THE WHITE TAIPO

New Zealand Illustrated Magazine, Volume VIII, Issue 3, 1 June 1903, Page 202

THE WHITE TAIPO

BY

"" JWt HE worst thing about you «||| Maoris/ said Dick TurWjfc ncr, the chainman, as he * )\< shook up his bunk preparatory to turning in, '" is your sooperstitiousness. Partly it's the way you're brung up, and partly it's 'ereditary, o' course. Now look at me — "

Tommy, the Maori, who was similarly employed, looked at hnn, but did not seem impressed. If stature, and breadth, and regularity of feature went for anything, Tommy was a good deal better worth looking at than his mate, who was only an ordinary, sandy, freckled stripling, scarcely out of his teens, but a great talker, and apparently a man of considerable experience.

" You look at me," he repeated, tucking his blankets securely in, 41 I'm an Englishman, I am, and I'd as soon walk along a road— any road you like to name, at midnight as what I would in broad daylight, no matter if it went through a graveyard. And it's not as if I was blowing about what's considered a plucky thing to do ; that's not my sort, not by a lot, its because there's nothing in it to a white

man. Not that I'm blamin' you either, Tommy," he added, magnanimously, " I suppose you can't 'elp it, but you take my word, old bloke, there aint such a thing as a ghost, or a spirit, or a devil, or a taipo, or an atua, in this 'ere world or the next ! I'm a bit of a freethinker, 1 am, and that's my tip." Tommy-the-Maori struggled to appreciate Dick's generous advice, but found himself unable to accept the dashing free-thinker's opinion off-hand. " You no know," he said at last. " Plenty taipo ! in the bush ; everywhere !' " and he glanced over his shoulder apprehensively at the sombre, silent mass of the forest, in a clearing of which the camp was pitched. " Aw, go on ! " said Dick derisively, and lighting his pipe he sprawled comfortably beside his mate, in the dusk, outside the tent. " Perhaps here now, all the time," suggested Tommy gloomily, and Dick glanced involuntarily over his shoulder even while he laughed. " Now look here," he began argumentatively, "you have a bit of sense, Tommy. You never saw a taipo in your life, and you never saw a man who saw one, and if that don't prove " Before his argument could properly develop itself, Tommy ruthlessly upset the premises on which it was to be based by solemnly, averring 1 : "I saw him one time.

I saw a taipo," and he looked indescribably serious and awed. " Rats ! " said the valiant Dick, ■" you're trying to pull my leg, and I tell you what, Tommy, you've got hold of the wrong man. Wait till Harvey turns up and stuff him.' 5 Tommy shook his head, and repeated his statement. " Well, then, where ? when ? and what was it like ? " " One time before, in my house down Wairoa, in the night." The sceptical Dick was conscious of a tremor. He refrained with an effort from looking over his shoulder as he remarked scoffingly : " You went to bed drunk." " 1 never did ! It came — woke me up ! My golly, Dick, I flighten that time !" He edged a little through the opened door of the tent and lowered his voice. " What was it like, anyway ? It was the nightmare you had." Tommy protested that he was wide awake and phenomena iiy sober, and, having apparently succeeded in frightening himself again, he showed a disinclination to pursue the subject. But Dick, who was not hampered by any feeling of delicacy, insisted on a minute cross-examination, and elicited in the process some very surprising, not to say unnerving de. tails from the reluctant witness. He became aware of a cold crawlIng sensation down his back, exactly similar to that described by Tommy. He felt that it was a daredevil proceeding to sit there with his face to the tent, and his undefended back to Heaven knows what, more especially as Tommy had withdrawn still further into the tent. " Lot of rot " was what he began to say, and made a studiously leisurely movement to follow his mate's example, when a sudden call of " Dick " rang out through the ■quiet camp. One convulsive spring landed Dick on all fours in the tent ;, the next moment he got up and laughed with a catch in his breath.

" The Boss, o' course/ he said. " What else should it be, I'd like to know ? " He ran quickly across to Lhe Boss's tent, and this was that gentleman's cheerful proposition : " Oh, Dick, I say, I've left my field book on the line, cut along and fetch it, will you. You can't miss it : i put it down on the rata stump. You can't miss it ; it's not very dark." " Glory ! " said Dick to himself as he withdrew, "I'd like to see myself going up the line alone. Not very dark,? he darned to him, it's as dark as blazes ! " Then aloud, " Tommy !\" " All rignt ; what ? " responded Tommy. "The Boss says you're to cut up the line and fetch his field book — " The Maori interrupted him with an exclamation of dismay. "Me ! no fe — ar, Dick. I not going up the line to-night. No bloomin' fe— ar !"' " You've just got to ! " declared the mendacious Dick. " The Boss says you're to go ; he left it on the rata stump ; you can't miss it." " You tell him to-morrow," suggested Tommy pleadingly. " Rats !he wants it now. Get a wriggle on. It's not very dark." Tommy groaned, and assured Dick that it was darker than the worst place mentioned in theology. Tommy had acquired a good deal of general information from the pakehas, and finally he said he would rather go there than risk himself alone on the line. " You bloomin' ass ! " cried Dick with blighting contempt. " You're afraid ? What on earth is there to be afraid of ? " Tommy rolled his dark eyes and muttered wildly of taipos. Dick laughed a scornful stage laugh. " Full up to the* chin, still full up to the chin with them yarns ; and I thought you were a white man, Tommy." " You go then/ retorted Tommy. " Me do your dirty jobs ? " quoth

Dick. " See you blanked first. Are you really scared to go ? " his tone had an incredulity that almost imposed on himself. Tommy had no hesitation in avowing that such was the case, and then Dick made a compromise calculated to suit himself and the Boss, and earn Poor Tommy's gratitude. " Well, you silly ass ; " he said, " tell you what, I'll go with you. Come on ! " The rata stump was only about half-a-mile from the camp, and could be reached by a narrow track opening on to the line. Down this the two young men went, keeping close together and talking. Tommy was in the lead, and though he manoeuvred to yield this place of honour to Dick, the intrepid white man manoeuvred more successfully to keep him in it. The track opened out suddenly into the line, and Tommy stopped with a precipitancy that almost threw him into Dick's arms. His voice came out of him in a native exclamation impossible to render in letters, and he gaspod out : " What that ! " This was enough for Dick. He never troubled to look ; he simply fled, and fast as he ran, Tommy's panting breath came over his shoulder. They tumbled into camp together, and for a few seconds neither had voice to speak. Dick recovered first, and pounced on Tommy who was burying himself like a child in his blankets. " What was it ? " he asked in accents that trembled. " What did you see ? " " A taipo, " groaned Tommy, " a white taipo ! I tell you, Dick,, he come ! " " I don't believe it," said Dick, struggling to keep up his attitude of superiority, which was a little difficult considering how precipitately he had led the retreat. " What did you see ? " " A taipo ! " repeated Tommy, in

a dismal smothered voice. "My sister-in-law, he die one time before, and now, taipo, he come." " What was it like ?— I don't believe it — go on, tell me what it was like." " White—" shuddered Tommy, "a white thing — high all the same a man — with legs." Dick shivered a little, and moistened his lips with his tongue. " Did it move ? " " Yes ; it run after me, quick. 3 ' Tommy's imagination began to work. " Dick, you shut the tent ; light a candle, Dick." " Confound it," said Dick, "I must go and tell the Boss about his book." He lighted a candle, but absentmindedly carried it off with him as he went to the Boss's tent. " The field book's not there, Mr. Mcßean," he said, with his most ingenuous air, " you must have dropped it somewhere else." The Boss saw no reason for doubting Dick's statement, though inly convinced that he had left his book on the rata stump. He gave his tent a hasty ransack to be certain there was no mistake, swore mildly at Dick for a dunderhead, and set off to look for himself. " Come on, Dick, — " he said ; " what are you doing with a candle, man ?■ — and I'll show you how to use your eyes." Dick would much sooner have been excused, but no plausible reason suggesting itself in time, lie was obliged to fall in behind the Boss, and tread the eerie path again. As they neared the end of the path his feet seemed of themselves to lag, but twice a soft rustling in the bush so accelerated their pace that he found himself jostling against the Boss. The second time, Mr. Mcßean looked round with some irritation. " Hang it all, Dick, look where you're coming," he observed. " Can't you keep your feet, man ? " Dick muttered something about his " bloomin' bootlace," and fmci-

ing himself almost on the lino, stopped suddenly to tie it. The Boss strode on, and before Dick had time to knot his bootlace, more than five times with tumbling fingers, and a galloping heart, he was back again, book in hand. " Well, Dick, you are an idiot. I'd like to know what use your eyjs are to you. It was right in the middle of the stump." " Well, I'm blest ! " said Dick ; and getting to his feet he peeped timorously down the line. In spite of the reassuring presence of the Boss, his jaw dropped. There, as Tommy had said, was a slender white apparition, coming, yes ! it was coming down the line. " Wha what's that ?" he whispered. " What ? where ? what do you mean ? " Dick pointed with a hand that shook. " Where ? Do you mean the instrument ? " " The instrument ! but it's white." " White, of course it is ! Do you mean to say that you haven't seen me put an American cloth cap over the instrument to keep it dry, at least a hundred times." " Oh, o' course," said Dick, with immense relief ; "I'd just forgot. Funny how you forget things." " Very funny," quoth the Boss, drily, " not to say singular." Dick agreed that it was so, and strolling courageously in the rear of his chief, returned to camp. He went straight to his tent, and sitting on his bunk, addressed the mound of blankets which represented Tommy, with amused contempt. " Your sister-in-law's aunt's taipo must he a curiosity in ghosts if she's anything like the one on the line. I'm downright ashamed ol you, Tommy, I am. Here have I bin makin' a pakeha of you for three months off and on, and you go and see a harmless old theodo-

lite stuck up on its three legs, and bolt for your blooming life. My word ! I'm just ashamed of you." " Anyway, you run a jolly sight harder "'n me/ protested Tommy, when he was at last convinced that what he had seen was only the instrument.

" Aw ! I was laughing at you all the time. I've just been up to the stump again for the Boss, and he's making out his figures now. Course the book was on the stump. That's the worst of Maoris, you can't knock the sooperstitiousness out of -them."

He enlarged on this theme as he took off his boots and socks, till Tommy rose up suddenly on his elbow and demanded peace.

" You shut your face, Dick," he cried angrily. " You too much the ialk ; all the time, talk, talk. You stop now/ " Well, I like that/ replied Di,:k. " I do like that, when I've 'ardly opened my mouth this evenin', except to answer questions. Tommy, you are an ungrateful black brute, and after me goin' up the line twice for you because you were afraid — '"' " Look here ! " said the badgered Tommy, with an oath, "in a minute I boost you right out o' this." " Listen to him," said Dick. % 'l knew it. There's a bit of the White Man's Burden about you, Tommy, sifter all (Dick had read the poem incident ally while perusing, and reperusing the only newspaper in the camp) ' 'alf devil and 'alf child,' that's you, and " A muscular brown arm swept the blankets from Tommy's bunk in one upheaval, and next second, the latest representative of the " fluttered folk and wild " took the half clad, swearing Dick, and cast him violently out of the tent. " I think you stop there a bit, too," said Tommy, as he bunked down comfortably across the doorway.