Page:Adventures of Kimble Bent.djvu/170

142 "Where is the pakeha? Did you see him pass?"

"Why do you ask?" said the old man.

"We have come to kill him," replied one of the men. "Where is he?"

Hakopa instantly put his cocked tupara to his shoulder and levelled it at the foremost of the Hauhaus, the man with the revolver.

"Haere atu!" he said sharply. "Go! Leave this spot at once, or I will shoot you. 'Ringiringi' is my friend."

The old fellow's determined air quite overawed the pakeha-hunters, and they sulkily and silently returned to the pa.

Jacob watched them off, and when the white man had risen from his hiding-place he escorted him back to the pa, walking in front of him with his gun cocked, on the alert for any attack on his protégé. He took "Ringiringi" to his house, and then reported the affair to Titokowaru.

The chief showed genuine anger. He assembled the fighting-men, and sternly ordered them to molest the white man no more. "If you harm him," he said, "I shall leave the pa and return to my own village. Listen! 'Ringiringi' is henceforth my moko-puna—my grandchild—and I now give him another name, the name of one of my ancestors. His name is now Tu-nui-a-moa."

And behind Titokowaru leaped up old Hakopa, a bright tomahawk in his hand. Making sharp, quick