Owing to certain mercantile arrangements, the departure of the _Pippi_ was delayed for a day; a consignment of Kauri gum had not arrived. This was too valuable an item of freight to be dispensed with; and the Rawene dates of sailing not being so rigidly exact as those of the P. and O. and Messageries Maritimes, the detention was frankly allowed. Time was not of such extreme value on the Hokianga as in some trading ports. Mr. Waterton expressed himself charmed with the opportunity thus afforded of entertaining any friend of Mannering's. Massinger was equally gratified with the happy accident which permitted him to meet another of New Zealand's distinguished pioneers. So, general satisfaction being attained--rare as is such a result in this world of accidental meetings and fated wayfarings--a season of unalloyed enjoyment, precious in proportion to its brevity, opened out unexpectedly. "I should have been awfully disgusted," was his reflection, as he found himself inducted into a handsome upper chamber, from the windows of which he beheld a wide and picturesque prospect, the foaming harbour bar, and the aroused ocean billows, "if I had lost this opportunity. The delay in land-travelling might have been serious, but, as the Maoris are not yet a sea-power, a day's passage more or less cannot signify." So, having dressed with whatever improvement of style his limited wardrobe permitted, he allowed the question of the sailing of the _Pippi_ to remain in abeyance, and joined his host below. Of that most interesting and delightful visit, it would be difficult to describe adequately the varied pleasures which thronged the waking hours. Lulled to sleep by the surges, which ceased not with rhythmic resonance the long night through; awaking to seek the river-strand, where the white-winged clustering sea-birds hardly regarded him as an intruder; the well-appointed and compendious library in which to range at will; the walks; the rides through forest and vale; the fishing expeditions, in one of which Massinger, proud in the triumph of having hooked a thirty-pound schnapper, discerned the snout of a dog-fish uprising from the wave. Then the evenings, prolonged far into the night, with tale and argument, raciest reminiscences of lands and seas from his all-accomplished host--_quarum pars magna fuit_--author, painter, sailor, explorer; such truly Arabian Nights' Entertainments Massinger had never revelled in before, and never expected to enjoy again. * * * * *