And Tutanekai said to him, ’Go back again, then, and fetch me some water.’

He therefore took a second calabash and went back and drew water in the calabash from the lake and Hine-Moa again said to him, ’Whom is that:  water for?’ So the slave answered as before, ‘For Tutanekai.’  And the maiden again said, ‘Give it to me, for I am thirsty.’  And the slave gave it to her and she drank and purposely threw down the calabash and broke it.  And these occurrences took place repeatedly between those two persons.

At last the slave went again to Tutanekai, who said to him, ’Where is the water for me?’ And his servant answered, ’It is all gone; your calabashes have been broken.’

‘By whom?’ said his master.  ‘Didn’t I tell you that there is a man in the bath?’ answered the servant.

‘Who is the fellow?’ said Tutanekai.

‘How can I tell?’ replied the slave.  ‘Why, he’s a stranger.’

‘Didn’t he know the water was for me?’ said Tutanekai.  ’How did the rascal dare to break my calabashes!  Why, I shall die from rage!’

Then Tutanekai threw on some clothes and caught hold of his club, and away he went and came to the bath and called out ’Where’s that fellow who broke my calabashes?’

And Hine-Moa knew the voice, that the sound of it was that of the beloved of her heart; and she hid herself under the overhanging rocks of the hot spring.  But her hiding was hardly a real hiding; rather a bashful concealing of herself from Tutanekai that he might not find her at once, only after trouble and careful search for her.

So he went feeling about, along the banks of the hot spring, searching everywhere, whilst she lay coyly hid under the ledges of the rocks, peeping out, wondering when she should be found.

At last he caught hold of a hand and cried out, ‘Hullo, who’s this?’

And Hine-Moa answered:  ‘It’s I, Tutanekai.’

And he said:  ‘But who are you?  Who’s I?’ Then she spoke louder, and said:  ’It’s I, ‘tis Hine-Moa.’

And he said:  ’Ho! ho! ho!  Can such in very truth be the case?  Let us two, then, go to my house.’

And she answered ‘Yes.’

And she rose up in the water as beautiful as the wild white hawk, and stepped upon the edge of the bath as graceful as the shy white crane.  And he threw garments over her, and took her, and they proceeded to his house and reposed there, and thenceforth, according to the ancient laws of the Maoris, they were man and wife.

XVIII A FATHER OF FEDERATION

Mr Gladstone and Sir George Grey ploughed different seas, under charter from the English-speaking race.  One flew his pennant in the nearer waters, the other in the farther.  Now and then they met, but briefly, as ships do which pass in the night.

‘What I saw of Mr. Gladstone,’ said Sir George, ’was mostly at official gatherings, or gatherings arising out of official life.  One session, however, during which I was in England, we dined almost every Wednesday evening at the same London house.