savages like these here should know all about cooking."

The breakfast was eaten with an admiring circle of spectators at hand,
while Ngati kept on going from Don to his tribesmen and back again,
patting the lad's shoulder, and seeming to play the part of showman with
no little satisfaction to himself, but with the effect of making Jem
wroth.

"It's all very well, Mas' Don," he said, with his mouth full; "but if he
comes and says `my pakeha' to me, I shall throw something at him."

"Oh, it's all kindly meant, Jem."

"Oh, is it? I don't know so much about that. If it is, why don't they
give us back our clothes? Suppose any of our fellows was to see us like
this?"

"I hope none of our fellows will see us, Jem."

"Tomati Paroni! Tomati Paroni!" shouted several of the men in chorus.

"Hark at 'em!" cried Jem scornfully. "What does that mean?"

The explanation was given directly, for the tattooed Englishmen came
running up to the _whare_.

"Boats coming from the ship to search for you," he said quickly, and
then turned to Ngati and spoke a few words with the result that the
chief rushed at the escaped pair, and signed to them to rise.

"Yes," said the Englishman, "you had better go with him and hide for a
bit. We'll let you know when they are gone."

"Tell them to give us our clothes," said Jem sourly.

"Yes, of course. They would tell tales," said the Englishman; and he
turned again to Ngati, who sent two men out of the _whare_ to return
directly with the dried garments.

Ngati signed to them to follow, and he led them, by a faintly marked
track, in and out among the trees and the cleared patches which formed
the natives' gardens, and all the while carefully avoiding any openings
through which the harbour could be seen.

Every now and then he turned to speak volubly, but though he
interpolated a few English words, his meaning would have been
incomprehensible but for his gestures and the warnings nature kept
giving of danger.

For every here and there, as they wound in and out among the trees, they
came upon soft, boggy places, where the ground was hot; and as the
pressure of the foot sent hissing forth a jet of steam, it was evident
that a step to right or left of the narrow track meant being plunged
into a pool of heated mud of unknown depth.

In other places the hot mud bubbled up in rounded pools, spitting,
hissing, and bursting with faint cracks that were terribly suggestive of
danger.

Over