It was now Colonel Whitmore’s intention to blow up this parapet, and with a rush take the main work at daylight. Our party were also ordered to hold themselves in readiness for a last effort, and we knew something serious must happen, as that evening the enemy had made a most determined attack on us, which we had had great difficulty in beating off, and we also knew that they must be now not only short of water but also very short of food, as the bodies of the dead Hau Haus plainly showed they were on the shortest rations, while as the rain had quite cleared off they must be famished with thirst. All that night we sat with our weapons in our hands, silently awaiting the dawn, but about two A.M. a woman in the pah, having relations among the Ngatiporou, called out telling them that Te Kooti had escaped. This her people would not believe, as every man of the field force was at his post and on the qui vive, so, thinking it might be a trap, they called to her to come out. To this she demurred, refusing to budge until her safety was guaranteed by some chief of repute. Eventually this was done, when out she came, her story being that all the unwounded Maoris had escaped, leaving their disabled men, the women and children behind them. As day dawned we advanced cautiously into the interior of the pah, and found her yarn to be true; but we also plainly saw that had we made an attempt to rush the place we should most probably have been beaten back with great loss. The Ngatiporou quickly finished off the wounded men, and then, at Rapata’s suggestion, started off in pursuit of the fugitives, who, as we ascertained, had been three days without water and four days without food of any sort, and were therefore not likely to be able to travel fast over such rough and broken country. The way the bounders had escaped was truly marvellous, as they had descended the face of the precipice, and that so silently as not to have been heard by the pickets posted at either end of it, these pickets being not more than sixty yards apart. It was not long before small parties of the Ngatiporou began to return, bringing batches of prisoners back with them, the latter being brought at once before Rapata, a stern judge, forsooth. Few and brief were the questions he asked them, and they received a short shrift and a long drop, as they were placed by squads at the edge of the highest precipice, when they were shot, their bodies toppling over and falling to the foot, and there their bones lie to the present day.