Page:A Voyage of Discovery and Research in the Southern and Antarctic Regions Vol 2.djvu/149

] her husband, and at this time she and her family were the only occupants. She had employed this young chief, who was a remarkably powerful lad, though only sixteen years of age, to assist her white man servant, Thomas Bull, in some of her farming operations; and Thomas having told Mrs. Robertson that the Maori was a lazy fellow, he watched the opportunity, when Thomas was asleep, to split his skull open with an axe. Mrs. Robertson having accidentally happened to come upon him, when in the act of doing so, he judged it advisable to despatch her also with the same instrument, and then the two female children. Mrs. Robertson's son, seeing what was going on, fled to a mountain close by, but the monster overtook him, and threw him headlong over the rock, two hundred feet high, so that he was literally dashed to pieces. One of the children was the grand-daughter of Nene, the great chief of the Ngaphui tribe, which principally inhabits Kororarika; and her murder, which led to hostilities between Nene and the notorious Heki, was the means of preventing the destruction of the town of Auckland and its inhabitants, which the latter had declared his intention to accomplish, and which even the humane and wise policy of Governor Fitzroy could not have averted.

The murderer, having effected his purpose, set fire to the house in order to conceal the foul deed; and it was seeing it in flames that excited the fears of the inhabitants of Kororarika, and led them to