Suddenly, apparently of its own volition, and without any visible movement or effort on the part of the chief, the weapon would move. It would slowly, slowly turn--watched with intense, breathless earnestness by hundreds of fanatic eyes--until its tongue pointed so as to indicate some particular man. Ha! 'Twas the breath of Uenuku, deity of blood and fire, that gave it its impulse; Titoko was but the medium of the gods! [Illustration: THE AMBUSCADE. (_From a sketch by Major von Tempsky in Taranaki_, 1866.)] The warrior indicated would be questioned by the war-chief, and asked whether his "heart was strong" within him. If his answer were deemed satisfactory, he would be told off as one of the _Tekau-ma-rua_, the sanctified advance-guard. Again and again this strange method of divination was repeated, the balanced weapon indicating--to the perfect satisfaction of the superstitious Hauhaus--the men whom the Maori war-god desired as the instruments of vengeance on the whites. Name after name the priest and chief pronounced, as his _taiaha_ pointed along the squatting ranks, until the tale of bare-legged warriors was complete. Then, when the _taua_, or war-party, had filled their cartridge-belts and seen to their weapons, there was a ceremony of a livelier sort. The women and girls of the _pa_ attired themselves in their waist _piupiu_ of coloured flax, decked their hair with feathers, dabbed ochre-paint on their cheeks, and lined up on the _marae_ for the _poi_-dance, to send the warriors off "in good heart," as the Maori has it. _Hakas_, too, were danced by the men and boys of the village, and the merry _poi_-songs and the loudly yelled war-chants put a brisker jig into the feet of the brown soldiers as they marched out of the settlement and struck into the forest, hunting for _pakehas_. As the men of the _Tekau-ma-rua_ left the stockade, Titokowaru himself would loudly farewell them, shouting in his terrible gruff voice the ferocious injunction: "_Patua, kainga! Patua, kainga! E kai mau! Kaua e tukua kia haere! Kia mau ki tou ringa._" ("Kill them! Eat them! Kill them! Eat them! Let them not escape! Hold them fast in your hands.") Should the _Tekau-ma-rua_ meet with success in their murderous raids, it was usual for the leader of the party to chant in a loud voice, as the home-palisades were neared, a song beginning, "_Tenei te mea kei te mou ki toku ringa_," meaning that he had in his hand a portion of the flesh of a slain _pakeha_. This was called the _mawé_; it was an offering to the god of war. The _mawé_ was almost invariably a human heart, torn from the body of the first man of the enemy killed in the fight.