Both Englishmen had been wounded at different times, but so far not severely. They were commencing to feel the true fatalism of the soldier, convinced that they were invulnerable until their predestined hour. They came to be well known among the forces, with their guide, from whom they were rarely separated. With no personal interest in the matter, with no land to defend, no interest to conserve, they remained simply because they happened to be on the spot, and, coming of fighting blood, had no power to withdraw themselves from the fascination of battle, murder, and sudden death. Strange as it seemed to Massinger, they had never happened to meet Erena. They heard of her from time to time, but Mannering and his _hapu_, though always at the front, were either in another direction when they fell across the Ngapuhi contingent, or the Forest Rangers were on outpost duty. Nor was intelligence wanting of traits of heroism on her part in the numerous skirmishes and sorties of which her father was the leader. Dressed like his Maori allies, with a plume of feathers in his hair, with cartridge-pouch and waistbelt accoutred proper, wherever the fight was fiercest, high above friend and foe rose the tall form of Allister Mannering. And ever as the battle-waves surged forward, or were rolled back by superior forces, the eager, fearless face, the huntress form of Erena was seen, disdainful of danger as the fabled goddess in the Trojan war. Her chosen band of dusky maidens--relatives or near friends--accepted her guidance, and surrounded her in every engagement; many a wounded soldier or native ally had they borne from the fray, or succoured when wounded and helpless on the field. Often had they warned outlying settlers when the prowling _taua_ was approaching the unsuspecting family. Nay, it was asserted that had Erena's counsel been taken, her letter regarded, the murder of the missionary, with wife and babes, might have been averted. Sometimes near, sometimes afar, but never absolutely within speech or vision, the situation to Massinger's aroused imagination became tantalizing to such a painful degree that he felt resolved to terminate it without further delay. It is not to be supposed that he was without occasional tidings from that land of his fathers, from which, as he sometimes considered, he had hastily exiled himself. For was it not exile, in the fullest sense of the word? Œdipus in Colona was a joke to it. Was this travel-stained, over-wearied, haggard man, who trudged day by day, and often from night to dawn, through darksome woods and endless marshes, in daily risk of being "shot like a rabbit in a ride," the same Massinger of the Court, who was wont to turn out so spick and span at covert and copse?