Pai-marire! Hau!" would avert the bullets of the pakeha. But he was killed in the very charge—the only Maori fighting-man killed that day.
Two white soldiers met him. He was in the act of striking a desperate blow when a pakeha ball took him square in the forehead, and with a huge convulsive bound and a half-choked barking "Hau!" on his lips, the old tattooed brave fell dead amongst the foremost of his enemies.
It was just the death that he desired—face to the foe, with his war-axe in his hand—the death of a true Maori toa!
This savage hero's son, Ratoia—now living in the village of Taiporohenui—a young boy at the time of the fight, saw his father's great leap over the palisade, and saw him killed.
Bent tells of a curious matakité, or prophetic dream, which Te Waka-tapa-ruru had on the night before the battle. The old man was a close friend of the white runaway, and they were accustomed to sleep side by side on the whariki-spread floor of one of the huts. He dreamed that he saw his face reflected in a pakeha looking-glass, and that he was combing his hair. This vision disturbed the old man, and deeming it a warning from the unseen world, he asked Titokowaru—just when the approach of the troops was first announced—what it might portend. The war-chief interpreted the dream as an omen of death, and warned Te Waka
