During the night a report arose amongst the Maori of Walker's camp--I don't know how or from what cause--that the soldiers were about to decamp under cover of darkness, and that the chief of the soldiers had proposed to shoot all his wounded men to prevent them falling alive into the hands of the enemy. When we heard this we got into a state of commotion and great alarm, and did not know what to do. I ran off to a hut where an old pakeha friend of mine slept, and having aroused him, I told him what I had heard, and asked him if such things ever had been done by his countrymen, and also what he thought would be best for us to do. My friend said nothing for some time, but lit his pipe and smoked a little, and at last he said, "Such a thing has never yet been done by English soldiers, and be assured will not be done to-night; but, nevertheless, go you to all your relations and those who will listen to your words, and make them watch with their arms in their hands till daylight. I will do the same with my friends, for, perhaps, the soldiers might go to-night to take away the wounded to the Waimate and then return: who knows? And in the morning, perhaps, the enemy may think they are gone away entirely, and may come out of the pa; so, in that case, you and I will elevate our names by fighting them ourselves, without the soldiers." So I and my pakeha friend watched all night with the people, until the sun rose. But the soldiers did not go away that night, so I suppose the report was false, but it alarmed us much at the time, and some of us were very near running away that night.[40] [Footnote 40: This report actually was really spread in the camp the night after the attack. It struck the natives with consternation, and there are those who still believe that there was _some_ foundation for it, and that a retreat had been talked of.] When the morning came, a party went to bring away the bodies of the dead. The people of the pa had drawn them to a distance from the fence, and left them to be taken away, so they were taken and buried near the camp; and when this was done, the soldiers began to fire on the pa, and the war began again. But the body of the soldier chief who had been killed was not given up, for much of the flesh had been cut off. This was done by the advice of the tohunga, so that the soldiers having been dried for food they might lose their _mana_ (_prestige_, good fortune), and be in consequence less feared. And the scalp had been taken from the head of Philpots to be used by the tohunga in divination to discover the event of the war. This was not done from revenge or ill-will to him, but because, as he was a _toa_ and a chief, his scalp was more desirable for this purpose than that of an ordinary person. So the foliage of the battle-field was taken to the Atua Wera that he might perform the usual ceremonies, and cause the people to be fortunate in the war.[41]