feast? What was to be roasted, and eaten?
His kangaroos, perhaps; and to this, the
king after the treatment he had received, had
no sort of objection. Meanwhile all the
seated figures maintained a solemn silence.
Ta?nui looked from one to the other, but
could gather nothing from their immovable
faces, all of which were painted with kokowai
or red ochre, denoting the importance of
the occasion.

At length a voice, which evidently came
out of the middle of the fire, cried aloud,–––
"Bring forth the feast."

After a silence, during which nothing
appeared, all the shadowy chiefs answered in
chorus, " Koo-i, koo-i?"–––where are you?"

Ta?nui gazed all round, wondering why
the victims were not brought, as he now
clearly saw that a cannibal feast was
intended.

"Bring forth our feast!" again cried out
the Voice of the Fire. Nothing appeared.
Ta?nui again looked round at the faces of the
shadowy warriors seated about the fire, till
at last his eye encountered that of the Idol,
who, after holding him with serpent-like
fascination, relaxed its features in a hideous
smile. Whereupon all the shadowy chiefs
uttered a sudden laugh, and turned their
dead eyes full upon Ta?nui, who now
understood that he himself was the victim the
"feast," who was to be brought forth.

The shadowy chiefs now rose up, and with
shouts and yells performed a war-dance, and
then a funeral dance, and then a festive
dance, in rapid succession round Ta?nui;
they then seized him,–––dragged him to the
fire,–––and tearing off his cloak, prepared to
thrust the sharp end of the roasting-stake
between his shoulders.

The king, finding his last moment had
arrived, nerved himself to die as became a
great warrior.

"I cannot dance my war-dance amidst
your hands," he cried; "but I dance it in
my soul, with defiance and scorn. I curse
you, my Idol; and I thrust out my tongue
at all your priests, and at the religion of
Tohunga. I also defy the powers of witchcraft;
and I here call upon the spirit of the
young slave, Te?ra, who is dead, to do her
worst, in revenge for the slaughter of her
father, and all the injuries I have heaped
upon his memory. And now I shall remain
silent."

Ta?nui having concluded this, his last
speech, which, as is usual, he was allowed to
finish without interruption; the point of the
stake was inserted in his shoulders; but the
hands that were thrusting it in, were then
arrested by a colossal arm, which the king
recognised as the one he had seen in the
cavern; while a giant leg at the same time
trampled out the fire. One side of the wall
of Eat-man House now fell down, and the
same great dark arm, which Ta?nui had
previously felt must belong to the dead chieftain,
Te Pomar, led forth Te?ra, who waved a
garland of lilies and blossoming clematis,
in the sweet odours of which the shadowy
warriors, the hideous Idol, and all the frightful
preparations of vengeance, faded away.
Te?ra smiled forgiveness, and took the hand
of Ta?nui, whose senses gradually left him,
and a soft slumber came over him.

When he awoke, he found himself again on
the sea-shore. It was still night. Had he
been visited with a dreadful dream? No–––
he felt sure it had been more than that. It
was no witchcraft, so far as Te?ra was
concerned. After all, she was no witch–––she had
saved him. And the spirit of Te Pomar had
saved him, too–––thus returning good for evil.
If the new religion had taught this, it was
better than the religion of Tohunga. He
resolved never to play the magic flute again,
but bury it with funeral ceremonies.

A soft harmonious music now arose from
the sands; it swelled into the grand funeral
march of a hero, and passed onward till it
died away over the sea. Then came a deep
silence–––and in that silence, the king heard a
gigantic pacing up and down the sands close
to the margin of the sea. No one was visible.
The pacing up and down continued. Then
the moon rose, bringing into view pile upon
pile of clouds, commencing in a purple-grey
hue from the horizon, formed by the
distant curving line of the sands, the purple
getting fainter till the clouds were all grey,
up to the bright mountain peaks that
environed the rising moon. Still the gigantic
pacing continued (though no figure was visible,
the king felt it must be the once mighty
chief), and after a time, it seemed to pass
close to him, as in friendly reconciliation, and
thence on––and on–––till something like a lofty
Shadow seemed to step from the distant line
of sands upon the lowest purple ridge of sky,
and thus ascended, step by step, into the
towering clouds, till lost amidst the brightest
of the grey and mountainous peaks. In
remote echoes across the sea, the noble death-march
of a hero was again faintly heard,
as the moon sailed onward on her course,
majestically drawing after her all the masses
and piles of clouds.

Ta?nui stood for a time entranced and
elevated by the stately quietude of this
magnificent vision. Coming so soon after the
horrid scene from, which he had been liberated,
it was too much for the most obdurate nature
to endure unmoved. The proud heart of
Ta?nui was softened by the nobleness of the
acts of Te Pomar and his daughter, and
something not unlike tears gushed into his eyes
for the first time in his life, as he sank down
and pressed his face upon the sand, overcome
by emotions which were perfectly new to him.
If he had known a Christian prayer of manly
penitence, he would have poured it forth;
but what he sincerely felt was essentially the
same thing.

The missionary station near which Waipata