"_E tama!_" he said. "Don't you know it is unlucky to cook the _tuna_ in the night-time? Do not touch those eels until the morning; should you disobey, it will surely bring heavy rain."
The superstitious old warrior was so insistent that "Ringiringi," to please him, agreed to his wishes; he contented himself with the little he had in his kit, and then, filling his pipe with _torori_ tobacco, lit it, and smoked as he lay beside the camp-fire. His Maori mate squatted smoking on the other side.
The warmth of the fire, and the low, murmurous singing of the little river--the _wawara-wai_, the babble of the waters, in the musical Maori tongue--pleasantly lulled the tired _pakeha_. He lay there, with his scanty bush-ranging garments wrapped about him, listening, half-asleep, to the lazy run of the creek, and to the songs that his savage old companion recited to himself in a monotonous chant. War-songs of Waikato, songs that he and his Kingite comrades had shouted in many an armed camp before the white man drove them out beyond the _Aukati_ line, the frontier of the Waikato. In one of these chants the eel-fisher's voice was lifted in a quick burst of passionate remembrance--a defiant _haka_-song the Hauhaus of Taranaki, too, had adopted as a composition exactly expressing their opinion of _pakehas_ in general, and of the _pakeha_ Governor in particular. It likened Governor Grey to a bush-bullock devouring the tender leaves of the _raurekau_ shrub--a Maori simile for the land-hunger of the whites:
"_A he kau ra. He kau ra! U----u! He kau kawana koe Kia miti mai Te raurekau. A he kau ra, He kau ra! A----u----u!_"
("Ha! A beast art thou, A beast that bellows-- Ooh----ooh! A beast art thou, O Governor, That lickest in The leaves of the _raurekau_. Ho! A beast, indeed, A beast art thou! Oo----oo----ooh!")
The old Hauhau, warming to the _haka_, almost yelled the virulent words. The chant broke the white man's drowsing, and he sat up and listened as his companion repeated the vigorous dance-song.
"Well, _pakeha_!" he said; "that is our Waikato _ngeri_, our war-cry. That is what we think of the Governor--and of all _pakehas_! I hate all white men! They are thieves and pigs. I could cook and eat them all! All, every one! I would not leave a white-skin alive in this island! They are slaves, _taurekarekas_--like you! Now go to sleep, for we must rise when the _kaka_ cries."