We fell back slowly, as, although no one was badly wounded, still some of the boys had corners chipped off, and we parted with our friends the enemy with regret. We made for the pah, retiring over the same ground we had previously crossed, passing a strong picket of the 14th, who, with advanced sentries, outheld the edge of the bush. Our two men who had fallen in the open during our advance had already been picked up, and we were soon back at the blood-stained pah itself. I should have very much liked to have gone inside, but was unable to do so, as no sooner had we reached it than we received orders to return to camp and get ready for the next day. We therefore marched round the flank of it, getting a sight of the breach in the pekerangi, and also passed a long line of our dead comrades, whose remains we saluted with shouldered arms; then passed the wounded, among whom the doctors, with rolled-up sleeves, saws and knives were busy; and then, striking the road, slung along it at a topping pace. Missing Pierre and George I remarked the fact to Hutton. “Oh, don’t you worry yourself about them, Dick,” quoth he; “and don’t you fill yourself with mouldy biscuit. Pierre and George may not have been the first men into the pah, but I’ll bet they got a start when the looting began, and I’ll wager we shall have a good dinner to-night. As scouts, you see, they have a fairly free hand, come and go as they please.” Hutton prophesied truly, for when we reached camp there the two giddy marauders were, squatting over their pot like two disreputable he-witches, and as soon as we had cleansed our arms, refilled our pouches and washed ourselves, Pierre slung us up a dinner fit for a duke. An issue of grog that night loosened our tongues, and the fight was fought over again many times, most asserting that if the General had waited for the Kupapas not one of the enemy would have escaped; the others, among whom were the most experienced men, declaring that had the Hau Haus not been aware their retreat was open they would not have stood, and we should only have captured an empty pah; but all hands expressed their confidence in the General, their admiration for the Tommies, and agreed that the capture of Otapawa had been a well-fought action. Yes, the capture of Otapawa had been a gallantly fought action, though the escape of the bulk of the Hau Haus rendered the success almost, if not quite, nugatory, and we had lost heavily. Colonel Hassard had fallen, sword in hand, Lieutenant Swanson of the 14th was badly hurt, while the long lists of dead and wounded nearly equalled the number of dead Maoris found in the pah. Again the natives were still in force in the bush, so the victory would not enable one settler to return to his homestead, nor would it permit any cessation of the campaign, for the Maoris had many pahs and only regarded these places as a suitable battle-ground, the loss of one of them not affecting their morale in the slightest degree.