The most dreaded hour in Maori warfare was the dark, dank hour just before the dawn, and then it was well to be on the qui vive, for Kepa's dusky forest-rangers and their white comrades the A.C.'s had a truly unpleasant fashion of attacking their enemies at most unholy, shivery times, when man slept soundest. So the watchmen in the tower were enjoined to extra vigilance in the early morning hours. And, as in the olden Maori days, out rang the voice of the high sentinel, chanting his ancient "_Whakaara-pa_," his "All's well" song, to Tarioa and Kopu, the first and morning stars. This is one of the songs he cried, an old watch-chant of the Ngati-Toa tribe of Kawhia: _Translation._ _Kia hiwa e!_ Now watchful be, _Kia hiwa!_ O watchful be, _Kia hiwa e tenei tuku,_ On this side and on that! _Kia hiwa e tera tuku;_ Bend ears to every sound, _Kia, whakarongo koe_ High up, high up _Ki nga kupu._ The surf rolls in _Whakapuru tonu,_ On Harihari's cliffs, _Whakapuru tonu_ And loudly sounds the restless sea _Te tai ki Harihari,_ On Mokau's coast. _Ka tangi tere_ Now yonder, lo! the sun-- _Te tai ki Mokau._ The sun leaps up _Ka ao atu te ra,_ Above the mountain-tops. _Ka ao mai te ra_ _Ki tua o nga pae ra._ _E--e! I--a--we!_ Late one night, as the Hauhaus lay behind their palisades, Colonel Thomas McDonnell--a man who spoke Maori like a native--rode boldly up to the _pa_ wall with his escort, and asked for Titokowaru. He called out in the native tongue, "O Titoko--where are you?" Titoko, summoned from his tent, went down to the stockade. "I am here!" he shouted. The white officer cried: "Titoko, I have been trying to discover your _atua_, the god which guides you in your battles. Now I have found it--I know the source of your _mana_. When the wind blows hard from the _whakarua_ (the north-east), I know it is the breath of your god, the wind of Uenuku! But your _atua_ is only a _tutua_--a low fellow!" Spoke Titoko angrily, and said: "McDonnell, go! Depart at once! If you do not ride away directly, there will be a blazing oven ready for you!" McDonnell rode away, and the angry chief returned to his tent. Why McDonnell should have paid this daring night visit to the stockade is not quite clear, but the incident is given just as Bent narrates it. He and his companions on the _marae_ heard the dialogue, and Bent says the old fear struck to his heart when he heard Titokowaru menacing the white officer with the oven. The Taranakis seem to have been particularly addicted to the "ordeal by fire."