“Leaving my interlocutors very unceremoniously, and calling on my men to follow me, I rushed up to the picket house. On the other side of the house, at a glance, I saw the state of things. A dense mass of Maoris was rushing through the scrub at the bottom of the gully on the further corner from our post. The ridge where the pa stood was enveloped in a dense mass of powder-smoke, whence the incessant firing of our troops issued as if there never would be a pause to it. “Giving hurried orders to Westrupp to watch the forest side of the picket hill, and taking Roberts with me, we went off at full speed along the ridge to cut off the Maoris whom we saw now ascending the furthest extreme of that ridge. “‘Run, men, run! Cut them off! Cut them off!’ And the Rangers bounded over the ground as if their feet had wings. “The Maoris had had a tremendous start of it, but the passage of the swamp and scrub in the bottom of the gully had delayed them somewhat. We came within shot of them, and as their long, irregular mass ascended the next rise our fire began to tell. Still we had to use the utmost exertion to keep within sight and shot of them, and would probably have lost half had not Rait with his troopers and some of the Defence Corps headed them by a daring break-neck ride across country. But the Maoris, seeing only these troopers after them, suddenly turned upon them, and from the other side of the swamp commenced to give them some ugly shots, killing in a moment two horses and wounding some of the men. Now, Rait’s troopers had only revolvers, which were utterly useless at that distance, so they began to be rather doubtful what to do with their Tartar, when the Rangers made their appearance, and the presence of their carbines became soon painfully evident to the natives. Off they started again, and now at a lesser distance they began to drop under our fire very fast; also some of them had outrun their fleetness, and, our wind and stamina beginning to tell after the first three miles, many a laggard was shot down after giving us the last desperate shot of his barrel. * * * The last natives we saw were three or four trotting along the top of a distant ridge. Signs of declining day and a bugle sounding the return made us relinquish further pursuit. On re-crossing the river we found Colonel Havelock collecting the squads of avengers. He marched them home in a body, myself remaining behind to wait for some men of mine who had not yet made their appearance. When these at last arrived I also turned my face Orakau-wards. “We followed pretty much the direction we had taken in the pursuit, and soon came upon the silent marks of it. Amongst them, however, I found one poor fellow still alive. We bandaged him the best we could, and carried him along. After getting over the next mile he expired, and we laid him to his rest. We found another one, not far off, and carried him also some distance, when he, too, gave up the ghost and left us.”