A more serious engagement followed, when at Waiheke they were camped with the Arawa, two hundred strong, and found the enemy, composed of Ngaiterangi, Whaha-tohea, and Ngatiporou, awaiting them near Te Matata. The position was well chosen: a deep stream in front, on their left flank a raised beach, their right on the sea. The Forest Rangers carried the creek with a rush, well supported by the Arawa, after which the enemy waited no longer, but, pursued by the Rangers, fled until the Awa-te-Atua river was reached. The British loss was light, but included Toi, the brave old chief of the Arawa. The enemy lost seventy men.
Here Massinger had an opportunity of witnessing a characteristic incident of Maori warfare. A celebrated chief of the Whaha-tohea, being taken prisoner, fully expected to be put to death. Captain Macdonnell took him under his protection, telling him that he had nothing to fear. From the men probably not, but Macdonnell had not calculated on the feelings of a bereaved wife. Toi's widow, "wroth in wild despair," persuaded some one to load a rifle for her, and walking up to the chief, blew his brains out. The tribe, after much argument, came to a decision much resembling that of Bret Harte's jury at White Pine, viz. "Justifiable insanity."
"Must be in luck now," said Mr. Slyde one morning, after an orderly had been seen riding into camp. "Shouldn't wonder if the general had got some special work cut out for us."
"I hope so," replied Massinger. "We'll know soon, as Warwick is talking to Captain St. George, whom Von is sure to give the first order to. Now both are called up. Something on by the look of Warwick. Here he comes."
"Well, where are we to go, most noble earl and king-maker? Route to the Uriwera or the Reinga?"
"There's an off chance of the last place for some of us," said Warwick, who didn't care for Maori jokes, detached, as by education and travel he had become, from his maternal relatives. "The route is to the Patea River near the edge of a forest, where the whole of the tribes of the North Island might hide. The villages there are not exactly in trees, but nearly as hard to climb up to."
"All the better—give us new ideas," said Slyde. "Tired of this flat country work.
'My heart's in the Highlands, My heart is not here; My heart's in the Highlands, A-chasing the deer.'
What a country this would be for red deer! By the way, I wonder if I shall ever have the luck to pot a stag of ten? No saying; come some day. When do we start, and how many men?"
"Two companies, fifty each. Daylight in the morning. Camp at Kakaramea."