withdrew to support the shattered ranks of their white comrades.
The A.C. supports came doubling up, and a heavy fire was concentrated on the stockade, but to little purpose. It was impregnable to rifle-fire, and in their pitted works the defenders were able to pick off the white skirmishers in perfect safety.
Bullets swept the clearing in every direction, and through the infernal music of the forest-battle the white soldiers heard the loudly yelled war-cries of the chiefs and the shrill voices of the Maori women as they encouraged their warriors, husbands, and brothers, and screamed them on to slaughter with all the fury of brown tattooed Hecates.
The women were gathered in the marae and in the trenches, some armed, all filled with the fire of savage war.
"Ka horo, ka horo!" they shouted. "Kia maia, kia maia! Patua, kainga! Patua, kainga!" ("They fall, they fall! Be brave, oh, be brave! Kill them, eat them! Kill them, eat them! ")
All this time Kimble Bent was walking to and fro on the parepare, the inner breastwork, the bullets screaming zssh! zssh! over his head and all about him. The air seemed filled with flying lead, yet very few Maoris were hit. One woman he saw shot dead through the head as she rose to wave her shawl and yell a fighting cry to the men at the palisades.
