But most of the Hauhaus were safe in their trenches and their covered ways, and the shells and bullets passed harmlessly over them. A few of the young bloods danced and yelled defiance from above-ground. On the stockade was the Hauhau _tekoteko_, the dummy figure which they worked in marionette-fashion by means of ropes that led into the trench below. This dummy was intended to draw the _pakeha_ fire, but it had hardly deceived the veteran A.C.'s and Kepa's _Kupapas_, versed in all Hauhau ways that were dark and tricks that were vain. Bent was underground, listening to the bang of the Armstrongs and the whistle of the shells, and now and again squinting through the palisades at his adversaries. One Maori, who was standing in an angle of the _pa_, was wounded in the head by a splinter knocked off one of the palisade-posts by a shot from an Armstrong gun. The same shell, whizzing through the _pa_, ripped a hole in Titokowaru's tent. When night fell, no appreciable breach had been made by the shell-fire. It was now decided to storm the _pa_ at daybreak. Some of the A.C.'s crept up with their entrenching tools to within fifty yards of the stockade, and dug out shelter-trenches. The fort was remarkably quiet during the night. It was reconnoitred when daybreak came, and found--empty. The Hauhaus had for some mysterious reason deserted it under cover of darkness, and taken to the bush. So fell to the _pakeha_ the very strong Tauranga-ika _pa_. Bent explains this unexpected abandonment of Titokowaru's most formidable entrenchment. The eternal feminine was at the bottom of it all. The chief of blood and fire, with all his _mana-tapu_, was vulnerable to the artillery of a dark _wahiné's_ eyes and soft _wahiné_ blandishments. He was detected in a liaison with another man's wife. This misdemeanour was, in Maori eyes, fatal to his prestige as an _ariki_ and a war-leader. He had trampled on his _tapu_, and his Hauhau angel, who had so long successfully guided his fortunes, now deserted him. His run of luck had turned.