A BATTLE IN THE FOREST; AND THE DEATH OF VON TEMPSKY
The second fight at Te Ngutu-o-te-Manu--Titokowaru's prophecy--Tutangé and his sacred war-mat--Bent's narrow escape--Government forces defeated--How von Tempsky fell--A terrible retreat--Colonial soldiers' gallant rear-guard fight.
Early one warm spring afternoon in 1868, when the vast forest lay steeped in calm and Taranaki's sentry-peak rose like a great ivory tent out of the soft blue haze that bathed its spreading base, the sharp, cracking sound of rifle-shots broke the quiet of the wilderness.
The shots came from the mountain side of "The Beak-of-the-Bird," the opposite one to that by which the white troops had advanced the previous month. Te Ngutu-o-te-Manu was being taken in the rear this time. Colonel McDonnell had set out from the Waihi Redoubt before daylight in the morning, with a force of about two hundred and sixty whites, composed of three divisions of Armed Constabulary (many of them ex-Forest Rangers), the newly joined Wellington Rifles and Rangers, and a few veteran volunteers, besides about a hundred _Kupapas_, the friendly Maoris from the Whanganui and Ngati-Apa tribes under Kepa te Rangihiwinui. Fording the swift Wai-ngongoro River (the "Waters-of-Snoring"), the Colonel's force, guided by the woman Takiora, marched through the native village of Mawhitiwhiti, which was found deserted, then turned into the dense forest, searching for the Hauhau stronghold, which was now reported to be at Te Rua-ruru ("The Owl's Nest"), situated somewhere in the rear of Te Ngutu-o-te-Manu. A disastrous search, for it ended under the palisades of the "Bird's-Beak," the savage beak that closed savagely on many a gallant _pakeha_ before the sun went down in the western sea that day.
McDonnell had hoped by his early start to take the Hauhaus by surprise. But wary old Titokowaru was seldom caught napping.
On the previous night--as the old warrior Tutangé Waionui tells me--Titokowaru gathered all his men in the big house (_wharé-kura_), which had now been rebuilt. Then, when the Hauhau prayers and chants were over, the chief arose and cried:
"_E Koro ma, kia tupato! He po kino te po, he ra kino te ra!_" ("O friends, be on your guard! This is an evil night--a night of danger, and the morrow will be a day of danger!")