Now the Ngati Jacks were not given to writing to the newspapers or any tommy-rot of that sort. They were men of action; they would right their own wrongs and teach the miserable ink-slinging stool-polisher decorum in their own way. They had lost a number of officers and shipmates, and it was through no fault of theirs that, after the Tommies had fallen back, they had not been allowed to take the place and finish up the job ship-shape and Bristol fashion. Well, a short time after the disaster the ships anchored in Auckland Harbour, and in due course of time liberty was given to one watch from each ship to go on shore; and no sooner had they landed than some five hundred of them paraded of their own accord, and marched quietly through the streets of Auckland until they came to the one in which the newspaper office was located. Nor had they come without suitable arguments, for they had brought with them a huge hawser and two gigantic snatch-blocks. Now the editor’s house and office were, like all the other buildings in Auckland, constructed of wood. It was an imposing two-storeyed edifice, and on the bluejackets reaching it they quietly placed strong pickets at both ends of the street, made fast the blocks to old cannons sunk into the ground, passed the hawser through the editor’s upper windows, and then, with one hundred men tailing on at each end of the bit of string, delivered their protest and ultimatum. The latter was short, sweet and significant. Either the editor must print at once an ample apology and own up he had lied, or down would come his whole bag of tricks. There was no time given for palaver; there was the hawser, there Jack stood in orderly array, there stood the bos’n’s mates, whistle to lip, and the thoroughly cowed editor caved in at once. Orders were quickly given, and the smartest piece of type-setting and printing ever accomplished in New Zealand was carried out. Soon sheafs of paper bills, still wet from the press, were handed out and showered from the windows, and then the Ngati Jacks, having received the _amende honorable_, withdrew the hawser, and, thoroughly satisfied with the utu they had obtained, retired themselves to more convivial pursuits, while the still trembling editor recorded a solemn oath that for the future he would curb his poetic licence, at least so far as her Majesty’s navy was concerned. [Illustration: KEREOPA.] CHAPTER II TE KOOTI And now I must tell you something about that bounder, Te Kooti.