The war-dance, with its stamps and roars, its shuddering hisses and accurate evolutions as if of one man, was drawing to a close. Already one of the foremost warriors, at a sign from Kereopa, had placed a rope round the neck of Cyril Summers, who had commenced in a final prayer to commend his soul and his loved ones to the protection of their Maker, when a shout from a number of unknown voices made the forest ring, and caused the crowd of Hau-Haus to turn their faces in that direction. At the same moment a close and well-directed volley was poured in, which laid fully one-half of them low, and wounded a much larger number. Then a man stalked calmly forward, sword in hand, whose sudden apparition created as much consternation among the Hau-Haus as if he had been a Destroying Angel specially commissioned for their extirpation. One look at the stern features and martial form of him who stood calm and unmoved amid the pattering hail of bullets, with which the Hau-Haus strove to return the fire, was sufficient for most of the Pai Marire. With a wild cry of "Ropata Waha Waha!" which came tremulously from their lips, they fled in all directions in a state of the most abject terror. And well might they or other rebels take panic at the sight of him who stood exposed to danger, both from friends and foes, as though the thick-flying bullets were thistledown. The hostile tribes were fully of opinion that he bore a charmed life, that no shot had power to harm him, probably in consequence of Satanic influence. Hence his _sobriquet_ of Waha Waha was strangely suggestive of an unholy alliance between the Prince of Darkness and the cool strategist and remorseless warrior, to whom fear and mercy were alike unknown. A target for the best marksmen in a hundred fights, himself chiefly unarmed, he had never received a wound or spared an enemy. As he stood there, with an expression of scorn and concentrated rage upon his expressive features, with dripping sword and blazing eyes, he might well have stood for a portrait of an avenging angel, or indeed Azrael, the minister of Death, in all his lurid majesty. Kereopa and his principal followers, who had fled at the first onset, probably thought that they had a fair chance of escape. But Ropata, with his usual astuteness, had formed a cordon around the Hau-Hau band, into which the surprised natives ran, only to find themselves shot down or captured. Among the latter were eleven members of his own tribe, the Aowera. Of these he proceeded to make an example upon the spot. Calling them out of the group of captives by name, he thus addressed them-- "You are about to die. I do not kill you because you are found in arms against the pakehas. But I forbade you to join the Hau-Haus. You have disobeyed me; you must now pay the penalty." Having revolvers handed to him, he then shot every man with his own hand. "Bring forward the deserter." The soldier, a man of the 57th, bound and helpless, was then led up.