Page:Adventures of Kimble Bent.djvu/204

176 gigantic volunteer and his comrades sent a volley at the enemy. It was taking utu for the corporal in anticipation. Then they sorrowfully turned and went on into the dusky forest, leaving their comrade stretched there on the mossy ground, gazing stern-mouthed, unflinchingly down the way of death.

Out from the ferns and supplejack leaped the foremost of the Hauhaus, a tattooed, blanket-girded man, with wild eyes rolling in blood-madness. His double-barrelled gun he had shifted from his right hand to his left, and he drew his shining tomahawk from his flax belt.

With an ear-ripping cry and the bound of a tiger he came on, hatchet in air.

The corporal stiffened his back, levelled his revolver, and fired.

The Maori fell, and lay with his face touching the soldier's boot.

A yell of "Patua! Patua!" came from the trees, and more bare figures with crossed cartridge-belts came rushing on, war-axe in hand.

Gripping his revolver hard, his trigger-finger steady, the corporal fired again, and another of his foes fell.

Now they stood off and shot the brave corporal dead, and so, after all, he died like a soldier and not under the frightful tomahawk.

McDonnell's column, the stronger one, was in the