Page:Adventures of Kimble Bent.djvu/248

220 leaped out from the squatting ranks, their eyes flashing wildly in the pukana glare; they bounded to and fro, and cut the air with their tomahawks as they told the thrilling episodes of the fight.

All the clothes, arms, and accoutrements taken from the dead and wounded were laid before Titokowaru.

"Whose was this?" the war-chief would ask, picking up a carbine, or an ammunition-pouch, or a soldier's tunic from the heap.

"Mine," replied the man who had taken it on the battle-field.

"Take it away, then," said Titokowaru. "Whose is this?" picking up another trophy.

"It is mine," a young man would reply; "it is my first spoils of war, a tanga-ika."

"Burn it," was the chief's order.

Then the human bodies lying on the marae were apportioned one by one, to each tribe, as piles of food are served out at a ceremonial Maori gathering.

"Nga-Rauru, this is yours! Tangahoe, this is yours!" and so on, till the seven bodies were all disposed of.

A woman sat weeping on the marae. She was Te Hau-karewa, wife to one Te Rangi-whakairi-papa and a sister of Te Waka-tapa-ruru, the old warrior who had fallen in his desperate rush upon the white enemy that morning. Though old, she