The inhabitants of village after village, mission station after mission station, throwing away their Christianity, had joined the Hau Haus, but when the apostles came to Rapata’s sub-tribe he sternly bade them be gone, or he would test their invulnerability with his tomahawk. Now several of the sub-tribes of the Ngatiporou had already perverted, and some of these sought to convert Rapata by force. Rapata, however, was taking none of that, so he waltzed out of his pah, and in the faction fight that ensued he fairly knocked the stuffing out of the Nonconformists, and as a proof of his determination not to stand any nonsense he shot, with his own hand, a near relation who had been taken prisoner, not, as he was careful to explain to the delinquent, because he had fought against himself, but because he had been such a fool as to join the Hau Haus against his, Rapata’s, orders. He was the sealed pattern of the old-time Maori warrior, one who knew not fear or pity, and was just as ready to join in a hand-to-hand fight as to plan out a campaign or eat his dinner. Byron, singing about an old-time Dago pirate, described him as being the mildest-tempered man who ever cut a throat or scuttled ship. Rapata was a polished Maori gentleman who with a polite and easy nonchalance could entertain the highest colonial dignitary, tomahawk a Hau Hau, or shoot a deserter with his own rifle. He was indeed a worthy ally, for had he not made the firm stand he did the whole of the powerful tribe of Ngatiporou would have been thrown in the balance against us, and the white man must for a time have been driven out of the North Island of New Zealand. And now let me break back and try to regain my spoor. The following morning Rapata departed, still in high dudgeon, and the Colonel, selecting four scouts, sent them to find out whether or not Ngatapa had been deserted, although why Te Kooti should have deserted it was beyond my wisdom. The men he selected for the work, although good enough fighting men, were not trained scouts, nor had they ever been employed at that fascinating though dangerous game before. However, off they went while we rested in camp. That afternoon, while lolling on my mi-mi with Roach, I heard a voice hail Tim, who was making ready our supper: “Here, Tim, old shipmate, where’s the skipper? Lay us alongside of him, me hearty.” And in two skips of a jumping cat I found my hand enveloped and crushed in the enormous fist of old Jack Williams, while a moment afterwards Pierre de Feugeron and Kantuarius were salaaming in front of us, Pierre showing his white teeth, shrugging his shoulders and gesticulating as only a Southern Frenchman can, while the Greek expressed his satisfaction at meeting Roach and myself again by jabbering and grinning like a demented Cheshire cat. They had come to the east coast with McDonnell in 1867, and had remained there, Jack in charge of a boat, the other two doing odd jobs in scouting.