“So long.” And with that he backed out, and in a moment I heard the beat of a horse’s hoofs starting at a gallop. My friend was raving mad, and wanted me at once to alarm my troopers, but I said: “No; you’d got your gun with you just now, why did you not use it?” When five minutes had passed I gave the order to saddle up; but of course the man had got clear away. I never knew who he was, but a man shot shortly afterwards by one of my troopers was believed to be he, and most probably was.
CHAPTER X
ON THE SCOUT IN NEW ZEALAND
(Told by the old Kai Tongata)
It was in June 1869 that Te Kooti, chief of the rebel Hau Haus, caught a party of mounted volunteers on the hop, at a place called Opepe, on the high plateau near Lake Taupo. The men, worn out by a long march, and soaked through by the cold winter rain and sleet, had taken shelter on some old whares (huts) and were trying to dry themselves when a few Maoris came up, and, declaring themselves to be friendlies, joined them at their fires.
More and more of them gradually arrived, until the volunteers were outnumbered, and then, on a signal being given, the natives sprang on their unsuspecting victims, and the tomahawk did the rest. The victors did not stay long at the blood-stained spot. They knew that Colonel McDonnell, Colonel St John and, worse than anyone, Major Ropata Te Wahawaha, with his friendly Ngatiporou, were not far away, and that it behoved them to hump themselves and travel before the avengers could reach them. Some of the volunteers had escaped, and two of them joined up with Colonel St John’s column, with which I was serving, the same evening as the massacre took place.
It was at once boot and saddle, and before nightfall we had marched to Opepe.
Colonel St John had reached the spot before us, in fact the men cut up belonged to his column, and he had only left them the morning of the massacre to rest themselves and horses, while he went on to visit a Maori chief about ten miles away.
Next morning we were on the spoor, and followed it through rough pumice-stone gullies for some miles, in pouring rain and sleet, then lost all trace of them in a dense scrub of manuka bush, so we returned to Opepe for the night.