Then came Waka Nene, advising immediate advance upon Heke, to which Colonel Hulme agreed; but he made before starting one of those errors which have more than once lowered our character for absolutely fair dealing in the eyes of native races. The chief, Pomare, was taken prisoner under a flag of truce and packed off to Auckland, while his _pa_ was burnt. It is useless to reproach savages with treachery if we ourselves are guilty of it. When the story came to his ears, the much-abused Governor released Pomare with an apology, and soothed his injured feelings by the gift of a sailing-boat, always a delightful present to a Maori. Heke had established himself at Te Ahuahu, not far from Okaihau, in a _pa_ belonging to Kawiti; and here he waited till early in May for Colonel Hulme, whose force of white men, swollen by the addition of seamen and marines from the _Hazard_, had increased to four hundred. Heke was said to have twelve hundred fighting men; but Waka Nene's eight hundred "friendlies" equalised matters as far as numbers went. As soon as Heke had ascertained that Colonel Hulme had left Auckland, he withdrew from Te Ahuahu and built a new _pa_ near Taumata Tutu, significantly enough, on the spot where the famous Hongi had spoken his last "word" to his people. This _pa_ he named Te Kahika, or the "White Pine _Pa_." There was a good deal of the pagan left in Heke, or, at least, he still preserved a considerable respect for the old religion. It is, therefore, not wonderful that Te Atua Wera, the famous _tohunga_ of the Nga-Puhi, should have been with him in camp, or that the commander should have prayed the magician to put heart into his men. This Te Atua Wera proceeded to do very diplomatically, advising the pagans to stick to paganism, the Christians to Christianity, and impressing upon each the absolute necessity for making no mistakes. "Do nothing," he cautioned, "to make the European God angry, and be careful not to offend the Maori gods. It is good to have more than one god to trust to." On these conditions he promised success and guaranteed to turn aside the shot from the big guns. There were no big guns, as it happened; for when Colonel Hulme's column arrived at Okaihau on the 7th of May, they had only a few rockets. It was resolved to use these for the moral effect it was hoped they would produce. Waka Nene's Maori had mounted a white headband to distinguish them from the foe; but, as a matter of fact, they took little part in the conflict, their superstitious fears having been aroused by the carelessness of the soldiers and sailors regarding omens. "They are eating their breakfast standing up!" one Maori exclaimed in horror. "Don't they know how unlucky it is to eat standing just before a battle?" "They have no _tohunga_ with them," another remarked, shaking his head. "I threw a _rakau_ (divining dart) for them this morning," a third said gloomily, "and it turned wrong side up as it fell. Many will die to-day."