When the people had left the _Wharé-kura_, Titoko spoke to "Ringiringi" in a more friendly and reassuring tone, saying that he wished the _pakeha_ to remain with him in the _pa_, and that, in order to assure his life against the wilder spirits in the tribes gathered under his command, he would _tapu_ him, as Te Ua had done two years before. For his _tapu_, he explained, was a far more effective and binding one than that of the Opunake prophet; a spell that no man dared break on pain of death. Not many days later the Irish traitor "Kingi" deserted from the _pa_, taking with him a watch, a revolver, and some clothing which he had "commandeered" from the natives. For some little time nothing was heard of him. At length the warriors of the _Tekau-ma-rua_, while out scouting one day in the direction of Turangaréré, discovered on the track leading to the settlement a note addressed to the white soldiers' commander at Waihi, stating that the writer (Kane) and Bent were at Te Ngutu-o-te-Manu, awaiting a favourable opportunity to tomahawk Titokowaru, cut off his head, and bring it in to the Government camp. Kane was evidently clearing the way for his return to civilisation, and this note--which he had left in a spot where he hoped the white troops would come across it--was obviously intended to serve as a palliative in some measure of his military offences. The deserter's letter was brought to the "Bird's-Beak" _pa_, where it was translated by an English-speaking Maori. "Ringiringi," questioned, disclaimed any knowledge of it, and as to the incriminating reference to himself, he assured Titokowaru that "Kingi" was lying. Titokowaru immediately despatched the white man and four armed Maoris after "Kingi." They found him at Te Paka village; he disappeared that evening, but was later caught by a party of seven Maoris and confined in a _raupo_ hut at Te Paka. They killed him there that night. Bent was lying half-asleep in a _wharé_ in the settlement when the seven Maoris, who had brought "Kingi" in, entered, in an intensely excited state, sat down, and asked him if he had heard of the judgment on his fellow-white. Then one of them said, "Kingi is dead." Another man, leaning forward until his passionate face almost touched Bent's, exclaimed: "Ringi, had you done as Kingi has done, we would not have killed you in the ordinary way. Your fate would have been burning alive in the oven on the _marae_!" Then the seven, after a conversation between themselves in a strange language the white man could not understand, listen as he would--the Maoris sometimes improvise a secret tongue, by eliding certain syllables in words and adding new ones--the executioners rose and left the _wharé_. It was not until next day that "Ringiringi" learned the details of the deserter's end.