However, he acquired some skill himself with the tattooing instruments, and exercised it in printing names and sundry devices on the persons of the villagers. He learned, too, how to manufacture the indelible _ngarahu_, or _kapara_, pigment. In making this tattooing-ink the soot from fires of white-pine (_kahikatea_) wood was used. A cave-like hole was dug in the side of a bank, with an opening resembling a chimney in the top. A large fire was kindled in the cave, or _rua_, and for several days was constantly fed with the resinous timber of the _kahikatea_. Above the earth-chimney were arranged a number of twigs of the _karamu_ shrub (a coprosma), with the bark stripped off, set up in the shape of a tent, and covered with a layer of leaves. The dense smoke from the fire deposited a thick soot on the _karamu_ sticks. For some days the fire was kept up; then the twigs were removed, and the soot scraped off into wooden receptacles. It was mixed with water, and worked into little round balls. The soot-balls were then placed on a layer of _poroporo_ leaves in an _umu_, or earth-oven, and steamed for about three hours, when they were taken out and set to dry. In later times, after the war, Bent often employed himself in the manufacture of this tattoo-dye; and was, he says, accustomed to receive ten shillings for a ball of _ngarahu_ the size of a peach. To Te Paka village there came one day another renegade white man, an Irish soldier named Charles Kane, or King. He had been a private in the second battalion of the 18th Royal Irish Regiment, and had, like Bent, revolted against army discipline, and deserted to the Hauhaus. The Maoris had christened him "Kingi." He lived in Bent's _wharé_ in Te Paka for some time. He was exceedingly bitter against his old officers, and, in fact, against his fellow-whites in general; so much so, that he boasted of his intention to fight against them, and, as will be seen later, actually did so in the attack on the Turuturu-mokai redoubt. Like most of the soldiers who traitorously deserted their colours in those war-days, he fell at last a victim to the tomahawks of his Hauhau companions. CHAPTER IX A FOREST ADVENTURE The two eel-fishers--Bivouac in the bush--A murderous attack--The Waikato's tomahawk--"Ringiringi's" escape. Far away to the east and north of the great Hauhau council-camp stretched the forest, clothing hill and valley with one endless wavy garment of unvarying green. For weeks one might tramp through these vast, jungly woods and not see or hear sign of man, or of any living thing but the twittering birds in the tree-tops and a stray wild pig rooting in the soft, fern-matted earth or scampering away through the thickets. The free, unspoiled wilderness of Tane-Mahuta.