"Dog of a murderer, coward and slave besides," said the chief, as, halting on the brink, the guards awaited his signal--"a disgrace to the tribe which never was known to flee! Did Erena show fear when the bullet pierced her breast? Did the pakeha soldier shriek like the night owl when thy traitor's bullet struck his back--his back, I say, and he with thee in the same battle against the Ngaiterangi at Peke-hina? Did the pakeha girl, the white Rangatira, or the Mikonaree cry for mercy when Kereopa was ready to commence the torture? It is not fitting for thee to die the death of a warrior or a soldier. A coward's death, a slave's, a cur's, is thy only fitting end. Such, and no other, shalt thou have." He motioned with his hand. A yell which made the deeps and hollows resound came from the unhappy wretch, as his captors lifted him on high and raised him for a moment above the Dantean abyss. As the miserable traitor fell from their grasp, he seized in his teeth the mat (_purere_) of the nearest man, who, but for the prompt action of his comrade, might have been dragged with him into the inferno. But that wary warrior, with lightning quickness, struck such a blow on the nape of his neck with the back of the tomahawk hanging to his wrist with a leather thong, that he fell forward, nerveless and quivering, into the hell cauldron beneath. For one moment he emerged, with a face expressive of unutterable anguish, madness, and despair, then raising his fettered arms to the level of his head, fell backward into the depths of the raging and impure weaves. * * * * * "_Tutua-kuri-mokai!_" said the chief, as he gave the signal for return, and sauntered carelessly homeward. "He will cost nothing for burial. There are others that are fitting themselves for the same place." * * * * * Cyril Summers with his family returned to England, rightly judging that, in the present state of Maori feeling, it was unfair to expose his wife to the risk of a repetition of the horrors from which they had escaped. Hypatia accompanied them, unwilling to forsake her friend, whose state of health, weakened by their terrible experiences, rendered her companionship indispensable. On reaching England the Reverend Cyril was offered an incumbency in the diocese of his beloved bishop, now of Lichfield, in the peaceful performance of the duties of which he has found rest for his troubled spirit. His wife's health was completely re-established. Without in any way derogating from the importance of his work among the heathen, which, after having reached so encouraging a stage, had been ruthlessly arrested, he arrived at the conclusion that he had a worthy and hardly less difficult task to perform in the conversion of the heathen in the Black Country. His bishop acknowledged privately with regret that their savages, though not less truculent, were devoid of many of the redeeming qualities of the Maori heathen.