lieved, and weary beyond words, reported himself to his chief.
Rupé was furiously angry when he heard the story of the Waikato's attack on his pakeha.
"The kohuru!" he cried, as he leaped to his feet. "The murderer! I shall slay him this instant, on the marae, though all Waikato come down to avenge him!" And seizing an axe from the wall, he ran out in chase of "Ringiringi's" night antagonist.
The old fellow, when the chief rushed out at him like a madman, turned and fled from the village, and ran for his life until he disappeared in the shelter of the bush. Rupé did not pursue him far; his fit of anger was soon spent, and he returned to his wharé, and made his white man relate again, with Maori wealth of detail, the story of the eel-fishing bivouac.
"Ringiringi's" would-be slayer was never heard of again; at any rate, he did not venture back to the camp of the Hauhaus; and whether he ever succeeded in taking a pakeha head in settlement of his utu bill no man knows.
