"Yes, and if any one attempts to touch the white man, he will have to kill me too! Kill me and Titokowaru! Who will dare it? Come on, come on!"
Thereafter Bent was not molested. He went by his new name, and "Ringiringi" he was called no more; at any rate, not by Titokowaru's tribe.
The "Bird's-Beak" soon received its baptism of blood and fire. Colonel McDonnell, with a force of about three hundred Armed Constabulary and volunteers, under Majors von Tempsky and Hunter, attacked the _pa_ on August 21, 1868. The whites charged right into the village under a heavy fire, and the Maoris fled to the bush, losing several killed.
Bent, fortunately for himself, was not in the _pa_; he had gone over to the Turangaréré settlement, a few miles away, to procure gunpowder and paper for the manufacture of cartridges, and most of the other men were out cattle-shooting in the bush. Titokowaru retired to his praying-house when the firing began, and sat there muttering incantations, and it was only with great difficulty that he was persuaded by his people to leave the _wharé_ and retire. The great house was set fire to by Colonel McDonnell when the _pa_ was captured, and the sacred _wharé-kura_, where the high-priest had so often exhorted his people and with enchanted _taiaha_ told off the warriors of the _Tekau-ma-rua_, was soon a mass of flames. The Government troops lost four men killed and eight wounded in the engagement. Most of these casualties occurred in the march back to Waihi, which became a heavy rear-guard action, for the main body of the Hauhaus came up in time to attack the troops briskly as they retired through the thick bush. Then they drew off and returned to their half-demolished _pa_, to weep over their dead and the ashes of their great _wharé-kura_ and rebuild their ruined homes.
The troops had placed a number of hand-grenades, small shells filled with powder, in the thatch of the _wharés_ when they fired the village; but some of the houses were not destroyed, and on the return of the Hauhaus, they found some of these grenades unexploded. The dangerous shells were given to Bent to handle. He pulled out the fuses--which the Maoris called _wiki_, or wicks--and emptied the precious powder into flasks. In this way a sufficient quantity of powder to make eighteen gun-cartridges was obtained from each hand-grenade.