Ngaio Marsh - Color Scheme

Barbara’s hand was on the door and Dikon had reached out towards the self-starter. They were arrested by a cry which, though it endured for no longer than two seconds, filled the night so shockingly that it hung on the air as a sensation after it had ceased to be a sound.

An observer would have seen in the half-light that their faces were all turned in one direction as if their heads had been jerked by a wire. On the silence that followed upon the scream there came again the monstrously domestic noise of a boiling pot.

They were not alone for more than two minutes. A subdued hubbub had broken out in the village around them. Doors were opened and slammed. A woman’s voice. — was it Mrs. Te Papa’s? — was raised in a long wail.

“What,” asked Mrs. Claire steadily, “was that dreadful noise?”

They began to protect themselves with improbabilities. It was the small boys trying to frighten them. It was someone repeating the death cry of the girl in the song. The last suggestion came from Dikon, and as soon as he had made it he felt its reflection in his hearers.

“Will you wait here by the car?” he said. “I’d better go and see if anyone’s in trouble out there.” He moved his hand towards the pools. The open space before the meeting-house was filled with shadowy forms. The woman broke out again into a wail. Other voices joined hers: “ Aue! Aue! Taukiri e !” Rua spoke authoritatively out of the darkness and the wailing stopped.

“Get into the car, Barbara, and wait,” said Dikon.

“You mustn’t go out there by yourself.”

“I’ve got a torch in the car. In the rack above your head, Mrs Claire. May I have it?” Mrs. Claire gave it to him.

“Not by yourself,” said Barbara. “I’m coming too.”

“Please stay here. It’s probably nothing at all, but I’d better look.”

“Stay here, dear,” said Mrs. Claire. “Keep to the white flags, Mr. Bell, won’t you?”

Dikon called into the darkness: “Mr. Te Kahu! What’s wrong?”

“Who is that?” Rua’s voice held a note of surprise. “I know of nothing that is wrong. Someone has cried out. Where are you?”

Mrs. Claire put her head out of the car window. “Here we are, Rua.”

Dikon switched on his torch, shouted that he was going to the thermal reserve, and set out.

The village was surrounded by a manuka fence. The only path across the thermal region started at a gap in this fence and Dikon found his way there easily enough. He could hear the pools working. The reek of sulphur grew stronger as he moved towards the gap. He felt and dimly saw wraiths of steam. When he put his hand to his face he found it was damp with condensed vapour. Now he was outside the hedge, his torch-light found the white flags. He followed them. The ground beneath his feet quivered. Alongside the path a mud pot no bigger than a saucepan worked industriously, forming ringed bosses that swelled and broke interminably. But to his left an unseen vent hissed. He caught sight of a steaming pool. The path mounted and then encompassed the mound of an old geyser. A mass of whitish-grey sinter rose up in front of Dikon and his path veered sharply to the right.

He had felt himself to be very much alone and was startled to see the figure of a man, clearly silhouetted against a pale background of sinter. At first Dikon thought this man stood with his back towards him but as he moved forward he discovered that they were face to face. The man’s head was bent forward. Some trick of shadow, or perhaps of Dikon’s nerves, suggested that the stranger had turned sharply and now stood ready to defend himself. So vivid was this impression that Dikon halted.

“Who’s that?” he said loudly.

“I was about to ask you the same question,” said Mr. Septimus Falls. “I see now that it is Mr. Bell. I thought you were to drive back to the Springs.”

“We heard someone scream.”

“Yes?”

“It seemed to be in this direction. Has anything happened?”

“I have seen nothing.”

“But you must have heard it.”

“One could scarcely escape hearing it.”

“What are you doing here?” Dikon asked.

“I came to look for Colonel Claire.”

“Where is he?”

“As I have explained, I have seen nobody. I hope he has reached the hill and gone home.”

Dikon looked across to where the hill that separated them from the Springs stood black against the stars.

“You hope?” he said.

“Have you a good nerve?” asked Mr. Falls. “I think you have.”

“Why do you ask that, for God’s sake!”

“Look here.”

Dikon moved towards him and he at once turned about and led the way to the base of a hillock. The eruptive noises were now much louder. Falls waited for Dikon and took him by the elbow. His fingers were like steel. Dikon saw that they stood at a junction of red-and-white-flagged tracks on the native side of the mound above Taupo-tapu. It was on the summit of this mound that Dikon and Gaunt had stood on the evening that they first saw Taupo-tapu.

“When I came to look for Colonel Claire,” said Falls, “I stood for a moment in the gap in the fence. As I looked, a man’s figure appeared against the sky-line. He carried a torch and I saw him in silhouette. He must have been somewhere near the extinct geyser you passed a moment ago. I was about to hail him when I noticed that he wore an overcoat, and then I knew that it couldn’t be the Colonel so I let him go. I’d looked for Colonel Claire all over the village and I now decided that he must have gone home by way of the reserve and by this time would have got too far for it to be worth while calling him back. I stood there idly waiting for the figure of the man in the overcoat to appear again on the sky-line, as it was bound to do when I climbed this hillock. I knew that it would be a little time before you left so I paused long enough to take out my pipe and fill it. I remember thinking how ancient the half-seen landscape felt, and how alien. I don’t know if it was long, perhaps it was half a minute, before I realized that the man in the overcoat was taking a long time to reach the hillock. I wondered if he, like myself, stood listening to the working of this hell-brew. Then I heard the scream.”

He paused. Dikon thought: “There’s no need for him to continue. I know what he’s going to say.”

“I ran along this track,” said Mr. Falls, “until I reached the top of the hillock. There was nobody there. I ran down the far side and called. There was no answer.”

He paused again, and Dikon said: “I didn’t hear you.”

“The hillock was between us… I turned and looked back and it was then I remembered that the path on the crest of the hillock was broken. I was aware of it all the time, but I had attached no significance to it and had taken the small gap in my stride. I was flashing my torch here and there, you see, and at this moment it happened to catch the raw edge. I returned. As you see, the hillock falls away in a steep bank immediately above the big mud pot. Taupo-tapu, they call it, don’t they? The path runs along the edge of this bank. Look.”

He flashed his torch-light, a very powerful beam, on the crest of the hillock. Dikon could see clearly where the gap had eaten into the path. The inside of his mouth was dry. “Then… it had happened?” he said.

“Of course I looked down. I suppose I expected to see something unspeakable. There was nothing, you understand. Nothing at all.”‘

“Yes — but...”

“Nothing. Nothing at all. The rings and blisters formed and broke. The mud has a kind of lustre at night. I then followed the path right over to the big hill above the Springs. I went almost to the house but there was nobody. I came back here and saw you walking towards me.”