On another occasion, under pretence of freeing a number of prisoners, he ordered them all to be disarmed, an order which every one recognised as preliminary to a general massacre--as it was. One bold fellow, standing almost within touch of the Hauhau leader, cried out, "This is to be done so that we may be the more easily killed. If I am to die, so shall you," and fired point-blank at his captor. As the hammer fell, a Hauhau struck up the muzzle of the gun; but if the Maori--whose fate was sealed in any case--had not drawn attention to his action by making a speech, he would have had Te Kooti's company on the road to Reinga, and the world would have been the sooner rid of a murderous ruffian. Strong in his luck, Te Kooti skirmished and fought his way out of the Uriwera country and marched across to Taupo, where he compelled the allegiance of Te Heu Heu, chief of the "Boiling Water" tribes. His great ambition was to capture to his side the powerful chiefs of Whanganui and Waikato, but his arrogance and overweening belief in his own superiority offended each in turn. Moreover, he alienated Topia Turoa, the great Whanganui chief by the causeless murder of a blood relation of the latter, which so angered Topia that he not only took the field against Te Kooti, but did him an even worse turn by using his influence with the Waikato against him. The Waikato also had personal reasons for allowing Te Kooti to go to ruin unaccompanied by them. They had expressed themselves willing to receive a visit from him, but when he arrived with three hundred picked men, he gave himself such insufferable airs that many were disgusted, and the Waikato leaders made no haste to pay their respects until urged to do so by the great fighter, Rewi of the Ngati-Maniapoto. They came at last, five hundred strong, bearing presents, to the place where Te Kooti and his three hundred champions awaited them. Then, either to show that he was prepared for treachery, or wishful to test their courage, or merely in an antic spirit, the Hauhau ordered his following to fire a volley with ball cartridge low over the heads of the Waikato. The whistling of three hundred bullets past one's ears is a welcome easily improved upon, and the visitors, prepared for something very different, were startled into some undignified capers. Te Kooti had committed the stupidest error in lowering a proud folk in their own eyes, and their wrath blazed against him. Even friends might have been excused for taking exception to such a greeting, and these were men whose friendship was yet to be won. In vain Rewi pleaded; Te Heu Heu argued to the wind; the Waikato would have none of Te Kooti and, when he was soundly thrashed a little later by McDonnell at Te Pononga, even Rewi turned his back upon him. "The fellow is a humbug!" he declared to the delighted Waikato, who gleefully rejoined, "We told you so!"