“No, they had danced no war dance to excite their courage, nor had they indulged in incantations to save themselves from wounds or death, but they looked like men who, having a hard task before them, meant to see it through. They had come to exact utu and they received it. “Well, friend, the soldiers advanced in the most perfect order, and, when about fifty fathoms or less from us, at the sound of a bugle, began to run, not tumultuously, but each man in his place, while we looked along the barrels of our muskets, and with beating hearts awaited the order to fire. This at last came and the thunder of our volley rumbled among the hills, but it was at that same moment the Atua (God or spirit) of the soldiers stood by and protected them. It happened in this way: about ten fathoms in front of our advanced line of rifle pits there was a natural declivity in the ground, the sides of which sloped gently, though the depth of it was perhaps four feet, and just as we received the order and fired the volley, the soldiers stepped into this declivity, so that our storm of bullets, instead of strewing the ground with dead and wounded men, went howling over their heads and injured not one of them. Oh, but the mana of the soldiers was very strong that day. We had no time to reload, nor even had the men with tuparas time to fire their second shot, for with the roar of a mighty wave bursting over a sunken reef, a long line of soldiers rushed through the smoke and flung themselves on us. “Oh, ye boys, whose fathers all fell at Te Ranga, and who, with us few who survived, had among ourselves derided the fighting power of the soldiers, take heed and remember my word to you. If at war with the soldiers fight them in the bush or keep behind the strong fences of your pahs, but never, my children, let the soldiers of the Great White Queen, when they have fixed their long knives on their muskets, get so near to you as to fight chest to chest, for if you do so, your wives will soon become widows and your children orphans. “Yes, oh friend, without a pause those white soldiers flung themselves upon us, their long knives stabbing deep, so that we fell like children before the fire of their wrath. I, as I have before related, had been posted in the advance line of pits, and having fired my musket was trying to reload it when the soldiers burst through the smoke, but before I could handle a cartridge, a white rangatera sprang on me, nor did he come ceremoniously, for he came head first, which may be the custom of the white rangatera so to do when charging an enemy, for in the act of coming he ran me through the shoulder with his sword and we both fell to the bottom of the trench.