Page:Adventures of Kimble Bent.djvu/168

140 lead him outside the pa and shoot him," proposed one truculent young warrior of the Tekau-ma-rua.

"Kaati!" cried Titokowaru, in his great roaring voice, as he rose with his spear-staff in his hand. Ringiringi' is my pakeha. I have tapu'd him, and I have told him that his life is safe. If you want to shoot him—well, you must kill me first!"

Then, turning to the white man, the war-chief took him by the hand, led him to his own house, and shut the people out. He told "Ringhingi" that in the present temper of the tribesmen he had better remain as much as he could in the wharé, and that, at any rate, he must not venture far from the door unless he, Titoko, were with him or in view.

Some days later, "Ringiringi," imagining from the more settled and pacific attitude of the Hauhaus that he no longer ran any risk in taking his walks abroad, wandered a short distance outside the stockade into the forest, and, seating himself on a fallen tree-trunk, filled his pipe for a quiet smoke. Suddenly he heard a cough. He looked about him, but saw no one.

"Who's there?" he called out.

A voice close above him replied, "It is I—Hakopa."

"Ringiringi" looked up quickly, and saw an old tattooed man named Hakopa (Jacob) te Matauawa, perched on the lowest branch of a rata-tree, with a double-barrelled gun in his hand. Hakopa was a