A Tense Moment.

“Now we're in for it!” said John Webster to me, quietly, and I declare he was smiling in his cool, wise old way. Well, the Maoris were not likely to fire at their old friend—but you never know. And what of the hapless riflemen with us, targets for the hidden Maoris? Not a sign of them but those bangs at us from the fern above the road-cutting. The next few moments would tell.

But not another shot was fired. A mounted Maori messenger, at peril of his life—for many a rifle was pointed at him by “rattled” recruits in Newall's column—came galloping along, Hone Toia's messenger. He was shouting to the hidden Maoris not to fire. “No fighting—no fighting! Hone Hcke is here! Don't fire!”

Indeed it was only the arrival just in the nick of time, of Mr. Hone Heke, the Ngapuhi member of Parliament, that prevented a battle in the bush that day. There was more than a touch of comic-opera in that march to page 18 page 19 Waima; but tragedy often treads on the heels of comedy; and it was only next day, and later when I explored the fern and bush above the road, and saw the log breastworks and the skilful way in which the Maoris prepared their ambuscade, that I realised how narrowly the Government column had come to real battle that day.