"War to the Knife;" or, Tangata Maori

by Rolf Boldrewood

"The Gate Pah! Captured after a Stubborn Resistance! Panic among the 43rd Regiment! Loss of Officers unprecedented! Names of the Killed and Wounded!"

The list was long, and eagerly scanned. Many were names of European reputation; others, again, of colonial fame, well known to all New Zealand residents. With their heads close together, the names were read out first by one, then another, as different degrees of knowledge or acquaintance prevailed. Mrs. Summers was repeating the last two or three names, when she came to Lieutenant Massinger of the Forest Rangers, "Reported missing!"

"Whom did you say?" cried Hypatia, almost with a shriek. "Not Roland Massinger? Oh, don't say he is dead!"

"He is not dead, my dear," said Mrs. Summers, "only missing. That means, I suppose, that he has not rejoined his regiment. There is nothing so very alarming about that."

"Not alarming—not alarming!" answered Hypatia, in low anguished tones. "Do you know what it means? It may be worse than dead—far worse. He may be in the hands of the enemy—given over to torture. Who can tell? And it is I who am to blame for his presence in this country, for his taking part in this dreadful war. His blood is upon my head, wretched girl that I am!"

"My dear Hypatia," said Mrs. Summers, gently taking her hand, "why rush to such extreme conclusions? In the first place, the poor fellow is not known to be dead, or even a prisoner. In the next, you cannot be held responsible for the rash resolve of a man whom you felt you could not marry. It is most unfortunate, I grant you, but surely you are not to be held accountable."

"No, no! it was all my doing. My heedlessness and vanity must have encouraged him, or he would never have thought of me in that way. Then a foolish ambition stifled any natural liking. I did like and respect him far more than any other man I had ever met. And now, this is the end of it! He is dead, and I am the unhappy cause. I shall never recover it."

Words were of no avail. In vain Cyril Summers and his wife tried to moderate her passionate remorse. She could see nothing but the darkest fate and endless sorrow before her. She had destroyed his happiness, his career, and now his life had been sacrificed to her insane desire to travel out of the sphere which Providence had assigned to her.

Comparatively soothed by Mr. Summers' promise to send a trusty messenger to procure reliable information as to his disappearance and probable fate, she at length consented to retire with her friend and comforter. To retire, but not to rest. If she slept, troubled visions of pale corpses and blood-stained victims mingled with her dreams, and the dawn had appeared before the slumbers which soothe alike the young and old, the innocent and the guilty, brought transient rest and peace to her troubled spirit.

Mr. Summers tranquillized her somewhat by sending away a native convert, long associated with the mission, and at her request his wife went also. They were a trustworthy and devoted pair, whose loyalty had been well tried since the outbreak of hostilities. Known by the rebels as Mikonaree natives, they were enabled to pass and repass unharmed. Indeed, they were always welcomed by the insurgents, who never charged them with bad faith. It was rather the other way, inasmuch as the friendly natives were more than suspected of giving information of probable movements by the troops to their countrymen. But, if it were so, their apologists replied that it was, after all, merely in accordance with the ancient Maori custom, which was to send notice to the enemy that they were coming to attack them. The famous Hongi did so in the case of his next-door neighbour, Hinaki, Chief of the Ngatimaru tribe, when they met in Sydney, at Mr. Marsden's dinner-table, after the former's return from England, saying, "Get your tribe ready as soon as you return, for I am going to attack you when I get back to Te Hauraki." He was as bad as his word, and with the aid of civilization (muskets and powder), succeeded in taking the famous Totara pah, slaughtering a thousand Ngatimaru, then killing (and eating) a large proportion of his compatriot's tribe.