So the old fellow sulkily stepped into the stream and waded across, Bent following him, and in this order they travelled.
So they made their way homewards, striking west through the pathless forest, wading watercourses and climbing and descending hills, until they emerged on the fern country. "Ringiringi," immensely relieved, and weary beyond words, reported himself to his chief.
Rupé was furiously angry when he heard the story of the Waikato's attack on his _pakeha_.
"The _kohuru_!" he cried, as he leaped to his feet. "The murderer! I shall slay him this instant, on the _marae_, though all Waikato come down to avenge him!" And seizing an axe from the wall, he ran out in chase of "Ringiringi's" night antagonist.
The old fellow, when the chief rushed out at him like a madman, turned and fled from the village, and ran for his life until he disappeared in the shelter of the bush. Rupé did not pursue him far; his fit of anger was soon spent, and he returned to his _wharé_, and made his white man relate again, with Maori wealth of detail, the story of the eel-fishing bivouac.
"Ringiringi's" would-be slayer was never heard of again; at any rate, he did not venture back to the camp of the Hauhaus; and whether he ever succeeded in taking a _pakeha_ head in settlement of his _utu_ bill no man knows.
The war-chief Titokowaru--Ancient ceremonies and religion revived--Uenuku, the god of battle--Titokowaru's _mana-tapu_--Bent makes cartridges for the Hauhaus--A novel weapon.
The year 1867 was one of little activity amongst the Hauhaus with whom "Ringiringi" lived, except in respect of their interminable meetings and _Niu_-parades and prophesyings. Hostilities had been suspended by both sides for the time, but the temporary peace was only the prelude to the fiercest fighting of the Ten-Years' War.
The white man worked for his master Rupé all that year, digging and planting, carrying wood and water, and performing, in fact, the duties of a household slave. But it was a slavery that had its privileges and its compensations, and there were long days of abundant food and little work, in the intervals between the seasons of communal labour in the potato-fields and the periodical birding and eeling and pig-hunting expeditions.