"Quick, quick!" he said, in a low, cautious voice. "Hide yourself, Ringi! When you walked out of the _pa_ I heard two men who were watching you say that they would follow you up and kill you as they had killed Kingi. They went to their _wharés_ for their weapons, and I followed you quickly to warn you. I saw you standing there, and climbed on this branch to see what those men are doing. _E tama!_ Conceal yourself! They are coming."
The white man hastily selected a hiding-place. He lay down behind a big log near by, a fallen _pukatea_-tree; the log and the creepers and ferns that grew about it quite concealed him from the view of any one approaching from the _pa_.
Hardly had he hidden himself than two villainous-visaged young Hauhaus walked quickly along the track from the _pa_ gateway. Both swung tomahawks as they came, and one carried at his girdle a revolver--trophy taken from some slain white officer.
Seeing Hakopa descending from his tree-perch, they stopped and asked:
"Where is the _pakeha_? Did you see him pass?"
"We have come to kill him," replied one of the men. "Where is he?"
Hakopa instantly put his cocked _tupara_ to his shoulder and levelled it at the foremost of the Hauhaus, the man with the revolver.
"_Haere atu!_" he said sharply. "Go! Leave this spot at once, or I will shoot you. 'Ringiringi' is my friend."
The old fellow's determined air quite overawed the _pakeha_-hunters, and they sulkily and silently returned to the _pa_.
Jacob watched them off, and when the white man had risen from his hiding-place he escorted him back to the _pa_, walking in front of him with his gun cocked, on the alert for any attack on his protégé. He took "Ringiringi" to his house, and then reported the affair to Titokowaru.
The chief showed genuine anger. He assembled the fighting-men, and sternly ordered them to molest the white man no more. "If you harm him," he said, "I shall leave the _pa_ and return to my own village. Listen! 'Ringiringi' is henceforth my _moko-puna_--my grandchild--and I now give him another name, the name of one of my ancestors. His name is now Tu-nui-a-moa."
And behind Titokowaru leaped up old Hakopa, a bright tomahawk in his hand. Making sharp, quick cuts in the air with his tomahawk, he cried, as he danced to and fro: