Presently they give way and bolt, but we pursue just as fast as they fly, and reach the top rather breathless, but mighty adjacent to their shirt tails. Here they turn and try to make a stand, but without a pause we fly at them like a pack of wild dogs at a flock of sheep, and in less than five minutes they are driven across the summit of the ridge, and disperse on the far side, a broken, beaten, dispirited mob of fugitives, while we white men sit down and laugh, and our bould allies vent their superfluous energy in a blood-curdling war dance in which the heads of the defunct Hau Haus are passed from hand to hand like footballs. This fight, Te Pononga, insignificant as it may appear, was yet of tremendous importance, although at the moment we were quite unaware of the fact, but we ascertained shortly afterwards that the celebrated Waikato war chief, Rewi, with six hundred warriors, had been spectators of the whole action. It seems that Rewi and his men had come to join Te Kooti, but had jibbed, as one of the lately tortured scouts had been a close blood relation to some of the most influential Waikato chiefs. This rift, however, had been nearly closed by Te Kooti’s wonderful art of persuasion, who also braggingly prophesied that at his next fight he would utterly defeat the white man. Thereupon Rewi made the agreement that if he proved himself to be a true prophet then he, Rewi, would join forces with the Hau Haus and assist them in driving the white men to perdition. Te Kooti therefore selected his ground (a great point in Maori warfare), went through all the Hau Hau ritual and uncanny incantations, danced the Pai Marire, wound his warriors up to their extreme height of fanaticism, and then sent a braggart message to Rewi ordering him to come and look on at his splendid victory. Rewi came, but when, instead of looking on at the victory, he saw the boasting prophet with his whole gang of scallywags driven off the chosen field in headlong flight he quietly packed his grip-sack, and without beat of drums returned to the Waikato, where he informed H.M. King Potatau that Te Kooti was a humbug as a prophet, and no great shakes as a fighting man, so Waikato sat tight and left white man and Hau Hau to fight it out alone, which was a deucedly lucky thing for us. The following day, as we were ready to start in pursuit, the Colonel received a message from Kepa asking him not to fight again until his arrival, as he was bringing with him seventy renowned warriors, and that he was most anxious to take part in the next action. This was indeed good news, as it would give us seventy trustworthy men in whom the Colonel could place the most implicit reliance, and would also enable him to dispense with the services of some of the least warlike of the friendlies, who were now beginning to give a lot of trouble, especially the Napier Maoris under Renata Kawepo.