Page:Adventures of Kimble Bent.djvu/209

Rh More frightful still was the sight of which Bent had just a glimpse as he entered the gateway of the pa.

Laid out in a low row in the centre of the marae, side by side, were bodies of many white soldiers, nearly twenty of them, all stripped naked—the fallen heroes of Te Ngutu-o-te-Manu.

Just a glimpse the white man had as he entered the blood-stained square. The next moment he was surrounded by a howling mob of Hauhaus, grinning, yelling, laughing fiendishly, shaking their weapons in his face, all in sheer hate and contempt of anything with a white skin.

Two or three of the Tekau-ma-rua men whom Bent knew came bounding up. One of them said to him:

"Tu-nui, you must come with me. It is Titoko's command." The Maori led Bent to a small thatched hut on one side of the marae. Here he shut the white man in, and fastened the low sliding-door on the outside.

For a little while the white man sat in the gloom of the windowless wharé, listening to the demoniac shouts of the Hauhaus outside, and wondering what would come next—whether, indeed, his own body would not soon be added to the terrible pile of slain soldiers on the marae.

At last, hearing Titokowaru's great voice raised in commanding tones, Bent's mingled curiosity and