unexplainable sense of living and seeing that crowded the dark silent whare, knit a power too strong for the sensitive boy. Roddy’s match went out, burning his fingers, and in the blackness something surely breathed. The sweat was wet on his face as he made another spurt of flame to flare over the grinning tiki that writhed its limbs with the shake of the match.
“I—must do it!” said Roddy in his throat. “I must—I must!”
He pulled the red faded necktie away from the wood, stuffed it in his breast pocket, brought out another—chosen from the same stock at Derrett’s shop, and worn to shabbiness—in haste, and twisted it on the head in place of the first. Then he trod the match underfoot, and groped for the door.
It pushed open suddenly, shutting him behind it, and someone came in with heavy steps. Roddy’s breath died in his throat, and from the raupo walls behind hands were surely stretching to hold him. He could feel the man searching, silently, yet with system and determination. All that Lou had told him of the tohunga power; all that the night had taught him of mystery chilled his heart and held him motionless. The moving hands came nearer. Roddy knew that they would presently touch his face. And the spirits of horror and of evil were about him when a hand
