Don heard the question, but he was too breathless to speak, and had hard work to keep his feet, leaving everything to the guidance of his companions, who kept on for above a quarter of a mile before stopping in a shadowy gully, where the spreading ferns made the place seem black as night, and a peculiar steaming sulphurous odour arose.
But a short time before Don"s teeth were chattering with the cold, but the exercise circulated his blood; and now, as his eyes grew more used to the obscurity, he managed to see that they were in a rough hut-like place open at the front. The sulphurous odour was quite strong, the steam felt hot and oppressive, and yet pleasant after the long chilling effect of the water, and he listened to a peculiar gurgling, bubbling noise, which was accompanied now and then by a faint pop.
He had hardly realised this when he felt that his clothes were being stripped from him, and for a moment he felt disposed to resist; but he was breathless and wearied out, and rough as was the attention, it struck him that it was only preparatory to giving him a dry blanket to wear till his drenched garments were dry, and hence he suffered patiently.
But that was not all, for, as the last garment was stripped off, Ngati said some words to his people, and before he could realise what was going to be done, Don felt himself seized by four men, each taking a wrist or ankle, and holding him suspended before Ngati, who went behind him and supported his head.
"Hah!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Ngati, with a peculiar grunt. His men all acted with military precision, and, to Don"s astonishment, he found himself plunged into a rocky basin of hot water.
His first idea was to struggle, but there was no need. He had been lowered in rapidly but gently, and he felt Ngati place the back of his head softly against a smooth pleasantly-warm hollowed-out stone, while the sensation, after all he had gone through, was so delicious that he uttered a sigh of satisfaction.
For now he realised the hospitality of the people who had brought him there, and the fact that to recover him from the chill of being half drowned, they had brought him to one of their hot springs, used by them as baths.
Don uttered another sigh of satisfaction, and as he lay back covered to his chin in the hot volcanic water, he began to laugh so heartily that the tears came into his eyes.
For the same process was going on in the darkness with Jem, who was a less tractable patient, especially as he had taken it into his thick head that it was not for his benefit that he was to be plunged into a hot water pool, but to make soup for the New Zealanders around.
"Mas" Don!" he cried out of the darkness, "where are you? I want to get out of this. Here, be quiet, will yer? What yer doing of? I say.
Don"t. Here, what are you going to do?"
Don wanted to say a word to calm Jem"s alarms, but after the agony he had gone through, it seemed to him as if his nerves were relaxed beyond control, and his companion"s perplexity presented itself to him in so comical a light, that he could do nothing but lie back there in his delicious bath, and laugh hysterically; and all the while he could hear the New Zealanders gobbling angrily in reply to Jem"s objections, as a fierce struggle went on.
"That"s your game, is it? I wouldn"t ha" thought it of a set who calls theirselves men. Shove me into that hot pot, and boil me, would you?
Not if I knows it, you don"t. Hi! Mas" Don! Look out! Run, my lad.
They"re trying to cook me alive, the brutes. Oh, if I only had a cutlash, or an iron bar."
Don tried to speak again, but the words were suffocated by the gurgle of laughter.
"Poor old Jem!" he thought.
"I tell you, you sha"n"t. Six to one, eh? Leave off. Mas" Don, they"re going to scald me like a pig in a tub. Hi! Help!"
There was the sound of a struggle, a loud splash, and then silence, followed by Jem"s voice.
"Oh!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. "Then why didn"t you say so? How was I to know you meant a hot bath? Well, it arn"t bad.--Mas" Don!"
"Yes."
"What! Ha" you been there all the time?"
"Yes."
"What yer been doing of?"
"Laughing."
"Larfin"? Are they giving you a hot bath?"
"Yes."
"Arn"t it good?"
"Glorious!"
"I thought they was going to scald me like a pig, so as to eat me afterwards. Did you hear me holler?"
"Hear you? Yes.--How delicious and restful it feels."
"Ah, it do, my lad; but don"t you let any on it get into your mouth. I did, and arn"t good. But I say; what"s it mean? Seems so rum to me coming to meet us in a canoe and bringing us ash.o.r.e, and giving us hot baths. I don"t seem to understand it. n.o.body does such things over at home."
As they lay in the roughly-made stone slab baths, into which the volcanic water effervesced and gurgled, the followers of Ngati came and went busily, and a curious transformation came over the scene--the darkness seemed to undergo a change and become grey. Then as Don watched, he saw that above his head quite a cloud of steam was floating, through which a pale, sad light began to penetrate; and as he watched this, so pleasant and restful was the sensation that he felt as if he could sleep, till he took into consideration the fact that if he did, his body would become relaxed, and he would slip down with his head beneath the surface.
As it grew lighter rapidly now, he could make out that the roughly thatched roof was merely stretched over a rough rocky nook in which the hot spring bubbled out of the mountain slope, and here a few rough slabs had been laid together, box-fashion, to retain the water and form the bath.
Before he had more than realised the fact that Jem was in a shelter very similar to his own, the huge New Zealander was back with about a dozen of his men, and himself bearing a great native flax cloth marked with a broad pattern.
Just as the sun had transformed everything without, and Don was gazing on a glorious prospect of lace-like tree-fern rising out of the steaming gully in which he stood, Jem Wimble came stalking out of the shelter where he had been dressing--a very simple operation, for it had consisted in draping himself in a great unbleached cloth--and looking squat and comical as a man in his circ.u.mstances could look.
Ngati was close at hand with his men all standing in a group, and at first sight it seemed as if they were laughing at the little, stoutly-built, pink-faced man, but, on the contrary, they were smiles of admiration.
"I couldn"t ha" believed it, Mas" Don," said Jem; "I feel as fresh as a daisy, and--well, I never did! Mas" Don, what a guy you do look!"
Don, after a momentary thought that he looked something like one of the old Romans in a toga, just as he had seen them in an engraving, had been so taken up with the beauty of the ferny gully, with the sun gilding here and there the steamy vapour which rose from the hot springs, that he had thought no more of his personal appearance till Jem spoke.
"Guy?" he said, laughing, as he ran his eye over Jem. "I say, did you ever hear the story of the pot and the kettle?"
"Yes, of course; but I say, my lad, I don"t look so rum as you, do I?"
"I suppose you look just about the same, Jem."
"Then the sooner they gets our clothes dry and we"re into "em again, the sooner we shall look like human beings. Say, Mas" Don, it"s werry awkward; you can"t say anything to that big savage without him shouting "pakeha." How shall we ask for our clothes?"
"Wait," said Don. "We"ve got to think about getting further away."
"Think they"ll send to look for us, Mas" Don?"
"I should say they would."
"Well, somehow," said Jem, "I seem to fancy they"ll think we"re drowned, and never send at all. But, look here; what"s all this yaller stuff?"
"Sulphur."
"What, brimstone? Why, so it is. Think o" their buying brimstone to lay down about their hot baths. I know!" cried Jem, slapping his thigh, "they uses it instead of coal, Mas" Don; burns it to make the water hot."
"No, no, Jem; that"s natural sulphur."
"So"s all sulphur nat"ral."
"But I mean this is where it is found, or comes."