How long this exhibition would have continued the Lord only knows, for it was brought to a sudden termination by a big Scotch Presbyterian sergeant, who, being as bigoted as they make them, could not tolerate the ritual of a foreign denomination, so he stepped out of the crowd of men and, as the fanatic devotee pranced past him, he with a leg as brawny as that of a Highland stot let fly a kick, at the same time exclaiming: "Hae done, ye pagan, wi yer satanic cantrips." Out flew the No. 12 boot, which, catching the unfortunate bounder fair and square on the crupper bone, launched him through space till, the momentum being expended, he landed on his nose at the Colonel's feet. "Get up," quoth the O.C. in Maori, at the same time giving the officious non-com. a look that made the ower-guid mon wilt. "Now, what made you come here?" The Colonel spoke the language like a native, and what he did not know about Hau Haus was not worth learning, so he was not in the least bit surprised when the somewhat blown native staggered to his feet and answered him in perfect English: "I came here among you to turn you all into stone, and should have done so had not that man, whose head is fit to be boiled, interrupted me." "Ah," replied the O.C., "I know you; you assisted Nama to torture women and children at Poverty Bay." "I did," triumphantly exclaimed the fanatic. "Sweet is the blood of women and children." (Note this fellow had been mission bred and educated, in fact had acted as a lay Bible reader.) "Ah, is it," growled the Colonel. "Sergeant O'Halloran, detail four men, take this fellow to that tree and do your duty." The Sergeant saluted smartly, quickly told off four men, advanced to his prisoner, whose arm he grasped with a shoulder-of-mutton fist, at the same time exclaiming: "Come along wid me, ye bloody-minded Fanian." A few steps took them to the huge tortara-tree that had been pointed out, against the trunk of which the Sergeant, drawing his revolver, placed the Hau Hau. "And now," said he, "a Christian ye were wance, and a bloody pagan ye are now, bad luck to the likes of ye, but ave ye wist to recant and make yer sowl, sure it's foive minutes I'll give ye to make it.--Fall in, boys, tin yards forninst us." Now no good soldier man, be he regular or irregular, likes to make one of a firing party, told off to shoot a man in cold blood, law or no law, and it is usual in such cases to detail the worst characters in a regiment to perform that obnoxious duty; but when it comes to letting daylight into a fiend who brags of having tortured helpless women and children, then no frontiersman jibs at making one of a party to do so. Therefore, no matter how distasteful the job might be to any of the four men told off on this special occasion, they fell in with great alacrity and brought their carbines to the shoulder like one man. "Hurry up, ye spalpeen, and make yer sowl," quoth the Sergeant.