Extending his force in skirmishing order, the young officer pushed on as well as he could, carrying his wounded--one in every six. When darkness came on he halted, for it was hopeless to try to force a way through the jungle-matted woods in the blackness of the night. It was a cold frosty night, and the wounded were in agonies of pain, which their distressed comrades were helpless to relieve. There on the damp and freezing ground they crouched till the moon rose at two o'clock in the morning. Now, guided by five brave fellows of the Maori contingent, Whanganui and Ngati-Apa men, who stood by Roberts and his wounded to the last, the rear-guard recommenced the retreat. Struggling wearily on through the tangling _kareao_ and the densely growing shrubs, stumbling over logs and splashing through little watercourses, they emerged at last thankfully on to the open country, and soon, bearing their wounded and dying comrades across the dark flooded Wai-ngongoro, were greeted by the joyful cheers of their comrades, European and Maori, under Kepa te Rangihiwinui, who had set out from the Waihi Redoubt to their rescue when daylight broke. Only then was the full story of the repulse pieced together--a story of a fight that in point of numbers was only a skirmish, as battles go, but that was the most serious set-back the white man had yet suffered at the hands of the brown warriors of the Taranaki bush. Of the twenty-four whites killed five were officers, men who could badly be spared in that frontier warfare. The wounded numbered twenty-six, whose rescue from the tomahawks of the Hauhau was carried out in a way truly heroic. CHAPTER XVI THE CANNIBALS OF THE BUSH After the battle--The slain heroes of Te Ngutu-o-te-Manu--A terrible scene on the _marae_--What Bent saw from his prison-hut--The sword of "Manu-rau"--A funeral pyre--Priestly incantations--A soldier's body eaten--Why the Hauhaus became cannibals. On the morning after the battle, Kimble Bent and his companions, who had been informed by a messenger the previous night of the result of the forest engagement, hurried back to the stockade. The news of the repulse of the white troops had spread with incredible swiftness all over the Maori country-side, and the Hauhaus from the neighbouring villages gathered in Te Ngutu-o-te-Manu to hear the story of the fight and to share in the distribution of the loot taken on the battle-field. The village was crowded with Hauhaus, all in a fearful state of excitement, a delirium of triumphant savagery. Yelling like furies, shouting ferocious battle-songs, waving their weapons in the air, the victorious warriors were there with their spoils--carbines, swords, revolvers, soldiers' caps and belts. More frightful still was the sight of which Bent had just a glimpse as he entered the gateway of the _pa_.