The following morning Hare Tauteka, one of the friendly chiefs, turned up at the Colonel’s hut in a great state of mind, reporting that four of his scouts had been cut off, tortured and killed. This was decidedly unpleasant though, alas! by no means uncommon news. Scouts did at times get captured, and the Hau Haus, especially Te Kooti, had a nasty way of entertaining their captives. Still this news required verifying, as it was unusual for the whole of a patrol of scouts to be captured, one or more as a rule managing to scrape clear. The Colonel therefore asked Hare how he had received the information, whereupon he replied that his scouts should have joined up two days previously, and that no hope of their safety could be entertained for a single moment, as his pet prophetess had dreamed a dream that they had been captured, tortured and killed. The Colonel demanded to see the lady, who with her son was trotted up, and two more loathsome objects could not be imagined. The old dame was so hideous and unsightly that she would have afforded a gang of godly Puritans exquisite delight to torture and burn as a witch; while the son, who suffered from some horrible form of leprosy, appeared to be falling to pieces. Notwithstanding the old faggot’s homeliness she was gifted with a most eloquent tongue, for no sooner had she appeared than she started in and prophesied a whole hurricane. Moreover, there was no Delphic ambiguity in her statements, as she stoutly asserted and maintained that the four scouts had been captured alive, tortured to death, and that their remains had then been thrown into a certain swamp, the name of which she mentioned. Now of course we white men were inclined to laugh and ridicule the whole yarn, but refrained from doing so, as we should have deeply offended the superstitious Maoris, so, like the sailor’s parrot, we thought profoundly, but said nothing. The following day Captain McDonnell, with Kepa’s advance-guard, joined up, and he reported that he had been informed by some semi-friendly natives that Te Kooti had captured four of our scouts, tortured them to death, and ordered their remains to be thrown into a certain swamp. Upon hearing this news the Colonel despatched a strong patrol of mounted men to search the place, and there, sure enough, we found the poor fellows’ remains, which, from the treatment they had evidently been subjected to before death mercifully put an end to their sufferings, showed us plainly that the damned Hau Haus had spared no torment that devils could invent or fiends inflict. The old Witch of Endor was now very cock-a-hoop, as her lucky dream sent up her scrip many points on the market, and her name resounded through the field force as being quite a first-class, high-toned, up-to-date and always to be relied upon dreamer of dreams and seer of visions, in fact a puka old-time witch that all respectable elderly Maori fighting men must needs give ear to.