Page:Adventures of Kimble Bent.djvu/223



Te Ngutu-o-te-Manu abandoned—On the march again—Skirmishing on the Patea—Pakeha in pickle—A new stockade—Bent the pa-builder.

famous "Bird's-Beak" pa, made so memorable by the terrible scenes enacted around and within its stockade, was soon deserted.

Titokowaru, not long after the Hauhau victory and the savage rites narrated in the last chapter, issued an order that the village must be evacuated, and a new position selected for a bush-fort in which to withstand the attack that must inevitably be delivered against him by the Government. So one day the whole of the inhabitants of the Te Ngutuo-te-Manu—men, women, and children, and the solitary white man—having gathered together their belongings, marched out of their village and tramped away through the bush eastwards. The armed men of the Tekau-nui-rua preceded them, to make sure that the way was clear of the pakeha enemy.

At the village of Turangaréré and at Taiporohenui