t into a great
taking, and make as much noise as possible about the matter. Off they
set to the _tohunga_. I happened to be at his place at the time, and
saw and heard all I am about to recount. The relations of the girl did
not merely confine themselves to asking questions, they demanded active
assistance. The ship had gone to sea loaded for a long voyage; the
fugitives had fairly escaped; and what the relations wanted was that
the _atua_, or familiar spirit of the _tohunga_, should bring the ship
back into port, so that they might have an opportunity to recover the
lost ornament of the family. I heard the whole.

The priest hummed and hawed. "He did not know; could not say. We should
hear what the 'boy' would say. He would do as he liked. Could not
compel him;" and so forth. At night all assembled in the house where
the priest usually performed. All was expectation. I saw I was _de
trop_, in the opinion of our soothsayer: in fact, I had got the name of
an infidel (which I have since taken care to get rid of), and the
spirit was unwilling to enter where there was an unbeliever. My friend
the priest hinted to me politely that a nice bed had been made for me
in the next house. I thanked him in the most approved Maori fashion,
but said I was "very comfortable where I was;" and, suiting the action
to the word, rolled my cloak about me, and lay down on the rushes, with
which the floor was covered.

About midnight I heard the spirit saluting the guests, and them
saluting him; and I also noticed they hailed him as "relation," and
then gravely preferred the request that he would "drive back the ship
which had stolen his cousin." The response, after a short time, came in
the hollow mysterious whistling voice,--"The ship's nose I will batter
out on the great sea." This answer was repeated several times, and then
the spirit departed, and would not be recalled. The rest of the night
was spent in conjecturing what could be the meaning of these words. All
agreed that there must be more in them than met the ear; but no one
could say it was a clear concession of the request made. As for the
priest, he said he could not understand it, and that "the spirit was a
great rogue"--a _koroke hangareka_. He, however, kept throwing out
hints now and then that something more than common was meant, and
talked generally in the "we shall see" style.

Now here comes the end of the affair. About ten days after this in
comes the ship. She had been