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But the danger was not over. All through the long winter night, Rauparaha was busy in trying to induce Wiremu Kingi to join him. He proposed to attack Wellington and destroy every man, woman, and child. "Let us destroy the reptile while we have the power to do so," he argued, "or it will destroy us. We have begun: let us make an end of them."
Moreover, the philo-Maori officials held that Rauparaha and Rangihaeata were aggrieved persons. A company of fifty-three Grenadiers was sent to Wellington and a man-of-war to Nelson. Strict orders were given to the disgusted settlers not to meet and drill. On the whole, in the helpless state of the Colony, inaction was wisest. At any rate Mr.
A strong relieving force was got together, and marching to the beleaguered pa, slipped past Rauparaha and entered it at night, bending and creeping cautiously through flax and rushes as they waved in a violent wind. But sorties were repulsed, and the garrison had to stand on the defensive.
Born near the picturesque inlet of Kawhia, he first won fame as a youth by laying a clever ambuscade for a Waikato war-party. When later the chief of his tribe was dying and asked doubt-fully of his councillors who there was to take his place, Rauparaha calmly stepped forward and announced himself as the man for the office. His daring seemed an omen, and he was chosen.
The surveyors returned to Nelson, and Captain Wakefield induced the local magistrates to issue a warrant for the arrest of Rauparaha and Rangihaeata. To execute this warrant Mr. Thompson, the police magistrate, himself went in a small vessel, and with him went Captain Wakefield, seven other gentlemen, and forty labourers, in all a party of forty-nine, of whom thirty-five were armed with guns.
We landed, after dark, at a point of the sea coast near Rauparaha's camp, quietly surrounded it, burst in and captured him. The thing was to swoop into the camp before the Maoris could have any warning, or attempt to resist. Thus an encounter, involving slain and wounded, would be avoided. Rauparaha was taken off to the ships in a boat, and we conveyed him to Wellington.
Rauparaha, although he stood alone, was not an enemy to be despised or treated with nonchalance. One reason was his great wealth, the second his influence with a section of the Press that attacked the Government native policy with an unsparing pen. But, as a matter of fact, his visitor had a second and more personal motive.
The three stared at each other in silence. Then Te Pehi's son with his fingers pushed open the lips of the Akaroa chief, saying, "These are the teeth which ate my father." Forthwith the common people were killed, and the chief and his wife and daughter bound. Rauparaha landed, fired the village, and killed all he could catch.
To-morrow he would bid these new friends goodbye this proud English lady and her beautiful, sweet-voiced niece the girl whose dark eyes and red lips had come into his day-dreams and visions of the night. And just then she came to the library door, carrying in her hand a portfolio. "Are you very busy, Dr. Rauparaha?" she said, as she entered and stood before him. "Busy! No, Miss Torringley.
You do always." The Minister muttered that he "didn't approve of no one a-usin' of inflammetery langwidge in the 'Ouse," but made no further remark. Rauparaha resumed his seat, the proposer of the Bill made his reply, and the House voted solidly for the measure.
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