When our friends were comforting themselves with the belief that perhaps the dragging and unsatisfactory war was near its termination, how little they were aware of the decisive engagement ahead of them--the very next in succession, as it turned out, when the 43rd was fated to lose more officers than any of the regiments engaged at Waterloo! A crushing repulse, followed by a disastrous rout and the death of their gallant colonel! With what indignation would they have repelled such a suggestion! It was destined to come to pass, nevertheless. That two of the speakers would be dangerously wounded, and the other at death's door--"reported missing," besides? Long was it before the soldiers of the gallant regiment, which had won glory on many a bloody field, could endure an allusion to the Gate Pah, a name which always brought up memories of bitter grief and shame intolerable. It was a case of "threes about"--those simple, apparently meaningless words, spoken by chance or otherwise--which clouded the well-earned fame of a gallant cavalry regiment in India, and caused the death of their colonel by his own hand. And in the memorable disaster at the Gate Pah, in the moment of victory, it is alleged that the ominous word, to a British ear, of "Retreat!" was distinctly heard. Orakau fight was over. The dead were buried. The women were still mingling blood with their tears for those who would never more defy the pakeha or their hereditary enemies. But the national war-spirit was alive and redly glowing. Many of the Ngaiterangi and other natives had gone from Hawkes Bay to Tauranga, indignant at the blockade of the coast. Major Whitmore, as a counter-stroke, raised a contingent from among the friendly natives, confident of their willingness to fight anybody and anywhere. His opinion did not long lack confirmation. The Ngaiterangi speedily changed position, building a strong pah at Puke-hina-hina, long afterwards memorable as the Gate Pah, so named from its peculiar situation on a narrow ridge with a swamp at each end. It was about three miles from the mission station at Tauranga. Here the insurgents proposed to await the attack. Not unused to the rules of war, they sent a protocol (March 28) to the colonel in command, announcing that unarmed persons, or even soldiers who turned the butt of their muskets or the hilt of their swords to the enemy, would be spared. This resolve was fated to stand them in good stead. On the 21st of April, General Cameron transferred his headquarters to Tauranga. "'Quem Jupiter vult perdere dementat prius,'" spouted Massinger, who saw an opening for a classical quotation as, soon after daybreak on the 29th, the guns and mortars, placed in position overnight, opened fire in front. "What possible chance do they think they have against a park of artillery and nearly two thousand men?"