Broughton's slayer, despite his repulsive antecedents, became a friend of Bent's, and they were close comrades until 1869, when the old man was killed in the act of charging furiously on the Armed Constabulary at the attack on the Papa-tihakehake stockade.
At Te Putahi "Ringiringi" was astonished to find another white man, clothed like himself in a blanket. This man walked up and greeted him, and the _pakeha_-Maori recognised the long-haired, rough-bearded fellow as an old fellow-soldier. His name was Humphrey Murphy; he, too, had been a private in the 57th, and had become as dissatisfied with the life as Bent had done, and deserted to the Hauhaus. Bent sums him up as "a bad lot." Murphy was an evil-tempered Irishman, faithful to neither white man nor Maori. He belonged to two chiefs, Te Onekura and Wharé-matangi, who lived in the _pa_ at Te Putahi.
Murphy, it appeared from his own story, had been taken over as a _taurekareka_, a slave, by one of the Hauhau chiefs when he deserted, and had been sent as a food-carrier to Te Putahi by his owner, who treated his "white trash" with scant consideration. At Te Putahi he had been taken over by the two local chiefs. The deserter bragged to Bent, as they sat side by side on the village _marae_, that he would shortly return to his old Maori "boss," as he called him, and kill him, and take what money he could find as payment for his enforced labour.
While Murphy was speaking, a young Maori girl sat by quietly listening.
When the runaway soldier rose and walked off to his hut, the girl said:
"Ringi, I heard what that _taurekareka_ white man was saying. I have learned enough of the _pakeha's_ tongue to know that he is going to kill his _rangatira_ and steal his money."
"_Kaati!_ Don't say a word about it," cautioned Bent.
But the girl rose up in the meeting-house one night after "Ringiringi" had departed to his home at Rimatoto, and repeated the threat she had overheard from Murphy's lips.
That settled the _taurekareka's_ fate. Bent, some time later, inquiring after Murphy from one of Tito's men who had been on a visit to Te Putahi, was told that he had been killed. The Hauhaus had a short way with such as he. He was quietly tomahawked one night as he lay asleep, and his despised remains dragged out and cast into the Whenuakura River that ran below the village.