constructed by the Maories simply of plaits of
tough flax-leaves knotted together, and
fastened to bushes on one side, and to a fallen
tree trunk on the other, was the only means
of crossing the gulf between the two
precipices, beneath which rushed the succession
of cataracts on their downward course.
Trying the strength of this swinging bridge
with one foot, to see if these flax-leaves were
yet rotten, and deciding that it was sufficient
for his weight, the king at once advanced
upon it, with the light and hasty foot of his
nation, when his progress was arrested, midway,
by observing something black projecting
from the rapids above, as they came hurry-
scurrying onward towards the verge of the
rocks. He could not take his eyes from this
black object. It was a human leg of gigantic
proportions—and nothing more. However
magnified, he felt it was the leg of Te Pomar,
the fellow to the one, the chief bone of which he
now wore hanging to his neck, in form of a
flute! The leg passed over the verge of the
precipice, and disappeared. But looking down,
and straining his eyes towards the onward-
speeding foam at the bottom of the last of
the cataracts, he again saw, through the
mist and spray, the leg sticking upright and
sailing away into the darkness.

The frail bridge swayed aslant with the
bending form of Taönui, as he gazed after
the horrid apparition of the leg—some of the
knots cracked and gave way—and the bridge
elongated and swayed down in the middle,
so that the king had a narrow escape in
hastily scrambling over, and catching the
long, wiry tohi-tohi grass on the other  side,
to secure his safe arrival. These things,
however, are common to savage life, and he
walked onward without turning his head;
but the vision of the other leg of Te Pomar—
that was not an ordinary occurrence, and the
king was not a little discomposed by it.
Witchcraft! Of course, it was all witchcraft;
and Teöra and Kaitemata should very
shortly suffer for it.

Such sights as this are unpleasant, even to
the strongest mind, and Taönui, as he sped
onward, had more than once a tingling
impulse to look behind him, fully expecting
that he should see the gigantic leg making
long hops after him, and perhaps with the
addition of the half of the body belonging to
that side; but his proud nature would not
allow him to manifest any such signs of fear,
and he accordingly pursued his course till
he arrived at the entrance of the cavern.

The rock in which the cavern had been
scooped, partly by age and decay, and partly
by the natives, had once been used for some
of the ceremonies and rites of heathen
worship. Figures of men in various ugly
attitudes had been carved in the rock; and
some of them were painted in red and yellow,
but all of them being destitute of mouths.
The interior was gloomy; and on entering the
inner part of the cave, a hand and arm, all
black, appeared to be thrust through some
hole in the side of the rock. This was not
really so. The exact shadow of a hand and
arm had been marked out on the side of the
cave, and painted black, while the rock
behind it was painted white, so that it gave
the appearance, to any one suddenly entering,
of a hand and arm being thrust through the
rock, and thus admitting light. At this, the
king was not at all surprised, having seen
such things before in various caverns; he
was, however, not at all pleased to find on the
present occasion, that the hand and arm
strongly reminded him of Te Pomar. As he
stood looking at it, either the lights and shades
from without gave it a vibratory appearance,
or else the arm made a slight wavering
motion. He stood awhile to contemplate
this. No further movement took place. It
lay fixed to the side of the rock. Being
assured of this, he now proceeded to scrape
away the rough upper-crust of the pumice
floor of the cavern with a sharpened stone
affixed to a handle which he had brought for
that purpose. After working a short time,
he distinctly heard the water of the springs
boiling beneath.

Taönui was so rejoiced at this, from the
speedy end which he now imagined there
would be to all his troubles, that he paused in
his labour, and took up the flute, to give a
little flourish of joy expressive of his final
triumph. With this intent he applied the
aperture to his mouth. A strange expression
passed across his features—and he withdrew
it. A long black thorn had projected itself
from the mouth-hole straight into his mouth,
while a bright green and golden lizard wriggled
itself out at the other end, and falling on the
pumice-dust beneath, flashed out of sight. Also
the thorn slipped back into the flute, and
could not be got out by knocking or shaking,
neither could anything like it be seen on
holding the flute up to the light.

Now, the lizard is one of the atuas, or minor
gods of New Zealand, and is accounted sacred.
"Well," said the king, after a pause, "the
atua is on my side, and has come to tell me
so." He wilfully chose to overlook the fact
that the black thorn had come to him, and
the lizard-god had fled from him. He had a
certain misgiving as to how the matter stood,
but he would not permit the warning to have
a true interpretation in his mind. " The atuas
are on my side," exclaimed he, catching up his
tomahawk, and resuming his work over the
pumice-floor of the cave with renewed vigour.

He had not given many blows when he
became aware of a shadow that wrought up
and down in the comer of one eye—on the
side next to the hand and arm. It seemed as
though the black arm rose and fell at every
stroke he made. When he looked directly at
it, and raised his arm, the black arm was
stationary; when he bent his eyes downwards
and raised his arm, the black arm undoubtedly
did the same. He looked up suddenly!—