Page:Adventures of Kimble Bent.djvu/183

Rh When the first sharp rifle-cracks echoed through the forest, Titokowaru went up to his pakeha, with a flax kit in his hand.

"Friend," said the stern old captain, "take this kété of mine in your charge. It contains some of my tapu treasures; take great care of it, for I may not see you again; I may fall with my tribe. Take it and leave the pa, and join Te Waka-tākere-nui if you can find his camp in the forest."

The white man took the carefully strapped kit and hurried out of the stockade. Te Waka's camp, he knew, was somewhere away in the rear; the firing was in that direction, and he was in danger of falling into the enemy's hands. However, he struck out into the bush from the rear fence, expecting to steal through the thick timber on the flank of the troops, who, he guessed, were advancing by the track which led in from the east.

He managed to elude his fellow-countrymen as it happened, but it was "touch-and-go" with him. Scarcely had he run out from the stockade and entered the hollow, through which a little creek wound through the bush at the rear of the pa, than the advance-guard of the white column also reached the creek, and crossed it to attack the pa. A heavy fire was at this moment opened on the troops by the Hauhaus, and bullets flew thick around the pakeha-Maori.

Two or three of the Armed Constabulary came