"Titokowaru heard it," say the Maoris; "and when the war began, and he became a fighting chief, he did as Potatau would have done--he fought his enemy in the forest, and slew him there, and ate his flesh for food. And, as Potatau had predicted, it was many a year before the war was ended--and even then Titokowaru was never caught." CHAPTER XVII SKIRMISHING AND FORT-BUILDING Te Ngutu-o-te-Manu abandoned--On the march again--Skirmishing on the Patea--_Pakeha_ in pickle--A new stockade--Bent the _pa_-builder. The famous "Bird's-Beak" _pa_, made so memorable by the terrible scenes enacted around and within its stockade, was soon deserted. Titokowaru, not long after the Hauhau victory and the savage rites narrated in the last chapter, issued an order that the village must be evacuated, and a new position selected for a bush-fort in which to withstand the attack that must inevitably be delivered against him by the Government. So one day the whole of the inhabitants of the Te Ngutu-o-te-Manu--men, women, and children, and the solitary white man--having gathered together their belongings, marched out of their village and tramped away through the bush eastwards. The armed men of the _Tekau-ma-rua_ preceded them, to make sure that the way was clear of the _pakeha_ enemy. At the village of Turangaréré and at Taiporohenui they dwelt for a while, and the warriors scouted out day after day in the vicinity of the European redoubts. A little skirmishing occurred; some shots were fired at the Turuturu-Mokai redoubt, now re-garrisoned, and a sniping party amused themselves, with the Manawapou Camp as a target. Before very long Bent and his companions were once more on the move, swagging through the bush to the Patea Valley. The scene of war was now to be the Lower Patea and the Waitotara, whence Titokowaru, it was believed, intended to raid the town of Wanganui. For some weeks Titoko and his Hauhaus camped in the Oruatihi _pa_. Then they shifted to Otoia, near the banks of the Patea, where they built a redoubt, from which they could fire into the European position at Manutahi. The fortification was finished in a day and a night, all hands, men and women, toiling at it, Bent amongst them. Some dug the trenches with their spades, some carried earth in flax baskets, and others piles of flax and fern, with which they built up the parapets.