"Before entering into detail, let me assure you, my dear Miss Tollemache," he said, "that we have good grounds for believing that Sir Roland is alive, and, if not unwounded, most likely in good hands." "What do they say?" asked she, with tremulous lips. "Were they able to see any one who knew? His friends--Mr. Slyde, I mean. I have heard they were comrades." "They joined the Forest Rangers at the same time, I heard; and there was also the half-caste guide, Warwick, a very fine fellow, who has attached himself to our friend. Ponui saw both of them." "Surely they would know. They did not desert him?" "There was no hint of desertion. Every officer of note was killed or wounded within the first twenty minutes of the assault of the storming party--they among the number. Warwick was severely wounded. Mr. Slyde was unconscious, and it was thought mortally wounded; but after Warwick had staggered to the place where he had seen Lieutenant Massinger fall, he found that he had disappeared." "Then they know nothing--absolutely _nothing_!" said Hypatia. "I thought you said there were grounds for believing----" "Allow me to continue," said the Reverend Cyril. "Awariki went among the women of the camp, of whom there were many. There she found a cousin who had married a Ngapuhi. She seemed to have been under fire also, as she had a bullet through her upper arm." "I _should_ like to have been there," said Hypatia, her eyes lighting up with a gathering intensity, as she gazed before her towards the dark-hued mountains which bounded their landscape. "What did she see?" "As she rushed forward through the _mêlée_--for her husband was badly wounded--she saw the 'pakeha rangatira,' as she called him, fall, apparently dead. A Maori was just about to tomahawk him, when Mr. Mannering (Tao-roa, as they call him) dashed him aside, knocking him down, and calling aloud to his people, two of whom lifted up the pakeha, and commenced to carry him to the rear. Immediately afterwards several women joined them, one of whom she was confident was Erena Mannering, his daughter, who, of course, was well known to the tribe. After this ensued the extraordinary panic of the 43rd, and all trace of him was lost." "Then they did not succeed in getting him back to the Ngapuhi camp (isn't that the name?), and they do not know what has become of him, after all?" "Merely this, that Awariki says she is certain that if Erena had been taken prisoner, she is a person of such importance that the whole _hapu_ would have been sent in pursuit. She is confident that she and the others are in safety, or else Mr. Mannering would not be at ease and with his people." "But why did she not ask him?" "He is a war chief of the Ngapuhi, and she, a common person, did not dare to address him on such a subject. It would not be _tika_, or etiquette, breaches of which are severely punished." "But what do _you_ think yourself? All this is very slender evidence--mere hearsay, in fact."