Ahead of the victorious chieftain lay yet another pa. It was near those quaint conical hills—the Sugar-Loaves—which, rising in and near the sea, are as striking a feature as anything can be in the landscape where Egmont's white peak dwarfs all else. Compared to the force in the Waitara pa the garrison of this last refuge was small—only three hundred and fifty, including women and children. But among them were eleven Whites. Some of these may have been what Mr. Rusden acidly styles them all—"dissipated Pakeha-Maoris living with Maori Delilahs." But they were Englishmen, and had four old ship's guns. They decided to make a fight of it for their women and children and their trade. They got their carronades ready, and laboured to infuse a little order and system into the excitable mob around them. So when the alarm-cry, E! Taua! Taua! rang out from the watchmen of the pa, the inmates were found resolute and even prepared. In vain the invaders tried all their wiles. Their rushes were repulsed, the firebrands they showered over the palisades were met by wet clay banking, and their treacherous offers of peace and good-will declined. Though one of the carronades burst, the others did good execution, and when shot and scrap-iron failed, the artillerymen used pebbles. Dicky Barrett, already mentioned, was the life and soul of the defence. The master of a schooner which came upon the coast in the midst of the siege tried to mediate, and stipulated for a free exit for the Whites. Te Whero Whero haughtily refused; he would spare their lives, but would certainly make slaves of them. He had better have made a bridge for their escape. The siege dragged on. The childish chivalry of the Maoris amazed the English. Waikato messengers were allowed to enter the pa and examine the guns and defences. On the other hand, when the besiegers resolved on a last and grand assault they sent notice thereof the day before to the garrison. Yet, after that, the latter lay down like tired animals to sleep the night through, while Barrett and his comrades watched and waited anxiously. The stormers came with the dawn, and were over the stockade before the Whites could rouse the sleepers. Then, however, after a desperate tussle—one of those sturdy hand-to-hand combats in which the Maori fighter shone—the assailants were cut down or driven headlong out. With heavy loss the astonished Waikatos recoiled in disgust, and their retreat did not cease till they reached their own country.
Even this victory could not save Taranaki. With the fear of fresh raids in their mind the survivors of its people, together with their White allies, elected to follow where so many of their tribes had already gone—to Cook's Straits, in the footsteps of Rauparaha. So they, too, chanted their farewells to their home, and turning southward, marched away. When the Waikatos had once more swept down the coast, and had finally withdrawn, it was left empty and desolate. A remnant, a little handful, built themselves a pa on one of the Sugar-Loaves. A few more lurked in the recesses of Mount Egmont. Otherwise the fertile land was a desert. A man might toil along the harbourless beaches for days with naught for company but the sea-gulls and the thunder of the surf; while inland,—save for a few birds,—the rush of streams and pattering of mountain-showers on the leaves were all that broke the silence of lifeless forests.
To the three warrior chiefs, whose feuds and fights have now been outlined, must be added a fourth and even more interesting figure. Rauparaha, fierce among the fierce, cunning among the cunning, was not only perhaps the most skilful captain of his time, not only a devastator second only to Hongi, but was fated to live on into another era and to come into sharp and fatal collision with the early colonists. One result among others is that we have several portraits of him with both pen and pencil. Like Waharoa and Hongi he was small, spare and sinewy; an active man even after three-score years and ten. In repose his aquiline features were placid and his manners dignified. But in excitement, his small, keen, deep-sunken eyes glared like a wild beast's, and an overhanging upper lip curled back over long teeth which suggested to colonists—his enemies—the fangs of a wolf. Born near the picturesque inlet of Kawhia, he first won fame as a youth by laying a clever ambuscade for a Waikato war-party. When later the chief of his tribe was dying and asked doubt-fully of his councillors who there was to take his place, Rauparaha calmly stepped forward and announced himself as the man for the office. His daring seemed an omen, and he was chosen. In 1819 he did a remarkable thing. He had been on a raid to Cook's Straits, and when there had been struck with the strategic value of the island of Kapiti—steep, secure from land attacks, not infertile, and handy to the shore. It was the resort, moreover, of the Pakehas trading-ships. Like Hongi, Rauparaha saw that the man with the most muskets must carry all before him in New Zealand. Out of the way and overshadowed by the Waikato his small tribe were badly placed at Kawhia. But if he could bring them and allies along with them to Kapiti and seize it, he could dominate central New Zealand.
He persuaded his people to migrate. Their farewell to their old dwellings is still a well-known Maori poem. Joined by a strong contingent of Waitara men under Wi Kingi—to be heard of again as late as 1860—they won their way after many fights, adventures and escapes to their goal at Kapiti. There Rauparaha obtained the coveted muskets. Not only did he trade with the visiting ships but he protected a settlement of whalers on his island who did business with him, and whose respect for the craft and subtlety of "Rowbulla" was always great. Rauparaha set out for Kapiti a year before Hongi sailed for England on his fatal quest. From his sea-fortress he kept both coasts in fear and turmoil for twenty years. More than once he was defeated, and once his much-provoked foes attacked Kapiti with a united flotilla. But though they "covered the sea with their canoes," they parleyed after landing when they should have fought. By a union of astuteness and hard fighting Rauparaha's people won, and signal was the revenge taken on his assailants. Previous to this he had almost exterminated one neighbour-tribe whose villages were built on small half-artificial islets in a forest-girt lake. In canoes and by swimming his warriors reached the islets, and not many of the lake people were left alive.
More than one story is preserved of Rauparaha's resource and ruthlessness. One night, when retreating with a weak force, he had the Waikatos at his heels. He held them back by lighting enough watchfires for a large host, and by arming and dressing his women as fighting-men. Again, when he was duck-hunting near the coast of the South Island, his enemies, led by the much-libelled "Bloody Jack," made a bold attempt to surround his party. Most of his men were cut off. Rauparaha, lowered down a sea-cliff, hid among the kelp by the rocks beneath. A canoe was found and brought, and he put to sea. It was over-loaded with fugitives, and their chief therefore ordered half to jump overboard that the rest might be saved. The lightened canoe then carried him to a place of safety. Yet, after the capture of Kaiapoi he showed generosity. Amongst the prisoners, who were lying bound hand and foot waiting for the oven, was a young brave who had killed one of Rauparaha's chiefs in a daring sortie. Him now the conqueror sought out, spared his life, cut his bonds, and took him into service and favour.
The most famous and far-reaching of Rauparaha's raids were among the Ngaitahu, whose scattered bands were masters of nearly all the wide half-empty spaces of the South Island. In one of their districts was found the famous greenstone. On no better provocation than a report which came to his ears of an insulting speech by a braggart southern chief, Rauparaha, early in 1829, manned his canoes, and sailed down the east coast to attack the boastful one's pa. The unsuspecting natives thronged down to the beach to meet the raiders with shouts of welcome, and on hospitable thoughts intent. Springing on to land, the invaders ran amongst the bewildered crowd, and slew or captured all they could lay hands on. Then they burned the village. Further south lay a larger pa, that of Kaiapoi. Here the inhabitants, warned by fugitives from the north, were on their guard. Surprise being impossible, Rauparaha tried guile, and by assurances of friendship worked upon the Kaiapois to allow his chiefs to go in and out of their pa, buying greenstone and exchanging hospitalities. But for once he met his match. The Kaiapois waited until they had eight of the chiefs inside their stockades, and then killed them all. Amongst the dead was Te Pehi, Rauparaha's uncle and adviser, who three years before had visited England. Powerless for the moment, Rauparaha could but go home, vow vengeance, and wait his opportunity. After two years it came.
Pre-eminent in infamy amongst the ruffianly traders of the time was a certain Stewart. At the end of 1830, he was hanging about Cook's Straits in the brig Elizabeth. There he agreed to become Rauparaha's instrument to carry out one of the most diabolical acts of vengeance in even Maori annals. The appearance of Stewart, ripe for any villainy, gave the Kapiti chief the chance he was waiting for. For thirty tons of flax the Elizabeth was hired to take Rauparaha and a war-party, not to Kaiapoi, but to Akaroa, a beautiful harbour amongst the hills of the peninsula called after Sir Joseph Banks. It lay many miles away from Kaiapoi, but was inhabited by natives of the same tribe. There, moreover, was living Tamai-hara-nui (Son-of-much-evil), best-born and most revered chief in all the South Island. Him Rauparaha determined to catch, for no one less august could be payment for Te Pehi. Arrived at Akaroa, Rauparaha and his men hid below, and waited patiently for three days until their victim came. Stewart, by swearing that he had no Maoris in the brig, but merely came to trade, tempted the chief and his friends on board. The unhappy Son-of-much-evil was invited into the cabin below. There he stepped into the presence of Rauparaha and Te Pehi's son. The three stared at each other in silence. Then Te Pehi's son with his fingers pushed open the lips of the Akaroa chief, saying, "These are the teeth which ate my father." Forthwith the common people were killed, and the chief and his wife and daughter bound. Rauparaha landed, fired the village, and killed all he could catch. Coming on board again, the victors feasted on the slain, Stewart looking on. Human flesh was cooked in the brig's coppers. The entrapped chief was put in irons—lent by Stewart. Though manacled, he signed to his wife, whose hands were free, to kill their young daughter, a girl whose ominous name was Roimata (Tear-drops). The woman did so, thus saving the child from a worse fate. Returning to Cook's Straits, Rauparaha and comrades went on shore. A Sydney merchant, Mr. Montefiore, came on board the Elizabeth at Kapiti and saw the chief lying in irons. As these had caused mortification to set in, Montefiore persuaded Stewart to have them taken off, but the unhappy captive was still held as a pledge until the flax was paid over. It was paid over. Then this British sea-captain gave up his security, who with his wife was tortured and killed, enduring his torments with the stoicism of a North American Indian. The instrument of his death was a red-hot ramrod.
The Elizabeth, with thirty tons of flax in her hold, sailed to Sydney. But Stewart's exploit had been a little too outrageous, even for the South Pacific of those days. He was arrested and tried by order of Governor Darling, who, it is only fair to say, did his best to have him hanged. But, incredible as it seems, public sympathy was on the side of this pander to savages, this pimp to cannibals. Witnesses were spirited away, and at length the prosecution was abandoned. Soon after Stewart died at sea off Cape Horn. One authority says that he dropped dead on the deck of the Elizabeth, and that his carcass, reeking with rum, was pitched overboard without ceremony. Another writes that he was washed overboard by a breaking sea. Either way the Akaroa chief had not so easy a death.
Next year, Rauparaha, whose revenge was nothing if not deliberate, organized a strong attack on Kaiapoi. With complete secrecy he brought down his men from Cook's Straits, and surprised his enemies peacefully digging in the potato grounds outside their stockade. A wild rush took place. Most of the Kaiapois escaped into the pa, shut the gate and repulsed a hasty assault. Others fled southward, and skulking amid swamps and sand-hills got clear away, and roused their distant fellow-tribesmen. A strong relieving force was got together, and marching to the beleaguered pa, slipped past Rauparaha and entered it at night, bending and creeping cautiously through flax and rushes as they waved in a violent wind. But sorties were repulsed, and the garrison had to stand on the defensive. Unlike most pas, theirs was well supplied with food and water, and was covered on three sides by swamps and a lagoon. A gallant attempt made on a dark night to burn the besiegers' canoes on the sea-beach was foiled by heavy rain. At last Rauparaha, reaching the stockade by skilful sapping, piled up brushwood against it, albeit many of his men were shot in the process. For weeks the wind blew the wrong way for the besiegers and they could only watch their piles—could not fire them. All the while the soothsayers in the beleaguered fort perseveringly chanted incantations and prayed to the wind-god that the breeze might not change. At length one morning the north-west wind blew so furiously away from the walls that the besieged boldly set alight to the brushwood from their side. But the wilder the north-west wind of New Zealand, the more sudden and complete may be the change to the south-west. Such a shifting came about, and in a moment the flames enveloped the walls. Shouting in triumph, Rauparaha's men mustered in array and danced their frenzied war-dance, leaping high in air, and tossing and catching their muskets with fierce yells. "The earth," says an eye-witness, "shook beneath their stamping." Then they charged through the burning breach, and the defenders fell in heaps or fled before them. The lagoon was black with the heads of men swimming for life. Through the dense drifting smoke many reached the swamps and escaped. Hundreds were killed or taken, and piles of human bones were witnesses many years after to the massacre and feast which followed the fall of Kaiapoi.