"Kingi," after being given a meal, was left alone in his hut, but was watched through crevices in the wall until he sank to sleep, fatigued with his enforced tramp. He lay with a blanket partly drawn over his head. One of the Hauhaus, a man named Patumutu ("The Finishing Stroke"), stole quietly into the _wharé_, and attempted to deal him a fatal blow with a sharp bill-hook. The blow, however, only gashed his nose, and he leaped up and grappled with his assailant. The Maoris outside, hearing the noise of the scuffle, rushed in. An old man--Uru-anini of the Puketapu--seized the white man by the leg, brought him down, and dealt him a terrible blow with an axe as he lay on the floor. The other Hauhaus completed the work with their tomahawks, and the dead body of the renegade Irishman, cut almost to pieces, was dragged out and thrown into a disused potato-pit on the outskirts of the village. CHAPTER XIV ADVENTURES AT TE NGUTU-O-TE-MANU In the midst of dangers--Bent stalked by Hauhaus--Old Jacob to the rescue--"Come on if you dare!"--The white man's new Maori name--Government forces attack and burn Te Ngutu-o-te-Manu--A new use for hand-grenades. When Bent returned to the "Bird's-Beak" stockade he found himself in a position of extreme peril. The Hauhaus, excited by the news of Kane's treachery and summary execution, were fiercely hostile in demeanour, and some of the young bloods came dancing about the white man, as he walked into the village, with menacing shouts, emphasised by savage thigh-slapping, _pukana_-ing, and grimacing with out-thrust tongue and rolling eyes, and similar demonstrations of derision and hatred. A council of the people was held on the _marae_, and the killing of Kane was narrated in minutest and barbaric detail. Then several Hauhaus rose in turn and demanded the death of "Ringiringi," on the principle that all _pakehas_ were unreliable, and that it was a foolish policy to keep one in the camp who might sooner or later betray them. "Let us lead him outside the _pa_ and shoot him," proposed one truculent young warrior of the _Tekau-ma-rua_. "_Kaati!_" cried Titokowaru, in his great roaring voice, as he rose with his spear-staff in his hand. "'Ringiringi' is my _pakeha_. I have _tapu_'d him, and I have told him that his life is safe. If you want to shoot him--well, you must kill me first!" Then, turning to the white man, the war-chief took him by the hand, led him to his own house, and shut the people out. He told "Ringiringi" that in the present temper of the tribesmen he had better remain as much as he could in the _wharé_, and that, at any rate, he must not venture far from the door unless he, Titoko, were with him or in view.