The chief’s advice was as follows:--“We are here without the Hau Haus suspecting us, but we ourselves are ignorant what sort of a pah we have to attack or where it is exactly situated. Now therefore let the white men, many of whom are tired, retire a short distance off into the bush, where, keeping perfectly quiet, they can lie down and rest. I will place my men in ambush along the track, so as to tomahawk any one of the enemy who may pass without noise, though I do not expect any of them to do so. Then when it is dark I and my picked scouts will go and reconnoitre the Hau Haus’ position, so that at daylight to-morrow morning we shall know what to do and fight with our eyes open.” Now there was much wisdom in this counsel, and had the Colonel followed it we should have at one blow knocked Titokowaru out of the running, but the O.C. decided otherwise, asserting the great danger we ran of the Hau Hau scouts cutting our trail, when the enemy would either clear out or prepare themselves to resist our attack. Accordingly he gave orders for us to immediately advance in the following formation:-- Te Kepa with his seventy men led the van, followed by Major Von Tempsky with one hundred white men, while the Colonel, commanding the remaining hundred white men, brought up the rear; the column to move in close order and as rapidly as possible. Te Kepa’s men had not marched more than a quarter of a mile when they came to a tent with a woman standing outside it, who directly she saw the advance-guard ran down the track screaming at the top of her voice, with a few of the friendlies in close pursuit, but they did not succeed in overtaking and despatching her before she raised a hullabaloo that would have alarmed the dead. As the pursuing natives passed the tent a man and two children jumped out, who were at once shot, though another child was saved, one of Te Kepa’s men carrying it on his back all through the subsequent engagement. The screams of the woman, together with the firing, had of course alarmed the Hau Haus; the singing of the haka at once ceased, and as there was now no possible hope of surprising them we pushed on rapidly, though with all due caution, until we came to a large clearing. Here we halted for a few minutes, while the O.C. made his final arrangements. Not a vestige of a pah was visible, nor, as a matter of fact, did any one of us catch a glimpse of the pah on that day. In front of us was a patch of dense, heavy bush containing huge trees, and we knew that somewhere among these was the lurking-place of Titokowaru. The Colonel’s orders were concise. Te Kepa was to deploy his men in extended order to the left, so as to surround the pah on that side; Von Tempsky was to execute the same movement to the right; and his own party were to advance in extended order to the front.