"He is a man who would have made a great field-marshal in any other country. Very calm--generally, that is--looking always to the future; slow in making up his mind, never changing it afterwards. He decided many years ago that the religion of England and her laws were those for him and his tribe to adopt, and in war or peace he has never swerved from that policy." "You said something about his being calm nearly always? Is he sometimes the contrary?" "He is usually most dignified; but he can be terrible when really aroused. It is an old story now, but he once shot a native dead before his own friends and relations because he had helped to kill a white man treacherously." "Indeed, that was judicial severity in earnest. How did it come about?" "In this way. The natives at Whakatane first of all 'cut out' and burned a vessel called the _Haws_, or _Haweis_, killing part of the crew. They were headed by a chief called Ngarara, or 'the reptile'-- not so very unlike his namesake, our friend. He, however, was shot by a Ngapuhi chief from the deck of the _New Zealander_, a vessel sent from the Bay of Islands, to make an example of him. The tribe went to Hicks Bay, and, taking the pah there, at Wharekahika, captured two Europeans; one they killed, the other was rescued by a passing ship. A Ngapuhi native took part in the murder; he was then visiting at Whakatane, but lived with his wife at Tauranga. Waka Nene was on the beach at Maungatapu when this native returned. He advanced towards him and delivered a speech, _taki_-ing, or pacing up and down, Maori-fashion, while the other natives sat around. 'Oh,' he said, 'you're a pretty fellow to call yourself a Ngapuhi! Do they murder pakehas in that manner? What makes you steal away to kill pakehas? Had the pakeha done you any harm, that you killed him? There! that is for your work,' he said, as he suddenly stopped short and shot the native dead, in the midst of his friends. It was bold and rash, but all New Zealand knew him then and long after as the friend of the pakehas." "That was true Jedwood justice, which used to be described as 'hang first and try afterwards,' but from his point of view it was the just vengeance of the law." "It seemed cruel," said Erena, who had told with flashing eye and heightened colour this tale of the "wrath of a king." "But little was thought of the poor white man killed by a stranger to the tribe for an act with which he had nothing to do, and perhaps had never heard of. What the Ngapuhi suffered for was, that if he had belonged to Ngarara's tribe his act would have been justified, as _utu_ (proper vengeance). It was for mixing himself up with the blood-feud of another tribe that Waka Nene killed him; and his people saw the justice of it, and did not interfere."