From Hypatia's eyes there fell no tears. An intense and glowing lustre seemed to burn in her deep blue eyes, as she gazed into the distance, as one who sees what is hid from ordinary mortals. One could fancy her a virgin martyr in the days of Nero, receiving her summons to the arena. Unquestioning faith, dauntless courage, and an almost divine pity, made radiant her countenance as she looked on Mary Summers and her sleeping children. "I am not afraid of what man can do to us," she said softly. "The God whom we serve has power to deliver us in this dread hour. Did not Erena say that a body of the Ngapuhi men were marching on the track of the Hau-Hau band? 'Oh, rest in the Lord, and He will give thee thy heart's desire.' As her sweet voice rose, and the beautiful words of Mendelssohn's immortal work resounded through the room, a ray of hope illumined the forlorn household, as with a final hand-clasp all retired to their couches, though not to sleep." CHAPTER XVI The hour before dawn, when "deep sleep falls upon men," found the whole household wrapped in that slumber which was the natural outcome of an anxious and exciting day. But the quick loud bark of an angry dog, subsiding into a sustained suspicious growl, and joined to a woman's scream from the camp of their native adherents, told Cyril Summers that the enemy was at hand. A confused murmur of voices, the trampling of feet, with the ordinary indefinable accompaniments of a body of men, aroused the sleepers with startling suddenness. Mrs. Summers and Hypatia, like women on a sinking ship, displayed unwonted courage. Dressing themselves and the wondering children in haste, they joined Mr. Summers in the living-room of the cottage at the same moment that it was filled by an excited crowd of the wildest natives which any of the party had ever seen. The leader, a ferocious-looking Maori, whom Mr. Summers had no difficulty in recognizing as Kereopa, advanced with threatening air towards him; but, seeing that the missionary had no weapon, nor apparently the wish or means to defend himself, he halted abruptly. Behind him stood a crowd of natives, the greater part of whom had advanced into the room, while others could be seen through the open door between the cottage and the outbuildings. Looking more closely in order to discover if by chance there were among them any of his former servants, Mr. Summers saw, to his horror and disgust, a white man. This renegade, dead to every feeling of manhood, a deserter from his regiment, was one of those abandoned wretches to be found in all new countries, who, associating with savages, encourage them in outrage and rapine. Outcasts from their race, aware that a speedy death by bullet or halter awaits them on capture, they have always been noted as the most remorseless foes of their own people.