“A double-barrel thunders, discharged from the interior of the house, a bullet knocks through Alexander’s brain, and he drops backward. The doorway was now completely chocked with the two bodies. My men dragged away Alexander, and, after firing five shots of my revolver quickly into the corner from which I had heard the last report, I dragged the 65th man out of the door myself. At that moment, also, one of my men got shot in the hip—a fine young fellow, John Ballender. He staggered forward and dropped, never more to rise, though he lingered for months in hospital. (Note.—A Canadian by birth, by profession a surgeon, he served as a private with me. An excellent shot, and brave to a fault. I had known him first at Mauku. His comrades have erected a handsome marble slab over his grave at Queen’s Redoubt.) “I now debated within myself whether the rush might not be renewed, as the door was clear now; but I saw that my men, even, had had enough of it, and were pointing significantly and triumphantly to the flames that now commenced to lap over from the nearest burning whare to the fatal and now fated house. What the feelings of the inmates of that doomed fortress must have been passes almost the power of imagination. They must have heard by this time the crackling of the approaching fire; they must have felt the heat already. Could human nature hold out any longer in resistance? “No! Behold, one man, in a white blanket, quickly steps from the door and approaches the fatal circle at some distance from us. He holds up his arms to show himself unarmed; he makes a gesture of surrender; he is an old-looking man. “‘Spare him! Spare him!’ is shouted by all the officers and most of my men. But some ruffians—and some men blinded by rage at the loss of comrades, perhaps—fired at the Maori. “The expression of that Maori’s face, his attitude on receiving the first bullet, is now as vivid before my mind’s eye as when my heart first sickened over that sight. When the first shots struck him he smiled a sort of sad and disappointed smile; then, bowing his head, and staggering already, he wrapped his blanket over his face, and, receiving his death bullets without a groan, dropped quietly to the ground. (Note.—Had all the men been with their regiments—that is to say, had had their own officers near them—this would not have happened. In that promiscuous crowd no one knew who one belonged to.) “The flames now caught the roof. Could there be another being yet in that house of death? The roaring sound of approaching destruction inside the house, the certainty of death outside! What man can bear such wrath of fate? “Behold! There is one such man! Like an apparition he suddenly stands in front of the door—stands bolt upright—and fires his last two shots at us. Defiance flashes from his eyes even as he sinks under a shower of bullets.