The people watched the white man closely, thinking no doubt that as he was being worked so hard he might be tempted to run away if he got the chance. And whenever he went out of doors the old man who had sat opposite him in the meeting-house on the day of his first arrival followed him about, never speaking a word, with his tomahawk in his hand. The news that a white soldier had run away to the Hauhaus soon spread amongst the Ngati-Ruanui. One day a messenger from the large village of Keteonetea came to Taiporohenui and announced that he had been sent to fetch the strange _pakeha_ to that settlement. "What do they want with me?" asked Bent, when Tito told him that the envoy was waiting for him. "They want to see the colour of your skin," replied Tito. Bent, in alarm, begged Tito not to send him to Keteonetea, for he greatly feared that he would be killed. Tito reassured his white man, telling him that the Keteonetea people were his relatives, and that he was not to be alarmed at their demeanour, because they would not harm him. The messenger and his white charge tramped away through the bush to the village, a lonely little spot hemmed in by the dense forests--long since hewn away and replaced by grassy fields and dairy farms. A palisade surrounded the _kainga_; within were clusters of large well-built reed _wharés_, and the inevitable _Niu_ pole stood in the middle of the _marae_. Bent found a large number of Maoris, about three hundred, assembled on the _marae_, the village parade ground. The scene still lives vividly in his memory--an even wilder, more savage spectacle than that of his first day at Tito's _pa_. The men's faces were painted red, in token of war--red smudges of ochre on their cheeks and red lines drawn across their brows; they wore feathers in their hair, their only clothes were flax mats. The lone _pakeha_ might well have imagined himself back in the days of ancient Maoridom, before missionaries or traders had changed the barbaric simplicity of the aboriginal life. The only modern note was the firearms of the warriors; all the men carried guns (most of them double-barrelled shot-guns, and a few rifles and carbines), and wore tomahawks stuck in their broad-plaited flax belts. Most of the women were as primitive in their garb as the men; their clothing consisted chiefly of flaxen cloaks; a few wore shawls and blankets. "The people looked at me very fiercely as I came into the _marae_," says Bent, "and I felt my heart sinking low, in spite of Tito's assurance." They put him into a _raupo_ hut by himself, and fastened the door--a proceeding that did not at all tend to elevate his spirits.