Mrs Te Papa was heard to issue an order. A party of girls in native dress came through the audience and mounted the stage. They carried in each hand cords from which hung balls made from dry leaves. Rua took up his station outside the door of the meeting house. He was an impressive figure, standing erect in the half-light, his feather cloak hanging rigidly from his shoulders. So had his great-grandfather stood to welcome visitors from afar. Near to him were leading men among the clan and, in the offing, Mrs Te Papa and other elderly ladies. Most of the Maori members of the audience turned to face the back of the meeting house and as many as could do so leant out of the windows.

Out on the road a chiming motor horn sounded, and at least twenty people said importantly that they recognized it as Gaunt’s. The conglomerate hum of voices rose and died out. In the hush that followed, Rua’s attenuated chant of welcome pierced the night air.

‘Haere mai. E te ururangi! Na wai taua?’

Each syllable was intoned and prolonged. It might have been the voice of the night wind from the sea, a primal voice, strange and disturbing to white listeners. Out in the dark Mrs Te Papa and her supporters leant forward and stretched out their arms. Their hands fluttered rhythmically in the correct half-dance of greeting. Rua was honouring Gaunt with the almost forgotten welcome of tradition. The mutations of a century of white men’s ways were pulled like cobwebs from the face of a savage culture, and the Europeans in the meeting house became strangers.

As they moved forward from the car Gaunt said: ‘But we should reply. We should know what he is saying and reply!’

‘I’m not certain,’ said Dikon, ‘but I’ve heard at some time what it is. I fancy he’s saying we’ve got a common ancestor, in the first parents. I think he asks us to say who we are.’

‘It’s not really very sensible,’ Mrs Claire murmured. ‘They know who we are. Some of their customs are not at all nice, I’m afraid, but they really mean this to be quite a compliment, poor dears.’

‘As of course it is,’ said Gaunt quickly. ‘I wish we could answer.’

On a soft ripple of greeting from the Maori party he moved forward and shook hands with Rua. ‘He’s at his best,’ Dikon thought. ‘He does this sort of thing admirably.’

With Mrs Claire and Gaunt leading, they made a formal entrance and for the first time Dikon saw Barbara in her new dress.

III