‘Hardly at all. It’s tapu. Some of the younger ones who don’t mind so much wander about the lower slopes, but they don’t go into the bush and I’m sure they never climb to the top. Do they, Sim?’

‘Too much like hard work,’ Simon grunted.

‘No, it’s not that, really. It’s because of the sort of place it is.’

Simon gave Dikon a gloomily significant glance. ‘Yeh,’ he said. ‘Do what you like up here and nobody’s going to ask questions.’

‘You refer to the infamous Questing,’ said Gaunt lightly. Simon glared at him and Dikon said hurriedly: ‘I told you I had spoken to Mr Gaunt of our little theory.’

‘That’s right,’ Simon said angrily. ‘So now we’ve got to gas about it in front of everybody.’

‘If you mean me,’ said Barbara, whom even the mention of Questing could not embarrass that morning, ‘I know all about what he’s supposed to do on the Peak.’

Simon stopped short. ‘You!’ he said. ‘What do you know?’ Barbara didn’t answer immediately, and he said roughly: ‘Come on. What do you know?’

‘Well, only what they’re all saying about Maori curios.’

‘Oh,’ said Simon. ‘That.’ Dikon spared a moment to hope that if Simon did well in the Air Force they would not make the mistake of entrusting him with secret instructions.

‘And I know Uncle James thinks it’s something worse, and…’ She broke off and looked from one to another of the three men. Dikon blinked, Gaunt whistled, and Simon looked inescapably portentous. ‘Sim!’ cried Barbara. ‘You’re not thinking…about this…the ship? Oh, but it couldn’t possibly…’

‘Here, you keep out of this, Barbie,’ said Simon in a great hurry. ‘Uncle James talks a lot of hooey. You want to forget it. Come on.’

The track, curving always to the right, now mounted the crest of a low hill. The seaward horizon marched up to meet them. In three strides their whole range of vision was filled with blue. Harpoon Inlet lay behind on their left; on their right Rangi’s Peak rose from the sea in a sharp cliff. The fence followed the top of this cliff, leaving a narrow path between itself and the actual verge.

‘If you want to see anything,’ said Simon, ‘you’ll have to get up there. Do you mind heights?’

‘Speaking for myself,’ said Gaunt, ‘they inspire me with vertigo, nausea, and a strongly marked impulse towards felo-de-se. However, having come so far I refuse to turn back. That fence looks tolerably strong. I shall cling to it.’ He smiled at Barbara. ‘If you should happen to notice a mad glint of suicide in my eye,’ he said, ‘I wish you’d fling your arms round me and thus restore me to my nobler self.’

‘But what about your leg, sir?’ said Dikon. ‘How’s it holding out?’