“Have you taken the place?” queried the chief. “No,” replied the Colonel, “I want you to help me.” “I will be with you to-morrow morning,” responded Rapata, and the interview terminated. The Ngatiporou at once broke camp and advanced, making a short halt at the Wharekopai River, where, to see that everything was all right, they danced a gaudy war dance, and as no one tumbled down during the ceremony the tribal tohunga and prophet declared that everything was all right and that the expedition would be successful. Thoroughly satisfied with this propitious announcement, and perhaps more so with themselves, they pushed on rapidly and joined up the same night. The position of Ngatapa was by nature a very strong one, a high conical peak rising abruptly amidst heavily bushed hills, the face fronting our camp sloping gradually up to the summit, but the sides of the slope, although surmountable in some places, were not so in others, especially in one place, where it was so precipitous as to be quite unnegotiable, the side of the hill having slipped away, leaving a perpendicular precipice of rock quite seventy feet high, and this was the spot where the enemy eventually escaped. The ground in rear of the pah narrowed into a razor-backed indented ridge, the formation of which was gigantic steps, only to be descended by rope ladders, and down the ridge ran a path by which the Hau Haus hoped to escape, if driven to do so, but the path was at once blocked by our men, although for the time being we did not make use of it as a way to attack. The front slope of the position, in fact the only one possible to march up, was defended by three lines of stoutly built earthworks with ditches in front of them and trenches in rear of them in which the defenders could take cover. Their flanks resting on the precipitous sides of the slope prevented them from being turned, while every particle of cover in front of them had been scarped away. The two lower parapets were over seven feet high, but the upper one was at least fourteen feet, being pierced with sand-bagged loopholes, and was indeed a most formidable work. All these lines were connected by covered ways, and altogether it was what it looked, a most imposing fortification with its parapets rising one above the other on the steep slope and growing narrower as the ridge contracted. Yes, imposing it looked, in fact impregnable, or only to be taken with an immense loss of life, but it had, like most Maori pahs, one sad defect, it contained no water. This would have been no drawback in old-time Maori warfare, as it had never been the custom of the chivalrous sportsmen-like savages to prevent the women from leaving a besieged pah for the purpose of obtaining food and water. “For,” said the old-time cannibal warrior, “how can a man’s heart be strong, and how can he fight well, should he be famished for want of sustenance?”