been made in regard to native reserves. You have been a good friend to our people, Colonel

“Not at all,” Colonel Claire murmured abstractedly, and felt for his reading glasses. “Always very pleased…” He found his spectacles, put them on and, still casually, laid the book on his knee.

“Since you have been at Wai-ata-tapu, there have been friendly relations between your family and my hapu. We should not care to see anyone else here.”

“Very nice of you.” Colonel Claire was now frankly reading, but he continued to wear a social smile. He contrived to suggest that he merely looked at the book because after all one must look at something. Old Rua’s magnificent voice rolled on. The Maori people are never in a hurry, and in his almost forgotten generation a gentleman led up to the true matter of an official call through a series of polite approaches. Rua’s approval of his host was based on an event twelve years old. The Claires arrived at Wai-ata-tapu during a particularly virulent epidemic of influenza. Over at Rua’s village there were many deaths. The Harpoon health authorities, led by the irate and overworked Dr. Tonks, had fallen foul of the Maori people in matters of hygiene, and a dangerous deadlock had been reached. Rua, who normally exercised an iron authority, was himself too ill to control his hapu. Funeral ceremonies lasting for days, punctuated with long-drawn-out wails of greeting and lamentation, songs of death, and interminable after-burial feasts maintained native conditions in a community lashed by a European scourge. Rua’s people became frightened, truculent, and obstructive, and the health authorities could do nothing. Upon this scene came the Claires. Mrs. Claire instantly translated the whole affair into terms of an English village, offered their newly built house as an emergency hospital and herself undertook the nursing, with Rua as her first patient. Colonel Claire, whose absence-of-mind had inoculated him against the arrogance of Anglo-Indianism, and who by his very simplicity had fluked his way into a sort of understanding of native peoples, paid a visit to the settlement, arranged matters with Rua, and was accepted by the Maori people as a rangitira, a person of breeding. He and his wife professed neither extreme liking nor antipathy for the Maori people, who nevertheless found something recognizable and admirable in both of them. The war had brought them closer together. The Colonel commanded the local Home Guard and had brought many of Rua’s older men into his division. Rua considered that he owed his life to his Pakeha friends and, though he thought them funny, loved them. It did not offend him, therefore, when Colonel Claire furtively read a novel under his very nose. He rumbled on magnificently with his story, in amiable competition with Texas Rangers and six-shooter blondes.

“… there has been enough trouble in the past. The Peak is a native reserve and we do not care for trespassers. He has been seen by a certain rascal coming down the western flank with a sack on his shoulders. At first he was friendly with this no-good young fellow, Eru Saul, who is a bad pakeha and a bad Maori. Now they have quarrelled and their quarrel concerns my great-granddaughter Huia, who is a foolish girl but much too good for either of them. And Eru tells my grandson Rangi, and my grandson tells me, that Mr. Questing is behaving dishonestly on the Peak. Because he is your guest we have said nothing, but now I find him talking to some silly young fellows amongst our people and putting a lot of bad ideas into their heads. Now that makes me very angry,” said old Rua, and his eyes flashed. “I do not like my young people to be taught to cheapen the culture of their race. It has been bad enough with Mr. Herbert Smith, who buys whisky for them and teaches them to make pigs of themselves. He is no good. But even he comes to me to warn me of this Questing.” The Colonel’s novel dropped with a loud slap. His eyebrows climbed his forehead, his eyes and mouth opened. He turned pale.

“Hey?” he said. “Questing? What about Questing?”

“You have not been listening, Colonel,” said Rua, rather crossly.

“Yes, I have, only I didn’t catch everything. I’m getting deaf.”

“I am sorry. I have been telling you that Mr. Questing has been looking for curios on the Peak and boasting that in a little while Wai-ata-tapu will be his property. I have to come to ask you in confidence if this is true.”

“What’s all this about Questing?” demanded Dr. Ackrington, appearing at the doorway in his dressing gown. “ ’Evening, Rua. How are you?”

“It began by being about Gaunt and a concert party,” said the Colonel unhappily. “It’s only just turned into something in confidence about Questing.”

“Well, if it’s in confidence, why the devil did you call me? There seems to be a conspiracy in this house to deny my sciatica thermal treatment.”

“I wanted to ask you if you thought Gaunt would like to go to a concert. Rua’s people have very kindly offered…”

“How the devil do I know? Ask young Bell. Very nice of you, Rua, I must say.”

“And then Rua began to talk about Questing and the Peak.”

“Why don’t you call him Quisling and be done with it?” Dr. Ackrington demanded loudly. “It’s what he is, by God.”

“James! I really must insist — You have no shred of evidence.”

“Haven’t I? Haven’t I? Very well. Wait and see.”

Rua stood up. “If it is not troubling you too much,” he» said, “perhaps you would ask Mr. Gaunt’s secretary…?”

“Yes, yes,” the Colonel agreed hurriedly. “Of course. Wait a minute, will you?”

He stumbled out of the room, and they heard him thump along the verandah towards Geoffrey Gaunt’s quarters.

Rua’s old eyes were very bright and cunning as he looked at Dr. Ackrington, but he did not speak.

“So he’s been trespassing, has he?” asked Dr. Ackrington venomously. “I could have told you that when the Hippolyte was torpedoed.”

Rua made a brusque movement with his wrinkled hands but still he did not speak.

“He does it by night sometimes, doesn’t he?” Dr. Ackrington went on. “Doesn’t he go up by night, with a flash-lamp? Good God, my dear fellow, I’ve seen it myself. Curios be damned.”

“Somehow,” Rua said mildly, “I have never been able to enjoy spy stories. They always seem to me to be incredible.”

“Indeed!” Dr. Ackrington rejoined acidly. “So this country, alone in the English-speaking world, stands immune from the activities of enemy agents. And why, pray? Do you think the enemy is frightened of us? Amazing complacency!”

“But he has been seen digging.”

“Do you imagine he would be seen semaphoring? Of course he digs. No doubt he robs your ancestors’ graves. No doubt he will have some infamous booty to exhibit when he is brought to book.”

Rua pinched his lower lip and became very solemn. “I have felt many regrets,” he said, “for the old age which compelled me to watch my grandsons and great-grandsons set out to war without me. But if you are right, there is still work in Ao-tea-roa for an old warrior.” He chuckled, and Dr. Ackrington looked apprehensively at him.

“I have been indiscreet,” he said. “Keep this under your hat, Rua. A word too soon and we shan’t get him. I may tell you I have taken steps. But, see here. There’s a certain amount of cover on the Peak. If your young people haven’t altogether lost the art of their forbears — ”

“We must arrange something,” said Rua composedly. “Yes. No doubt something can be arranged.”

“What is it, dear?” said Mrs. Claire, appearing abruptly in the doorway. “Oh! Oh, I thought Edward called me, James. Good evening, Rua.”

“I did call you about half an hour ago,” said her husband crossly from behind her back, “but it’s all over, now. Old Rua was here with some — oh, you’re still there, Rua. Mr. Gaunt’s secretary says they’ll be delighted.”

Barbara came running distractedly from the kitchen. She and her parents formed up in a sort of queue outside the door.

“What is it, Daddy?” she asked. “What do you want?”

“Nobody wants anything,” shouted her father angrily. “Everybody’s delighted. Why do you all come running at me?”

“My people will be very pleased,” said Rua. “I shall go now and tell them. I wish you all good evening.”

As he walked along the verandah his great-granddaughter, Huia, flew out and excitedly rang the dinner-bell in his face. He gave her a good-natured buffet and struck out for home. Dikon, looking startled, came out on the verandah followed by Gaunt. Huia, over-stimulated by her first view of the celebrity, flashed her eyes, laughed excitedly and continued to peal her bell until Barbara took it away from her.

“I think that must be dinner,” said Mrs. Claire with a, bright assumption of surprise, while their ears still rang with the din. She turned with poise towards Gaunt. “Shall we go in?” she asked gently, and they formed up into a kind of procession, trailing after each other towards the dining-room door. At the last moment Simon appeared, as usual from the direction of the cabins, where he had a sort of workshop.

But the first night’s dinner was not to go forward without the intrusion of that particular form of grotesque irrelevance which Dikon was learning to associate with the Claires, for as Gaunt and Mrs. Claire approached the front door, a terrific rumpus broke out in the kitchen.

“Where’s the Colonel?” an agitated voice demanded. “I’ve got to see the Colonel.”

Smith, dishevelled and with threads of blood crossing his face, blundered through the dining-room from the kitchen, thrust

Gaunt and Mrs. Claire aside, and seized the Colonel by his coat lapels. “Here,” he said, “you’ve got to do something. You’ve got to look after me. He tried to kill me.”