General Cameron at this stage very humanely ordered a parley, as there were many women and children within the _pa_; but to his summons to surrender the Waikato sent back the defiant answer, "This is the word of the Maori: We will fight for ever and ever and ever!" (_Ka whawhai tonu; Ake, Ake, Ake!_) "Send out the women and children," urged General Cameron. "No; the women also will fight for their country," was the heroic response, and the General had no choice but to order the troops to assault. The first men up, some twenty in number, led by Captain Hertford of the Colonial Force, were received with a volley which put the captain and ten of his men _hors de combat_, while on the other side of the _pa_ the 65th had no better success. But the Maori were worn out with the three days' struggle; they had lost heavily, and Rewi now gave the order to evacuate the _pa_, which was, it will be remembered, completely invested. How the Maori managed to escape has never been satisfactorily explained. In the words of an eye-witness, "a solid column of Maori, the women, children and great chiefs in the centre, marched out as cool and steady as if they had been going to church." A double line of the 40th Regiment lay on the side the defenders chose for their escape, the first under a bank sheltering them from the fire from the _pa_. It is almost incredible that, before any one had gathered the significance of what was going on, the Maori jumped over the heads of the first line, and walked through the second line. The war correspondent of the Auckland _Southern Cross_ wrote of this extraordinary happening: "The cry was heard that the rebels were escaping, and a scene baffling description ensued. General Cameron, Brigadier-General Carey, aides and gallant colonels of the staff were rushing about to warn and gather men from the sap.... This occupied minutes, and all this time not a man of the 40th appears to have seen the Maori, who must have jumped over the heads of the soldiers lining the road cut out of the steep embankment, and so passed into the swamp and _Ti_-tree scrub, wounding two or three of the 40th as a remembrance of their passing." The Maori must have escaped unharmed, had it not been for a small corps of colonial cavalry, who, led by Captains Jackson and Von Tempsky, worked round the scrub and inflicted great loss upon the natives as they emerged. Owing to the blunder, Rewi escaped along with numbers of his countrymen.