Page:Reminiscences of Earliest Canterbury 1915.pdf/32

 criminal, but without success. No information could be gleaned from the Maoris, and there was every indication of the ends of justice being defeated. My father, however, was convinced that the man was cleverly concealed somewhere, and taking Mr. Watson aside, suggested that he should pick out one or two of the married natives and handcuff them, and then announce that he was going to put them in gaol for harbouring a murderer. One Maori was handcuffed, but while the gyves were being fastened on the second one, his wife touched my father on the shoulder and pointed to an empty wharé. Entering this nothing was to be seen but an old sail stretched over the ground as a kind of carpet. The woman pointed again to the sail, and on raising it the delinquent was found in a trench scooped out of the ground where he lay completely hidden with the level sail stretched over him. But for the ruse whereby the anxiety of the women was roused he would never have been discovered. The prisoner was taken to Akaroa, but the case being beyond the jurisdiction of the Magistrate’s Court, he was committed to Sydney for trial, where, through some flaw in the indictment connected with his