I have stated that Colonel Hassard fell while leading on his men. Well, the same night a yarn was started, how, or by whom, the Lord only knows, but it ran like wildfire through the camp, and was implicitly believed, that the man who picked him off was Kimball Bent, an infamous deserter from the 57th. This yarn, like many another lie, such as the “Up Guards and at them” of the Iron Duke, the sinking of the _Revenge_, and numberless other picket-line stories, crept into history and is believed by the masses, but in this case the fact remains that the tribe who harboured K. Bent, Esq., were not present in the action at all, and it is therefore most improbable that the aforesaid scoundrel had any hand in the gallant officer’s death. Incredible as it may appear to home-staying people, there were soldiers capable not only of breaking their oaths and deserting their colours but also of joining the enemy, even when such an enemy should be bloodthirsty, fanatic savages reeking with the blood of slaughtered white women and children. Yet such was the case, and several of H.M. soldiers did so; among others this villain, Kimball Bent. This man was an Irish American who had enlisted in the grand old Diehards, in which corps he worked in the armourer’s shop, being, moreover, one of the best shots in the regiment. Having committed a crime he was tried by court-martial, Colonel Hassard being president, convicted and punished, whereupon he deserted and joined the Hau Haus. Well the yarn went round that he had shot Colonel Hassard, and had he fallen into the hands of his countrymen his end would have been a very rough one, for anyhow he had fought against his own regiment, a crime never forgiven by a British Tommy; so it would have mattered but little whether he had shot Colonel Hassard or not. He was never taken prisoner, but for all that came to a bad end, as Nemesis was on his track, and his punishment was heavier even than it would have been had he fallen into the clutches of his enraged comrades. On his desertion he had joined the Ngatiruanui tribe, whose fighting chief, Titokowaru, a fanatic and bloodthirsty Hau Hau, was the white man’s bitterest enemy on the west coast, and who on more than one occasion defeated us. As Bent was an armourer, and very useful to the natives, he was at first well treated, and there is no doubt he fought against his flag and late comrades with such savage courage as to make a great reputation among the natives as a high-toned fighting man. But he must have always been in mortal dread of his ferocious protector, as he continually wrote letters, which he contrived to leave about so that they should fall into our hands, bewailing his fate and begging for mercy.