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THE ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT

ness fell, the bodies of the pakehas were placed on this funeral pyre and cremated.

The people squatted round—as they had sat at a similar ceremony in the "Bird's Beak" pa—and watched the flames devour their fallen foemen. And by the light of the great fire roaring away there on the marae, Titokowaru taki'd up and down, addressing his followers, and bounding and parading to and fro, his sacred feather-plumed taiaha in his hand. He recited incantations, and chanted songs, and exhorted the Hauhaus, bidding them be of good heart and fight to the bitter end.

Then Titokowaru turned to the body of the slain warrior Te Waka-tapa-ruru, lying on a blanket on the marae, with gun and tomahawk by his side. Gazing upon the silent, tattooed features of the dead toa, his comrade in many a wild foray and forest battle, he cried the old farewells to those whose spirits have passed to the Reinga, and he chanted this lament:

"Ki konei ra, e Waka e!
Ka wehe koe i au.
Ka riro i a koe
I nuku-maniapoto,
E ngakinga mate.
Aue, e Waka e!
"

("There thou liest, O Waka!
Parted from me for ever.
Thou'rt borne away to the fields of night,
In revenge for other deaths.
Alas, O Waka!")