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THE ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT

the pakeha. Just as the unsuspecting settler came to the paddock gate, the Maori leaped out from behind the fence, with a furious snatch tore the rifle from the man's grasp, and shot him dead with it. He cut off one of the pakeha's legs with his tomahawk, and brought it home as proof of his success on the war-path as proudly as any Indian ever flourished his take of scalps. Up and down the marae of the pa he bounded, exhibiting the captured rifle and severed limb, yelling his war-song, and loudly boasting that he would that night cook the pakeha's leg and eat it all himself.

But the warrior's braggadocio received a sharp check from Titokowaru. The war-chief disapproved of this sort of thing on the part of irresponsible young free-lances. "No man must bring white man's flesh into this pa," he said, "unless he is one of the Tekau-ma-rua, the war-party sent out by me. Take that pakeha, leg back again at once and place it alongside the body." And soon thereafter the disgusted scout, his ardour for "long-pig" so unexpectedly damped by Titoko's code of cannibal etiquette, was to be seen trudging back along the track to the pakeha farm, with sulky visage and reluctant gait, and a white foot and leg—raw—protruding from a flax basket strapped to his shoulders.

By day the scouting parties of the Hauhau "Twelve Apostles" scoured the country; by night