operations. An Armstrong gun was brought to within a short distance of the hill-fort, and several shells were fired into the stockade. Then the general gave the order for the assault.
As the storming party of Imperial soldiers, with bayonets fixed, doubled eagerly up the hill face to the front stockade, the Hauhau chiefs, Tukino and Tu-ahi-pa, cried to their men, crouching in the outer trench with levelled guns:
"Sons! Be steady, and wait till they come close up, then let them have it!"
As the first files of the soldiers dashed up to the stockade, "Puhia!"—"Fire!"—shouted the chiefs, and under the thundering volley many whites fell. Another volley, and then the soldiers were at the stockade, firing through the gaps in the obstruction, and slashing at the ties of the fence. Hand-grenades were carried by some of the stormers, and one of these bursting in the outer trench wounded fierce old Tu-ahi-pa, who had just killed a soldier in the act of cutting away at the pekerangi in an endeavour to force an entrance.
The Maoris did not wait for the bayonet. The wild rush of the maddened troops was irresistible. Leaving seven of their men killed in the trenches and about the palisades, the defenders gathered their wounded and fled. The trenches led to the steep bank overlooking the Tangahoé River. Down
