Te Ua's muddled brain recalling something of the story of Abraham and Isaac, he went out and began to break his son's legs in obedience to a divine command to kill the youth. He was presently stopped by Gabriel, who restored the boy whole and sound to his father, and gave the latter orders to assemble all believers round a _niu_, or sacred pole. Grouped there in a circle, they must dance, apostrophise the Trinity, sing hymns and what not, in return for which, those found worthy--note the saving clause--should receive the gift of tongues and be invulnerable in battle. While praying, dancing or fighting, the sectaries were constantly to ejaculate the syllables "Hauhau," forming a word supposed to mean the wind (_hau_), by which the angels were wafted from the wreck when first they communicated with the great Te Ua. Te Ua was not long in making converts to his strange faith; and on the 4th of April, 1864, a body of them fell upon a detachment of the 57th and military settlers, who were destroying crops in the Kaitaka ranges. Captain Lloyd, who was in command, fought most bravely when cut off from his men, and died fighting. His body and the bodies of seven other white men were discovered a few days later, all minus the heads, which had been carried away. No one knew what to make of this innovation; but it was afterwards ascertained that Captain Lloyd's head had been preserved after the Maori fashion, and was being carried throughout the North Island, and exhibited to tribe after tribe as the medium through which God would occasionally speak to his people. [Illustration: The frenzy of the Hauhau The Incantation] The tribes were also informed that legions of angels would some day appear and assist the Hauhau to annihilate the Pakeha. Once that degenerate lot had been got rid of, the angels would escort from heaven an entirely new brand of men, who should teach the Maori all the Europeans knew, and more. Unconsciously prophetic, the final promise in this farrago of nonsense was that all Maori who fulfilled certain conditions should be instantly endowed with power to understand and speak the English language. The new men were evidently to resemble the Briton! Notwithstanding its blasphemous absurdities, the _Pai Marire_ sect gained so many converts, and spread so far and fast, that it seemed at one time as if all the Maori in the North Island would rebel. It is well, however, to keep in mind that many of those who followed the prophet's drum did so for their own purposes, and privately mocked at his uninspired ravings.