'Oh, let us have peace for the short time we are to be together,' pleaded George. 'You have not treated us badly. We will remember that and forget the rest.'
'So be it,' agreed the chief, and took himself off as he had come, smiling.
The hour arrived at last, and the brig, after a final tack, stood in close to the shore and dropped her anchor. The boats were got away and the women rowed ashore, but George noticed with misgiving that the men were distributed in scattered groups among the sailors, six or seven to each white man. He himself was separated by some ten feet or so from the nearest man of his own colour, and between them were as many Maoris. Bigham was leaning on the starboard rail, endeavouring to chat with those about him; but the brown men paid little heed to what he said, for their eyes were ever screwing this way and that, and their faces wore the strained, expectant look of those who await an assured crisis.
Staring hard at Bigham, George managed to flash an eye-signal, 'Be on your guard!' and the mate stiffened from his lounging attitude and laid his hand carelessly upon a belaying pin. Nearer and nearer drew the returning boats, and at last, as they grated against the side, Te Karearea, who had been leaning contemplatively against the mainmast, raised his right hand.
For one instant there was tense silence. Then this was shattered by a wild and deafening yell, which the hills gave back in a hundred diminishing echoes, and, as the Maoris rushed towards the side, a young chief, Te Pouri—the Melancholy One—stumbled heavily against one of the sailors. The man retaliated with a sweep of his arm which sent Te Pouri reeling backwards into collision with a second seaman. This one, taking his cue from his messmate, shoved the Maori forward with such violence that he must have fallen, but for the support of the crowd into which he dived.
The incident passed in a flash, but as Te Pouri recovered his balance, another yell arose—this time a howl of hate, charged with the lust of vengeance long deferred—and in a moment sharp spears stabbed this way and that, piercing the shrinking flesh, while club and axe, whirled aloft by sinewy arms, fell with sickening thud upon the yielding bone.
The man who had heedlessly begun the trouble was the first to go down, split from crown to chin by a terrible stroke of Te Pouri's long-handled tomahawk. Then George, who for a second had stood in frozen horror at the awful suddenness of the change, leaped into the press, striking right and left with his fists.
Even in the hot excitement of the fight, he noticed with dull surprise that the Maoris merely ducked to avoid, or warded off his blows as best they could, without attempting to harm him. Ahead of him he could see Bigham, belaying-pin in hand, smashing a path through the packed brown forms, while, ringing high above the din of conflict, he heard the voice of Te Karearea shrieking to his men to hold their hands.
But George had scant time for observation, or for thought over the inexplicable attitude of Te Karearea, whom he had certainly credited with engineering this massacre; for scarcely had he rushed into the thick of the fray, than he was pulled down upon his back and pinned to the deck by sheer weight of numbers.
The next thing he saw was his greenstone club in the hands of Te Karearea, who grinned at him, crying: 'Fear nought, Hortoni. I will stop these dogs in their worrying.' With which he bounded into the fight, aiming a blow at one of his own men which would certainly have left the fellow few brains to think with, had he not ducked at the critical moment, with the result that Te Karearea's mere, cleaving the air downwards, met with terrific shock the upward sweep of Bigham's belaying-pin.