"Yes, my brave Tikitanu. Your Kiri will be with you in heart and spirit day and night until your return to the fair land which holds in its bosom the bodies of our noble heroes of days gone by."
A few gentle and poetic words like these made them both feel rather sentimental and emotional, so they solemnly rubbed noses and went back to the kianga.
These two dusky lovers decided on a [pg 9] secret marriage at Ngaruawahia in a fortnight's time. Kiri was to go by road to the place, and Henare by train from Mercer.
The appointed day dawned bright and fine, and Kiri arrived at Ngaruawahia in proper style half-an-hour late. But there was no sign of Henare.
As a matter of fact he did not turn up at all, for he got a bit excited at Mercer, and as there were two trains standing end to end at the station he entered the wrong carriage and got out at Pukekohe, about thirty or forty miles in the wrong direction.
They met again in about two days' time, and after a good deal of both tender and violent Maori talk, sprinkled with pidgin-English, the matter was patched up.
However, they dropped the elopement idea, rubbed noses duly and canonically, and Henare went off and enlisted as a soldier of the King. But he was anxious about his old enemy Wiremu.