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Are Your Networks Ready for
the IoT?
Billions of Smart Machines and Sensors Place New Burdens on
Systems for Sharing Data

Mike Barlow
Are Your Networks Ready for the IoT?
by Mike Barlow
Copyright © 2016 O’Reilly Media, Inc. All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America.
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January 2016: First Edition

Revision History for the First Edition
2016-03-04: First Release

The O’Reilly logo is a registered trademark of O’Reilly Media, Inc. Are

Your Networks Ready for the IoT?, the cover image, and related
trade dress are trademarks of O’Reilly Media, Inc.
While the publisher and the author have used good faith efforts to
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for errors or omissions, including without limitation responsibility for
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or describes is subject to open source licenses or the intellectual
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use thereof complies with such licenses and/or rights.
978-1-491-94243-7
[LSI]
Chapter 1. Are Your Networks
Ready for the IoT?

Imagine if you live in a country that has cars and roads, but no
highways. Your car would be useful, but it would be much more
useful if there were highways.
Imagine the Internet of Things as systems of highways. What should
we expect from those systems?
Naturally, we would want them to be safe, secure, and resilient at
every level. In addition to providing seamless and reliable
connectivity, they would be scalable and cost-effective.
It’s important for us to discuss and delineate our expectations of IoT
systems, because the universe of connected smart devices and
sensors is expanding rapidly. Four years from now, according to
several estimates, there will be 20 billion to 50 billion connected
devices and the IoT will add between $7 trillion and $19 trillion to
the global GDP.1
Growth at that scale will create challenges and opportunities for
businesses, organizations, and individuals in every sector of the
economy. William Ruh, chief digital officer at GE, describes the IoT
as a vast network of “chatty machines,” generating data at speeds
and volumes that would have seemed unimaginable just a few years
ago.
The looming transformation raises a critical question: are existing
networks ready for the data traffic that will be created by a vibrant
and growing IoT economy?
A Symphony of Networks
Because practically all of us carry mobile phones, we tend to
perceive our communications network as exclusively wireless. But
moving signals around the planet requires an ensemble of multiple
networks. There’s a physical layer consisting of copper wire, coaxial
cable, and optical fiber. Signals are conveyed by cellular wireless
wide area network (WWAN) systems such as 2G, 3G, 4G, and
coming soon, 5G. A small portion of signal traffic is handled by
satellites orbiting the Earth.
Generally, however, we do not access signals directly from those
large-scale systems. Most of the time, our mobile phones and
devices are pulling data from wireless local area networks (WLANs)
such as Wi-Fi, or wireless personal area networks (WPANs), such as
Bluetooth or ZigBee.
Since WLANS and WPANs are low-power, short-range networks,
telecom companies are pushing optical fiber closer to users in an
effort to reduce the distance signals need to travel through the air.
Those efforts are sometimes referred to as fiber to the curb (FTTC)
and fiber to the home (FTTH).
The push to shorten the gap between users and access points
creates the illusion of a completely wireless network, when in
actuality, the network we perceive is a complex orchestration of
wires, transmitters, and various mobile devices.

We’ll Need Another Closet

Peter Winzer currently heads the Optical Transmission Systems and
Networks Research Department at Bell Labs in Holmdel, NJ. For the
past seven years, he’s been exploring spatial multiplexing as an
option for scaling optical fiber systems to transport more data. The
impetus for his work is based on a simple premise: data networks
are running out of capacity.
“Data traffic has been growing at roughly 60 percent annually for
well over two decades, and that was before the Internet of Things,”
says Winzer. “The truth is we don’t have enough network capacity to
support the future of data traffic. There won’t be enough bandwidth
within the existing network.”
Part of the challenge is human nature. “It’s like filling up your closet
and then building a second one. Pretty soon, you’ll fill that one too,”
he says.
From Winzer’s perspective, the solution requires a combination of
evolution, innovation, and integration. “When optical fiber came
along in the 1970s, we ripped out most of the coaxial cable or
twisted-pair copper wire and replaced it with glass. Since then, little
has fundamentally changed. There isn’t another medium on the
horizon that’s likely to replace optical fiber,” he says. “The next likely
step will be inventing highly-integrated parallel optical paths and
transmission systems.”
Even if they aren’t as dramatic as shifting from copper wire to optical
fiber, upgrades will be necessary. The Shannon Limit is a theoretical
barrier limiting the amount of data that can be sent across a
network. As predicted by Moore’s Law, the capabilities of
microprocessors are growing and their costs are declining. Since
computing processes generate data, it’s fair to assume that data
traffic will continue climbing toward the Shannon Limit—with or
without the IoT.

Which Half of the Chess Game Are We In?

The “original” Internet was built initially for sharing static
information such as email messages, documents, and photographic
images. While it’s true that Internet traffic has grown steadily over
the past two decades, the increases have been relatively modest
compared to the leaps in data traffic that are expected when the IoT
and its larger cousin, the Industrial Internet, kick into high gear.
“Industrial assets such as jet engines and wind turbines produce
tremendous amounts of data,” says Benjamin Beckmann, lead
scientist at the Complex Systems Engineering Lab in GE Global
Research. Applying machine learning and predictive analytics to data
generated by industrial equipment requires collecting and
aggregating the data in a processing center. “An airliner creates
more than a terabyte of data during a flight. Transmitting data of
that size back to a data center is a huge challenge.”
Beckmann and others are concerned by the sheer quantity of data
flowing from sensors and smart machines operating in critical
industries such as aviation, healthcare, manufacturing, mining, and
power generation. He compares the situation to the 3,000-year-old
story about a man who teaches his king to play chess. He asks the
king to reward him by placing a grain of wheat on a corner square of
a chessboard and then doubling the number of grains on each
successive square. The deal seems reasonable until the first half of
the chessboard is filled, at which point the king realizes that it would
take more than the entire’s world supply of wheat to fill the second
half of the chessboard.
“We’re on the second half of the chessboard now,” says Beckmann.
It’s not all bad news, however. Thanks again to Moore’s Law, it’s
becoming increasingly feasible to move computing processes closer
to the devices at the edges of your network. Instead of transporting
data from a remote location to a data center for processing, “you’ve
got processing power near the asset that’s producing the data,” he
says. Beckmann is optimistic about the prospects for a new
generation of intelligent machines that can analyze the data they
produce and generate usable insights for optimizing their
performance in real time.
All IoT Data is Not Created Equal
Rod Anliker is director, OEM Server Architecture, at Hewlett-Packard
Enterprise. Like Winzer and Beckmann, he’s concerned by the
amount of data the IoT will generate. From his perspective, however,
part of the challenge arises from thinking about IoT data as a static
or uniform phenomenon.
“The value of IoT data changes over time,” Anliker says. “Much of it
is perishable. The value of some IoT data disappears within a few
seconds.” Let’s say, for example, that a smart device mounted on an
oil rig begins overheating. A sensor on the device will send a signal
across an IoT network, alerting an operator to the possibility that the
device is overheating and that action is required. If the signal is
delayed, its value diminishes.
“In some cases, you might also need to know why the device is
overheating so you can take the right action,” Anliker says. “But you
can’t wait five hours for the data to arrive. You might not be able to
wait even five seconds.”
There can be multiple reasons for a machine or device to begin
overheating. The problem could be internal, or it could be caused by
another component in the system. “If it’s a complex problem, you
need to find the source of the problem to make the right decision,”
he says. “When you only have a few seconds to make a decision,
edge computing is extremely valuable.”
Edge computing (which encompasses fog, grid, and mesh
computing) enables you to run analytics at or near devices and
machines connected to IoT networks. With edge computing, you
don’t need to send all the data back to a central data center for
analysis. In effect, edge computing eliminates or reduces latency
issues that would drive down the value of IoT data.
“Even Moore’s Law can’t overcome the speed of light,” Anliker says.
“Connectivity is expensive and it reduces the return on investment
(ROI) of the system. The cost of storage can also be quite
significant.”
That doesn’t necessarily mean that edge computing is the solution
for all IoT network challenges. Pushing analytics to the edge of the
network requires fine-tuning servers and applications to function in
real-time, often in harsh or unforgiving environments.
“If you want to get the maximum value from your data, you need to
configure your servers for IoT edge-computing workloads,” he says.
“The servers must be tailored to the workloads. You can’t simply use
general-purpose computers for this.”
Monitoring machines, equipment, and even people is another
challenging IoT scenario. It often involves processing streams of live
video data from arrays of high-resolution cameras. “Video processing
is a highly demanding use case where you’re trying to correlate
multiple images in real time. The signals are digitized, compressed,
and then decompressed. It’s a lot more complicated than your smart
thermostat at home sending JSON data packets into the cloud,”
Anliker says.

More Than a Matter of Bandwidth

“Generally speaking, it’s fair to say existing networks are ready for
IoT traffic, because IoT traffic isn’t all that different from normal IP
(Internet Protocol) traffic,” says Xiaofan (Fred) Jiang, an assistant
professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and the Data
Science Institute at Columbia University. “The current trend is
making IoT devices IP-compatible, so I don’t think we’re going to
see a sudden change in IoT traffic. We’ll likely see a gradual increase
in traffic as IoT devices become more commonly used.”
Jiang’s research covers cyber-physical systems and data analytics,
smart and sustainable buildings, mobile and wearable systems,
environmental monitoring and control, and connected health and
fitness applications. Although he does not believe network capacity
will pose a direct obstacle to IoT growth, there are subsidiary issues
that could prove troublesome.
“For example, the number of IP endpoints will increase,” he says,
noting that every connected device and sensor on the network will
have its own IP address. Upgrading IP networks from IPv4 to IPv6
would accommodate more endpoints, he says.
Additionally, he says, many IoT applications will require real-time
data to function properly. That means network providers would have
to offer run-time guarantees, which might require further
infrastructure upgrades or modifications. “I’m not too worried about
the networks right now, because none of this will happen overnight,”
says Jiang. “Instead of thinking about the networks themselves, it’s
more appropriate to look at the ‘last mile’ links.”
A robust IoT ecosystem includes a wide range of devices relying on
various types of links for connectivity. Jiang recommends planning
ahead for a variety of wireless protocols. “We already see lots of IoT
devices using Bluetooth and not Wi-Fi. Some devices are connected
through ZigBee or Z-Wave. Google has released OnHub, a wireless
router designed for a diverse set of user access points,” says Jiang.
“You need to consider which protocols to support at the link level
and at the network level.”

Volatility, Storage, and Special Cases

On the whole, IoT devices will be more diverse and less stable than
most of the Internet devices we’ve grown accustomed to using.
Unlike laptops and tablets, many IoT devices and sensors won’t
need continuous connectivity to a network. “They will connect for
maybe two seconds and then disconnect,” says Jiang. “From a
temporal point of view, the connectivity of an IoT device is more
volatile. So your ‘last mile’ infrastructure needs to support that
volatility.”
Environmental sensors, for example, will “sleep” most of the time,
and “wake up” only long enough to send short bursts of information.
“From a network perspective, you’ll see these devices connecting
and disconnecting very rapidly. That’s a very volatile paradigm and
your network will need to handle it,” says Jiang.
Data storage is likely to become an issue since most IoT data will be
relatively “useless,” according to Jiang. “You’ll need to create a
storage hierarchy and manage the data based on its value to you.”
Organizations will have to learn the best techniques for extracting
value from raw IoT data in real time, and then storing the data
inexpensively for future use.
Jiang agrees with the general notion that not all IoT data has equal
value. But he is wary of creating special systems or protocols for
different kinds of data. “Let’s not group IoT devices into their own
little networks. That is fundamentally contrary to the basic principles
of the IoT. Instead, let’s rely on the traditional idea of end-to-end
reliability,” he says. “If you’re worried about enhanced security, focus
on the endpoint, and not on creating a special virtual local area
network (VLAN).”
In other words, don’t treat the IoT as a special case. “That would be
bad for the ecosystem,” says Jiang. “Let’s build on the same
principles that made the Internet successful.”

Forests of Sensors
Thomas Nicholls is executive vice president of communications at
SIGFOX, a French company that provides cellular connectivity for
low-power devices and sensors. Nicholls foresees a world in which
common objects such as windows, washing machines, and trees are
equipped with sensors capturing and relaying timely data about their
environments. From his perspective, the question of network
readiness should focus on capability rather than capacity.
“We’re looking at a technology disruption that’s on the scale of cell
phones and possibly larger,” says Nicholls. “I am completely
convinced this is a revolution.”
Nichols says he is less worried about handling data traffic from
physical devices and more concerned about utilizing patterns of
information emerging from the data. The challenge is representing
data collected from physical devices in ways that makes it usable
and valuable to companies, organizations, and ordinary citizens.
“You need cheap and dead simple approaches for representing
‘things’ from the IoT on the web,” he says.
“For example, one of the companies using our network makes
sensors they put on trees. The sensors don’t need batteries; they
use energy from natural light. They just measure temperature. If
there’s a huge increase, they activate another sensor that checks the
wind speed and the wind direction,” Nicholls says. “The information
is sent to a fire station, where the firemen can see exactly where the
forest fire started, where it’s spreading to, and exactly how fast it’s
spreading. Then they go out and they stop the fire before it’s too
late.”
Nicholls says connecting the tree-mounted sensors is “ridiculously
cheap” and requires very little energy. “It’s the type of use case that
could never have existed before the IoT,” he says.

The Role of SDNs

Another factor to consider is the role of software-defined networks
(SDNs) in IoT ecosystems. Essentially, SDNs enable network
administrators to program networks dynamically, rather than simply
sending data across existing network architecture. “Networks will
definitely need to be more dynamic,” says Antonio “Ato” Sánchez-
Monge, a network architect at Juniper Networks and coauthor of
MPLS in the SDN Era: Interoperable Scenarios to Make Networks
Scale to New Services (O’Reilly Media, 2015). “It will not be just
about adding capacity, but about using that capacity more
intelligently, and here is where software comes into play. It is
paramount to count on more agile mechanisms that enable shifting
or adapting capacity as required.”
Sánchez-Monge and his coauthor, Krzysztof Grzegorz Szarkowicz,
describe two mechanisms for making networks more flexible,
adaptable, and dynamic. “On the service-aware layer, we discuss
service chaining, which allows steering an information flow at will.
And on the core layer, we explain how a centralized controller can
help to distribute traffic so that network links do not get congested.
We believe that these are good examples of the dynamic and flexible
networks that will be able to support IoT in the future,” Sánchez-
Monge writes in an email.
Moreover, he writes, SDNs have “triggered” the wider
implementation of techniques for automating networks. “In the last
decades we have been using pre-historic mechanisms and
technologies to configure and manage networks. It is now the time
to produce a shift that results in automated, intelligent
infrastructures that can instantly be reconfigured, and … we can
start applying artificial intelligence to the way networks behave. It is
definitely the start of a new era.”
GE’s Beckmann agrees that SDNs will likely play a major role in the
evolving IoT landscape. “SDNs are the next generation of networks,”
says Beckmann. “Traditionally, the network has a set of tables.
Those tables decide where and how information flows. With an
SDN, you can program the network on the fly to manage different
requirements. If you need high levels of redundancy, you can
program the network to give you multiple physically independent
tasks. Or if you need low latency, you can program the network to
give you the most direct route possible. If you need security, you can
program the network to put encryption tunnels in place. You can
combine these in any way you choose.”
Other documents randomly have
different content
 CHAPTER IX.
NGARAKI THE FIERCE.

When Ngaraki had thrown his torch down into the bottomless pit,
there seemed nothing left but the darkness and the silence.
Presently I heard what I judged to be his footsteps hurrying towards
me, and, in my haste to get out of the way, lest by chance he should
touch me, I trod on a loose stone and fell. I was on my feet again in
an instant, and was edging away from the spot, when the chief’s
voice, three paces away, cried, “Ngha! who comes?”
Feeling secure in the impenetrable darkness, I made no reply, but
proceeded to creep silently away towards the foot of the staircase,
listening intently all the while for the tohunga’s movements. But he
was evidently standing stock still. Presently he repeated his
challenge more fiercely, and, receiving no answer, hurried away
towards the end of the gulf.
I felt somewhat relieved at this, as I felt sure I could find the foot of
the staircase, and so get up the pathway; and, if the worst came to
the worst, try the plunge through the aperture in the mountain wall.
But I found it was no easy matter to find my bearings. I could see the
patch of moonlight some distance up the ground floor of the abyss,
and, facing it, knew that the giant statues were behind me. I
proceeded to feel my way from statue to statue in what I fancied was
the right direction, but I had not gone far in this way when faint
sounds of footsteps around me arrested my attention. I stood still,
and all was silent. A minute passed, and, when I moved on, the fall
of these phantom footsteps on every side again brought me to a
sudden halt. Was this some dreadful nightmare, or was I surrounded
and hemmed in by the minions of Ngaraki? The nervous tension of
this would soon have driven me into raving lunacy. I felt I could not
stand it much longer, and tried to steal away quietly on tiptoe, but the
footsteps followed me and I stopped again.
To put an end to this nightmare I thought the best thing I could do
was to kill someone and make a rush. I took my revolver from my
pocket, but merely went through the motion of shooting men down
on every hand just to relieve my nervous tension. After reflection I
did not dare waste a shot in the darkness, for I might want the whole
six later on, and I had left my ammunition outside the mountain; so I
tried to take things quietly. While in the midst of this, something, not
three paces away, collided with something else. “Kuk, kuk!” said a
throat, and another throat answered with a guttural, purring noise,
followed by a long-drawn sigh. After that there was a silence, in
which I was sorely tempted to shoot in the direction of those sounds.
Presently, however, under a further development of the situation, I
thought it was my wisest course to spend at least one of my six
bullets. Standing under cover of the darkness, but haunted by these
ghostly footsteps, I saw, twenty yards on my right, a dim glow. As
soon as this caught my eye I knew what was going to happen.
Somebody was blowing a piece of smouldering dry punk into a
blaze; a torch, or several torches, would be lighted, and I would be
hunted out like a rat. I was determined that this should not be if I
could possibly help it. I much preferred the dark and the ghostly
footsteps. Now the punk was glowing red, and, just above it, the
wizened face of someone blowing it appeared distinctly. I could not
bring myself to the idea of potting at this man out of the dark; it
seemed a little unfair; so, moving about again, I listened for the
footsteps and fired into the thick of them.
The effect was magical. The report rang up through the abyss and
reverberated with a thousand echoes in the high galleries above. But
this was not the only effect. Immediately following the shot there
arose a guttural, inarticulate howl, and a strange clucking noise
began all around. It suddenly dawned on me that these sounds
came from men who had lost their tongues: these were no doubt the
speechless men Te Makawawa had spoken of. But I did not stop to
find out any more about them. Taking advantage of the general
confusion, I felt my way to the last stone figure in the semicircle, and,
with a guess at the position of the foot of the staircase, struck out to
find it.
I could now hear no footsteps about me, and thought that if I could
only get up out of the abyss I should feel happier. After proceeding
some twelve or fifteen paces, I touched a rock and felt my way along
it until I came to a corner. A sigh of relief escaped me at the
discovery that it was the lowest step of the giants’ staircase. I was
just about to mount it when a peculiar guttural “Kuk, kuk!” came like
a challenge out of the darkness five feet away on the left. My first
impulse was to spring towards the sound and get at the throat from
which it proceeded. But suddenly I remembered having heard this
sound answered by a kind of guttural purring. It was evidently the
tongueless challenge equivalent to “Who goes there?” Why should I
not give the answer? On the spur of the moment I did so, making the
most guttural purr I could find in my throat, and following it up with a
long-drawn sigh. It was met with silence. My challenger evidently
took me for a friend who, actuated by a cleverness equal to his own,
had conceived the idea of guarding the only way out of the abyss.
It was with a conceited feeling that I was infinitely cleverer than all
of them that I mounted the step and listened before groping my way
upwards. There was still confusion in the abyss. To judge by the
excited noises I heard, someone had evidently been touched by my
revolver shot. There was no sign of the glowing punk, and I gathered
from this that in the presence of firearms they felt safer in the
darkness. That they stood in fear of another shot was also evident
from the fact that gradually the strange sounds ceased, and all was
quiet.
Presently I heard footsteps hurrying towards me. They were those
of other clever mutes who wished to prevent my escaping that way. I
was the first to give the peculiar challenge, which was answered by a
purring and a ghostly chorus of sighs from several throats. Then,
feeling that I had hoodwinked them, I ventured to creep away as
silently as possible, raising myself from step to step. Several times I
stopped to listen, but all was quiet behind me and I went on and on,
up towards the giants’ window.
It must have been nearly an hour before I gained the approaches
to the huge grating. When I reached it I stood for a moment looking
up at the moon, then, turning, I followed the bright ray through the
darkness until it fell upon the floor of the abyss, a patch of light
considerably less in area than an hour ago. It had travelled nearly
the whole length of the gulf.
 While I was looking at it before passing on I heard a chorus of
guttural sounds far down. I started and moved away, as it dawned
upon me that my tell-tale shadow had been seen on that patch of
light below. My cleverness now oozed out at the back of my head
and ran down into my heels. In a very short space of time I knew I
should have those phantom footsteps about me again.
My first idea was to stand in the dark and shoot them down as
they came past the window in the moonlight, but on second thoughts
I saw that I could only dispose of five in this way at the very most,
and there were certainly more than a dozen of them, besides
Ngaraki himself. Everything considered, I thought it the best plan to
make for the lake and try the opening.
Another ten minutes, then, found me nearing the buttress. My
eyes were continually on the moonlit window, for my pursuers must
pass there, and I was anxious to count them as they passed. But it
was not until I reached the rocks of the buttress that I saw the first
rush quickly across the light. Another followed and another, until I
counted ten. It was an uncomfortable number, especially as they
knew every inch of the place and I did not. So well, indeed, did they
know their way that I had scarcely reached the ledge beneath the
spar when I heard them coming round the corner of the buttress. I
had my hand on the wooden sprit above my head when they were
almost upon me. That they would search every nook and corner I
knew well, and if I could not reach the other side of the lake first I
should have to fire my remaining shots, and, plunging in, run the risk
of being swept down by the overflow into the abyss. Why should I
not cross by the spar? They would never think of that.
No sooner had I conceived this plan, which was as good as any
other, than I bore my weight on the sprit, and found that, although
there was a trembling motion, the balance of the spar was
maintained. In another second I had raised myself by the “one-
legged-doctor” trick everybody learns at school, and was lying along
it.
Scarcely had I accomplished this when I heard the sound of
footsteps below, and someone touched the end of the sprit, for I felt
it tremble beneath me. At this I grasped the points of the granite to
which it was lashed, and drawing myself along, sat up astride of the
thing. I was now well over the brink of the abyss, and began to feel
clever again as the pattering of footsteps went by behind me. By
their movements to and fro I could hear that they were searching for
me, and I did not dare move further lest I should attract attention. To
make up for the absence of their tongues their ears were
preternaturally acute, and the slightest movement might have
betrayed me. Even when the sound of footsteps ceased I remained
motionless for a long time, fearing that there was someone listening
near by in the darkness. If the cascade had still been pouring down
from above I should have stood a better chance under cover of the
sound. Everybody knows the peculiar effect that listening in the
darkness has upon one. The muscles become rigid, the throat grows
dry, an irresistible desire to swallow produces in the act a peculiar
noise, and a strange kind of hypnotism suggests to the limbs that
they cannot move. To this add a cold perspiration, born of the idea
that there is a vast yawning pit beneath one, and a score of ears
listening for the slightest sound near by, and you have my sensations
within a little.
How long I sat there astride of that sprit I do not know, but at
length my feelings became unbearable. I determined to move, but it
cost me all it costs one in a nightmare to make a start. With a harsh,
inward laugh, that sounded almost hysterical in my mental ears, I at
last succeeded in throwing off this strange self-hypnotism, and,
stretching my hands forward, grasped a point of rock on the spar
itself. Once having pulled myself on to the granite I felt more
confidence, and, though the long lever quivered beneath me, I sat
astride and worked my way along. I tried to shut out the terrible
abyss beneath me, but the knowledge that it was there in the
darkness was perhaps worse than if it had been visible to physical
eyes. It was like dangling between life and death. But, as the Maori
mystic saying runs,
“Cling to Life in the light—cling to Life in the darkness!” And I
clung.
After what seemed several hours, although most probably it was
something like fifteen minutes as clocks go, I reached the constricted
part of the spar, and felt that it was not much thicker than a man’s
body. As I rested on it for awhile I felt the drip of water from the roof
of the cavern, falling now on my bush hat and now on my shoulders.
I wondered how many thousand years it had taken that dripping
water to wear the granite down to its present shape, and how many
more would elapse before the spar gave way at this point, and the
two fragments, with the great round stone, go hurtling down through
space on to the heads of the Vile Tohungas far below. I feared that I
would get there first.
A glance along the gulf towards the giants’ window showed me
that it must be now midnight, if not more, for the moon was no longer
shining in between the bars, and I could see her light reflected from
the face of the wall beyond the fissure without. I found fresh courage
in the thought that if I could reach the further lip of the basin and take
the plunge, the rays of the moon shining down into the pool on the
western side of the mountain would serve to guide me towards the
opening.
But my fresh courage soon gave out, for no sooner had I climbed
from the narrow part on to a broader surface of the spar, than the
horror of my situation reacted upon me. Faint with what I had gone
through since my last meal in the early morning, I felt the darkness
beginning to move around me. Concentric rings of light were
converging to a point in my brain. I had just sufficient sense to
spread myself face downwards on the rock before I swooned away.
*****
When I awoke to consciousness the faint light of daybreak was
struggling in through the giants’ window. The vast cavern was full of
greater and lesser darknesses, and, as I peered into these, I recalled
the events of the past night. A sickening horror swept through me as
I realised that I had been lying on a narrow bridge above the abyss
for hours, and it was followed by a feeling of thankfulness that I had
not turned in my deep sleep and rolled down into the depths. I felt as
if angels had stood one on each side of me, and sat up, full of the
conviction that I should see the outer world again.
It was strange that I had not been discovered. Evidently my
pursuers had not thought of my hiding place. But in order to get out
safely it would be necessary to make all haste, for no doubt they
were still keeping watch, and the grey, misty light of the far-off day
was growing every minute. Very soon I should make an easy target
for stones, and if Ngaraki could hit the Vile Tohunga’s eyebrow at
twenty yards with his jade meré, what could he not do with me? To
his way of looking at things there was no telling what secrets I might
carry away with me if I escaped, therefore the sooner I was wiped off
the face of the rock the better for that ancient temple and all it
contained.
As yet it was impossible to see more than a vague suggestion of
one’s hand before one’s face, but in ten minutes’ time there would be
enough light to shoot by. Crawling along the spar towards the basin,
I made all possible haste. I had not gone far before I heard footsteps
several paces in front of me. I stopped, and all was silent. I could
hear my heart beating, and the ghostly whiffle of the descending
torrent immediately beneath, but no other sound.
It was no time for delay. A plan suggested itself to my mind in a
flash, and I acted on it without a second thought. Drawing a match
from my pocket with my left hand and raising my revolver with my
right, I struck the match on the granite and threw it fizzing into the
darkness before me. The light lasted only a second, but in that brief
space I saw two figures crouching on the spar ahead, fired point
blank at the foremost, and saw him roll over into the abyss. The next
instant something whizzed through the air two inches from my
forehead, turning my hat half round upon my head. I knew that
Ngaraki had also taken advantage of the momentary light to hurl his
meré. The involuntary start backwards at this sudden surprise saved
my head again, for, immediately after the missile, came the crashing
sound of a heavy club on the rock a foot before me. This was the
work of the other figure I had seen. Dropping my revolver, I leaned
forward and seized the head of the club with both hands. A struggle
ensued, and each tried to use the club as a means of pushing the
other off the spar. The struggle did not last long. Giving the club a
quick twist from my end, I at the same time pushed it violently
against my antagonist, who made a sound in his throat and fell
backwards, still holding his end of the club. But in doing this I swung
and fell sideways. The next moment we were dangling one on each
side of the spar, with nothing to hold by but the club lying like a
cross-bar over the narrow rock. All this took place in the space of a
few seconds, and it was while I was swaying in the air that I heard
from far below the rattle of Ngaraki’s meré on the floor of the abyss.
Thank Heaven, the mute held on. If he had let go I should have
gone down with him. Never was a man so anxious that his foe
should keep his head.
In moments of danger different people act in widely different ways,
but, in moments of extreme peril, when even fear itself seems
paralysed, most men, I think, would do the right thing automatically.
From what happened I am convinced that the man on the other side
of the rock was doing exactly as I was doing, looking for some point
of rock by which to cling. At all events I felt, by my end of the club,
which I was now holding in one hand, that he was not hanging
quietly. Never were two living beings weighed on a more
extraordinary balance to determine which should be found wanting.
One more second determined it. Failing to find a purchase with one
hand, I had grasped the club with both again and drawn myself up
with my chin over the end of it. Then, to find a good hold on the edge
of the spar, I transferred my right hand while sustaining my weight
with my chin and left arm. Quickly I slid my other hand along the club
till it found the rock. It was done. The club went up as soon as I
released it; there was a guttural exclamation on the other side, and
the sound of clawing fingers on the granite as the man went down
into the pit, leaving me hanging over the side of the spar.
 I drew a long breath and proceeded to raise myself. With chin and
one hand supporting my weight again, I reached forward and swept
the surface of the spar with the other. The first thing I felt was my
revolver, but it was little use to me just then. There was a rough point
near it which would help me, but no sooner had I grasped it than I
had to withdraw my hand, for I could just distinguish a shadowy form
coming towards me from the basin end. I could hear him feeling his
way along, and knew that he was looking for me. I would let him
pass and then climb and shoot everything I met on the rest of my
journey towards the basin. With this end in view, I found the revolver
again, and placing it with difficulty in my coat pocket, got my hand
back on the rock and remained hanging till the one who was looking
for me had passed by.
To find the rough point of rock again was easy, but to draw myself
up with nothing to place my knees or feet against was more difficult.
At length I managed to get one foot up on the spar, and then
gradually dragged my weight on to the upper surface. The light had
grown considerably stronger in the last few minutes. I could now see
the grey surface of the rock before me. By the time I had crawled
twenty feet along the widening surface I could discern the vague
outline of the great round stone above the outer lip of the basin, and
could hear the gritting sound it made as it rolled and rocked slightly
in its socket with the motion of the spar, set up principally by the man
who was looking for me at the other end. I needed only a little more
light in order to stand upright and make a rush.
A full minute I waited, straining my eyes before me to see if there
was anyone barring the way. The spar was now quivering violently,
and I knew the one who had passed me was near the further end.
Another minute passed and the motion grew fainter; he was on his
way back. Presently I heard him crawling along on his hands and
knees not ten yards behind me.
Trusting now to the light, I rose and proceeded carefully towards
the round stone. When I reached it I found no one there, but on the
lip of the basin there were several shadows moving. The foremost,
evidently thinking I was the man who had gone along the spar and
was now returning behind me, gave the guttural challenge. There
was no time to waste in purring, so I gave the countersign with my
revolver. He staggered back and disappeared.
Then all was confused. Vague shadows flitted round the rim of the
basin. I pushed one off into the abyss, another I shot as he came at
me, and he fell into the water. A well-aimed stone carried my hat
from my head back into the abyss, cutting the skin of my scalp to the
bone as it passed. I heard feet pattering behind me and ran on round
the lip of the basin. Now I was facing the place where I knew the
opening in the mountain side lay concealed beneath twenty feet of
water. I had two shots left; the one I fired at something I saw moving
on my left, the other I reserved for the one who was running quickly
round the lip of the basin behind me. Turning, I fired at a distance of
five yards. He did not fall, but uttered a fierce “Ngha!” and came on.
With a quick plunge I leapt from the rock and struck out
downwards into the dark with all my strength. Presently I felt the
current rushing through my fingers. Another vigorous stroke would
have sent me into it, but as I drew up my legs something touched my
foot. I kicked back and encountered what felt like solid flesh. I was
now head and shoulders in the current, and could see a round light
before me, but an arm slid along my leg, a hand closed round my
ankle, and I was dragged forcibly out of it again.
I turned in the water to face my antagonist, whom I now knew to
be Ngaraki himself, and, guiding my hands along his chest and
shoulders, caught him by a bronze pillar for all the impression I could
make on the throat. But I might as well have tried to throttle it. The
next thing I knew was that his hand had closed over my own throat
with a grip like iron. He shook me in the water as if I were a mere rat,
and we rose to the surface.
He still retained his terrible grip as he groped along the bank for
the steps in the wall. By the time he had found them my senses were
beginning to go. I could get no breath until he released my throat,
and it was now nearly half a minute since I drew my last. I was
getting confused, but I remember one thing which made a distinct
impression upon me. My hands, in attempting to get at his own
throat again encountered a small stream of something warm trickling
from his chest, and, strange as it may seem, almost my last feeling
was one of remorse that my final bullet had wounded this strange
man, for whom, notwithstanding all his attempts to kill me, I had
conceived a kind of savage admiration. In my dying condition, lying
helpless in his grip, I seemed to lose my own selfish personality;
and, in that brief moment, looking at things from his standpoint, I
admitted I was in the wrong, and found time to wish at least that I
had not fired that last bullet.
We were now on the margin of the lake swaying about. Suddenly
a low moan escaped his lips. His fingers relaxed. He fell back
against the cavern wall. Before he fell, however, he gave me a
violent push which sent me reeling into the lake.
In the second that elapsed before I reached the water I may have
taken in some air. I do not remember doing so, for I was almost
gone; but I think I must have got some oxygen into my lungs, for, to a
certain extent, consciousness revived as I felt myself going down in
the tumultuous depths. Aided considerably by the water welling up
from the bottom I arrested my descent and darted upwards again,
but on reaching the surface and gasping for air, I found myself in a
current. Oh! horror of horrors! I felt I must be going down into the
abyss. My mother’s sweet, sad face rose in the darkness before me,
and I called on God as all men do in their last extremity. For some
time—I could not say how long—I struggled against that current with
the strength of despair, but, wildly as I strained every nerve and
sinew, I felt I was being gradually sucked in. I reached out to catch
some point of rock, but there was nothing. Then with a feeling of
blackest horror I realised all was over. But the horror gave way, and,
as I swept down, I felt myself smiling up at my mother’s face like a
child dropping off to sleep. There was a stunning crash as my head
struck against some rock in the descent, and then I fell down, down
for ever and ever into the black abyss of unconsciousness.
 CHAPTER X.
KAHIKATEA AND HIS STRANGE BELIEF.

When a man wakes suddenly in the night, he may imagine that the
head of his bed is where the foot should be. When he wakes from a
deep swoon he is willing to admit that he may be anywhere. But
imagine the feelings of a man, whose last recollection was that of
being swept over the brink of an abyss, waking up and finding
himself lying on his back on a mossy bank, with a well-known face
bending over him.
Such was my case, and I thought the whole thing was so
impossible that I gave it up, and, closing my eyes, continued my
downward career through the blackness of darkness, wondering
when the final crash would come.
Again my eyes opened and encountered the face of a friend
between me and the blue sky. A pair of dark brown eyes, anxious
and kind, looked down into mine, and I tried in vain to remember the
name of that friend with the mane of flowing hair and the brown-
bearded face. I knew him so well, but could not place him. After an
effort I gave it up and closed my eyes with a sigh. Really it did not
matter very much, for, just after being shattered on the granite floor
at the far bottom of the abyss, it did not seem to signify what was the
name that belonged to that face. I lapsed again into darkness, and I
can dimly recollect having some such grim, absurd thought as this:
that the fall on the rocks below had scattered my ideas and injured
my brain in some way.
A third time I opened my eyes: the same position, the same face
as before. I began to think there was something in it, and was
prompted to put a question.
“Where am I?”
“Where are you?” replied the deep voice of Kahikatea—I knew him
now—“Why, I hauled you out of the pool nearly half an hour ago. You
came up from the bottom like a piece of limp seaweed. I thought you
were dead at first.”
 “So did I,” I returned wearily. “I thought I had gone down into the
abyss, but it must have been the current through the basin that I was
struggling against in the dark.”
Kahikatea looked down at me with a puzzled expression on his
face, as if he thought I was wandering.
“Don’t talk now, old man,” he said presently. “You’ve a frightful
bruise on the back of your head and a deep cut on the top; you’d
better keep quiet.”
Thus admonished, I lay with my eyes half shut watching him, as
he prepared a bandage to bind up my wounds—the one on the top
and the one on the back, from both of which I could feel the blood
still flowing.
“Now,” he said, when at last I was bandaged with something like a
tenfold turban round what appeared to me a tenfold skull, “shall we
camp here?”
“Rather not,” I returned; “they might see us from above and drop
rocks on us.”
“Very well, but you mustn’t talk.”
With this he placed his hands under me, and, lifting me up easily
in his powerful arms, strode away down the bank of the stream. I
was too weak to protest, and said nothing. At length, coming to a
sequestered spot enclosed in thick bushy foliage, he put me down
gently and set about preparing a soft bed of dry fern. This done, and
myself placed comfortably upon it, with some turfs of dry moss for a
pillow, he lighted a fire and made this strange sick-room in the
wilderness comfortable. I dozed off into a troubled sleep, and when I
awoke my nurse sat by me, and administered a pannikin of hot
broth, the effect of which was invigorating.
The fear that I had killed the fierce but noble tohunga—the
guardian priest of that ancient temple from which I had just escaped
by a miracle—was weighing heavily upon my mind. In a few brief
sentences I told Kahikatea what had occurred within the mountain,
and we considered the question as to whether, if Miriam Grey were
somewhere in that strange place,—and from what I had seen I firmly
believed she was,—she would starve without Ngaraki. We came to
the conclusion that this was improbable, for if anything happened to
Ngaraki, the mutes would no doubt know what to do, for, in an
hereditary priesthood such as this claimed to be, it was not likely that
the order of succession would be dislocated by a sudden death.
Considering these things we concluded that Miriam Grey, if there,
was as safe as ever she had been. But we knew that the way to her
prison far overhead, impossible without a guide at ordinary times,
was even more so now; a strict watch would no doubt be kept; and
‘the way of the fish’ was a difficulty, to say nothing of the ‘way of the
winged fish.’ Accordingly, after well considering the matter, I
determined to follow the aged chief’s advice, and take up the search
of the child, feeling convinced that if she was living I could find her.
For two days and two nights I lay on my bed of dry fern, and was
attended by Kahikatea. By all the laws of medical science, except
perhaps one or two not yet thoroughly laid down, I ought to have had
concussion of the brain, or some such thing, but, strange to say, on
the morning of the third day I awoke perfectly clear in the head, and
with every sign of fever gone.
I determined, however, to accept Kahikatea’s advice and rest for
the remainder of that day and night. We passed the time in telling
each other our adventures and in drawing what conclusions we
could from them. My friend’s search for the ‘way of the spider’ had
not been as successful as my exploration of the ‘way of the fish.’ He
had found the place where on the first occasion the rock had let him
through into a kind of tunnel, and had followed this for a considerable
distance, only to be stopped by a blank wall of rock which had all the
appearance of a rude portcullis let down from the roof.
“From what you have told me of the strange contrivance in the
interior of the mountain below,” he concluded, in relating this part of
his adventures, “I can quite understand that this rock blocking up the
tunnel might have been so contrived by the ancients that it could be
let down and made to close the entrance to the cave from above. I
don’t know how thick it is, but I am going to find means to cut
through it. By the time you have found the child I shall probably have
got through to Miriam Grey—by-the-bye, did you look for the grave
which old Te Makawawa spoke about?”
I had quite forgotten it. “No,” I replied; “I was too busily employed
inside the mountain looking for my own. But now’s our time—let us
make use of it. There’s only one rimu of any size in the ravine; it is
unmistakable.”
“ ‘Beneath the great rimu where the tui sings’—those were the old
chief’s words,” said Kahikatea, as we made our way along the bank
of the river and past the deep pool into the valley, which was shut in
against the mountain wall by the descending spur. There was no
stream running out of the ravine, and the place was carpeted with
moss and kidney ferns, upon which the afternoon sun here and there
got in a smile through some crevice in the foliage overhead. At
length we came to a fairly open moss-grown space around a mighty
vine-laced trunk, which supported the dark green velvety foliage of a
magnificent monarch of the bush.
“Splendid tree,” said Kahikatea, taking off his hat and gazing up at
the fantails and tuis chasing the gnats about its sunlit sides.
“Yes,” said I, the prosaic, “but where is the grave?”
For the next five minutes we were searching in the open space
around the tree. At length I found an inequality beneath the moss,
and with our sheath knives we removed the superficial growth of
fifteen years.
“There has evidently been something buried here,” said Kahikatea,
as we looked at the grave-like ridge, about two feet in length; “if we
find bones, or all that is left of them, old Te Makawawa’s a fraud, and
you and I together will bore and blast a passage through by the ‘way
of the spider;’ but, if on the other hand we find a stone, the old chief
is to be trusted, in which case you must set out to look for Crystal
Grey, and I will bore and blast alone.”
“Unless you will come with me,” I said.
He did not speak for a little while, and I saw he was hesitating.
Then the dreamy look came into his eyes—the look which I knew
meant his strange, mad desire to look into the face of Hinauri, who,
lifeless, but full of meaning, stood praying up there in the forehead of
the mountain.
“No,” he made answer presently. “Crystal Grey is your quest. You
must go alone.”
We were digging into the soft ground with our sheath knives and
scraping out the dirt with our hands. When we were nearly two feet
down my sheath knife grazed upon something hard, and another
minute disclosed the surface of a stone embedded there.
“We’d better get it right out to make sure,” said Kahikatea, and so
we worked away until we had cleared its whole surface. Then, with
the aid of a log for a lever, we hoisted it and placed it upon the moss.
“Without a doubt the old chief is to be trusted,” said Kahikatea.
“Without a doubt,” I rejoined. “There were points that I had made
up my mind to disbelieve. This was one of them. But now I have
verified so much of his story that I am inclined to accept the whole of
it as true. I shall act on the assumption that Crystal Grey is still living,
and I shall search for her.”
We replaced the stone in its grave and covered it up to look as
much as possible the same as before, then found our way back
along the bank of the stream to the camp beneath the mountain wall,
where we spent the remainder of the day and part of the night in
discussing our different undertakings.
Again I put the question to Kahikatea—a question which in after
years I have often pondered as being one which was asked more
wisely than I knew—“Will you not come with me and search for
Crystal Grey?” and again he answered me with the madness of the
poet who, in setting his mind on visionary things, forgets that flesh
and blood is the working basis of all.
“Warnock,” he said, “I have hitched my waggon to a star and I’m
not going to unhitch it now. I have made up my mind to look into the
face of Hinauri, the Daughter of the Dawn, and you would have me
turn aside to help you search for Crystal Grey, the daughter of a
mortal woman. No, my friend, the daughters of mortal women are not
for madmen like me. Warnock!”—he smiled good humouredly at me
—“the mother who freed Hinauri from her age-long prison must be
the mother of a beautiful daughter. I prophesy that, when you have
found the maiden, you will marry her and live happily ever
afterwards.”
“And you?” I asked, smiling back, “you will wed an abstraction and
beget great poems. Now look here, Kahikatea, face the thing
squarely. Suppose, according to the tradition, which was probably
hoary long before Pygmalion and Galatea were thought of—suppose
that Hinauri should become a living, breathing woman, what would
you do?”
He did not answer for some little time, but remained looking
straight before him. At length he gave a sigh and said, “Granting for
the moment that such a thing were possible, Hinauri would be more
to me than she is now. I should love her with my whole self.”
“That is to say, from your present standpoint of the impersonal,
she would be less to you.”
“No, no; the greater includes the less as a part of its greatness.”
“That is to say,” I persisted, pressing him hard, but not against his
will, for two in a solitude speak as brothers; “if she came to life you
would still retain your ideal love for her, but would also give her the
love that a man gives to a woman.”
“Yes, I cannot imagine that it should be otherwise.”
“Well now; I begin to think that you are not in love with an
abstraction after all, but that your feelings stand on a basis
essentially human—founded on the life-likeness of the image—on
that, and on the further romantic tradition that she will return.”
Again he was silent. Then he said slowly, half to himself and half
to me, “The yearning desire upon the face was human, it was living;
the tenderness, the compassion, and that something more—a kind
of sorrow-joy which I could not fathom, filled me with the strange
thought that the stone could feel. I thought—I believe I said it aloud
—‘if brightness would only leap into those eyes, if the raven gloss
would only come upon those tresses, if the laced bosom would only
move with the wonderful emotion of the face, what a glorious woman
would be there.’ As I saw her she seemed to be waiting for a breath
or a touch. One sandalled foot, showing beneath the robe, had been
advanced with the outstretched arms and the other seemed to be in
the act of following, while as yet a little breath of wind had pressed
her robe gently against her. Ah! Warnock, you are right; it was not
the cold stone I saw, but the living woman.”
“And it is that living woman you are in love with,” I concluded.
“Yes, and I am not so mad after all.”
“You would not be if only that woman had a real existence.”
“A real existence?” he said in surprise; “a strong idea will realise
itself somehow. My dear Warnock,”—his voice fell almost to a
whisper, and he spoke with a strange eagerness—“you think me
mad as it is, but at what I am going to say you will think me too far
gone for argument. The idea which, according to tradition, has lived
in the minds of an hereditary priesthood from remote ages, has
taken possession of mine also. I mean the strong belief that Hinauri,
as she is in that stone, will return.”
I looked at him aghast. “Can you give a reason for your belief?”
“None whatever!”
“Then you admit it is contrary to all reason, and yet you believe it.”
“I do not admit it is contrary to all reason; it may be in accord with
some reason of which you and I are ignorant.”
“It seems to me, that there can be no reasonable foundation for
the idea that a stone will suddenly turn into flesh and blood.”
“Yet the idea that was made stone might also be made flesh.”
Kahikatea said these words in deep abstraction. I took small note
of them at the time, though afterwards, when everything was made
clear to me, when my own mind had yielded to nothing less than
ocular demonstration, they were burnt deep into my brain as some of
the truest and sanest words ever uttered. So deep was my friend’s
abstraction that he was unconscious of having thought and spoken.
This was evident, for, starting as if recalled from a deep reverie, he
proceeded to reply to my last remark.
“No,” he said; “it is absurd to believe that a stone can turn into
flesh and blood; yet I believe that Hinauri, the Daughter of the Dawn,
will return. That is my madness, Warnock, and yet it seems so sane
that even now I regard her as a living woman—the only one in the
world for me.”
He rose as he spoke, and knocked his pipe out against the
mountain wall. Turning towards me with a smile, he added: “If your
determination to find Crystal Grey is half as great as mine to reach
the cave where the pure white woman stands, you will find her, and
then—well, I have prophesied what I have prophesied: the woman
who harboured the vision of Hinauri could not have borne an
unlovely child.”
Early on the following morning we left the shadow of the mountain
wall and passed out from the Table Land beneath the red birches
crowned with mistletoe. By Tiki’s guidance we retraced our steps,
and by nightfall again reached the pool beneath the high cliff where
we had witnessed the phenomenon which had so terrified the Maori.
Here we prepared to camp, but when I went to draw water from
the pool to boil the billy, I discovered something which not only threw
an additional light on the inner workings of that temple in the rock
which we had left behind us, but also had the effect of preventing our
camping at that spot. As I was stooping to draw up the water,
something floating on the surface near by attracted my attention.
Taking a dry branch from the bank I fished the object towards me
and held it up.
It was a hat!
I looked at it more closely in the uncertain light and recognised the
article. It was my own hat that had gone down into the abyss in that
terrible fight with Ngaraki and his speechless men in the interior of
the mountain. With my body full of shudders at the thought of what
else had fallen into the abyss on the same occasion, and my head
full of the only possible explanation of this remarkable find, I sought
Kahikatea, and we agreed to move on and camp on the bank of
some tributary stream lower down; which we did.
 CHAPTER XI.
THE SEARCH FOR ‘THE LITTLE MAIDEN.’

On the following morning I parted with Kahikatea, who was going

back to his hut among the mountains, and thence to the nearest
civilised part to procure such things as he required for his
exploration. Tiki and I continued our way south towards the cottage
on the bank of the stream where his band had left the child in Grey’s
care fifteen years before; not that we expected to find Crystal Grey
still there, but for all that it was the right point at which to begin our
search. I may say here that I no longer had any doubts as to whether
the child left there by the Maoris was Miriam Grey’s daughter, and,
as we journeyed along towards the gap between two lines of snow
mountains, I talked with Tiki about her.
“What clothes had she on when you took her south?” I asked.
“A kaitaka of kiwi feathers,” he replied, with a readiness that
assured me he could recall it perfectly. “She also had huia feathers
in her hair, sandals on her feet, and a small heitiki19 hung round her
neck.”
I pictured the little mite as a kind of “pakeha Maori” chieftainess
travelling south in the arms of a band of cannibals, but as safe as,
perhaps even safer than, a well-guarded child in a Christian family,
for was she not under the word of protection of the ariki Te
Makawawa? Under such conditions she might have journeyed
through the Uriwera, entering it in childhood and emerging at
womanhood, without so much as a hair of her head being harmed.
“What was she like to look at?” I asked again.
Tiki made an expressive gesture of admiration with his hands.
“He Pakeha! She was like a rising star. The young wild swan was
not more beautiful. When it was my turn to carry the little maiden I
had strange feelings, and when she looked at me with her dark eyes
a waiariki20 sprang up in my heart—ah! she had the eyes of a witch,
pakeha, but her words were like the sweet hymns of our ancestress
Paré. My heart flies out of my breast, like a bird into the south, to