Te Kepa therefore took every precaution, each of which I noted carefully, Mr Roach being kind enough to explain their _raison d’être_. He also told the chief that I was not only a well-born rangitera (gentleman), the descendant of war chiefs, but was in my humble position so as to acquire the wisdom and knowledge of war, whereupon Te Kepa was good enough to take great interest in me, presented me to his principal warriors, and instructed his men to look after me as I was his guest. This Mr Roach informed me with a laugh was better than taking out a life policy, as the natives hold themselves responsible for the safety of their guests, so they would take the greatest care of me, and that, even should I unhappily come to grief, my remains would be carried off at any cost, for to allow a guest to be turned into long pig would be the greatest disgrace that could befall the tribe. Long before daylight next morning we were on the move, and it was simply wonderful how we slipped through the silent bush without a sound. I could no more have walked through that pitchy darkness under the trees and through the tangled shrubs by myself, much less have moved in a straight line, than I could have flown, but in accordance with Te Kepa’s orders I was attended by four huge savages, one of whom led each of us, the one attending to me sometimes even placing my feet so as to prevent my tripping over obstacles I could not see. After a sharp march which, for all I knew, we might have made alone, my attendant suddenly halted, pulling me down behind a big tree-root. What made him do so I knew not. I had not heard so much as a twig snap, not a whisper had passed along the line of invisible skirmishers, and why he had come to such a dead stop I could not divine, except it was some subtle instinct that warned him there was danger ahead, or that by some extraordinary system of transmission of thought his chief could convey his wishes to his men. Whatever the reason may have been, there we stuck until a dim twilight penetrated to our lurking-place, when I indistinctly saw we were close to the edge of the bush, which here ran out into an open glade some one hundred and fifty yards across, on the far side of which it began again. All of a sudden, without a word of orders, my mentor rose, beckoning me to do the same, and we emerged from the bush simultaneously with the rest of the party, when in a moment the glade that had been deserted before was filled with a long line of men clothed in belts, pouches and a few feathers, devil a rag else, in extended order, looking, as Egan subsequently remarked, “like a regimint on bathing parade,” but it showed how wonderfully the natives had kept their line and how exact pre-given orders or instinct had guided them.