Page:Adventures of Kimble Bent.djvu/73

Rh the words "Hapa! Pai mariré!" ("Pass over me! Righteousness and peace!") The expression "Pai mariré" was adopted as one of the designations of the Hauhau religion; and the sign of the upraised hand became the outward sign and symbol of the warrior faith. To-day, should you visit the large European-built house of the late Te Whiti, the Prophet of the Mountain, at Parihaka, you will see a picture of Te Ua on the wall of the speech-hall, his right hand raised to his shoulder, palm outwards, as if in the act of invoking his gods to turn the pakeha bullets aside—"Hapa! Pai mariré!" And many a deluded Hauhau fell to the rifles of the wliite men before the Maori confidence in the efficacy of the charm was shaken. But Te Ua had a very good explanation to offer for any casualties—that if the pakeha bullet refused to be waved aside and insisted on entering the body of a "righteous and peaceful" son of the faith, it was because the stricken man had lost faith in the karakia—the ritual—and, very properly, suffered for his unbelief.

A sublimely simple explanation, and one that was perfectly satisfactory to the prophet and every one concerned, except perhaps the Hauhau who had happened to stop the bullet.

Even when the glacis of the Sentry Hill redoubt was strewn with the dead bodies of Hepanaia and fifty of his red-painted braves, the best manhood of Ngati-Ruanui and Nga-Ruahine—who fell in a