ejaculated. "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 ashore, and giving us hot
baths. I don't seem to understand it. Nobody 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 circumstances 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 laughi