While Heke and Kawiti, unused to such swift decision, debated the question, the time limit expired, and their spies raced to them with the news that the _Kawana_ (Governor) was sending against them the greatest "war-party" which the "Pakeha Chiefs" had ever put together. Heke was still forced by his wound to abstain from active participation; but old Kawiti had finished his strong _pa_, Ruapekapeka--"The Bat's Nest,"--and retired thither, convinced that it would be impossible for the British to dislodge him. Kawiti felt both complacent and apprehensive. The _pa_ he had built was immensely strong and provided with every means of scientific defence, and five hundred good fighting men lay behind its massive fences. Colonel Despard, on the other hand, commanded close upon twelve hundred men, with eleven guns, two of them being thirty-two-pounders. For the odds Kawiti cared not at all; but the prospect of so many guns pounding at him all at once did not please him. There was no help for it. The war-party was at his gates, which he did not mean to open without a struggle. Colonel Despard, getting his first glimpse of "The Bat's Nest," made up his mind that he would reduce it by means of regular sap work, if it cost him a year. He had not to wait nearly so long; but neither he nor Kawiti had the least presentiment how swift was to be the fall of a fortress which at first sight looked impregnable. It was now summer, and the dreadful mud and angry rivers were no longer to be feared; yet there were difficulties in getting into position, for old Kawiti had chosen his site with consummate skill. The troops left Kororareka on the 8th of December, and four days later reached the _pa_ of a friendly chief, Tamati Pukutetu, whence Ruapekapeka could be seen, nine miles away. Only nine miles; yet it cost those twelve hundred men nine days to cross the intervening strip of country between Pukutetu's _pa_ and their camp before Ruapekapeka, and another nine days elapsed before the whole of the guns and ammunition could be got up. Kawiti made no attempt to harass the troops. The country fought for him and, besides, he was in no hurry to begin. No Maori ever was. The British camp lay distant eight hundred yards from Ruapekapeka, which stood on the side of a hill, surrounded by dense forest. A quarter of a mile of space had been cleared all around of bush, leaving a formidable glacis, which must be crossed before the massive palisades could be reached. Not that the colonel intended to cross it until he had sent ahead of him a good many iron notes of interrogation.