Note 40 — PREFACE.

During the night a report arose amongst the Maori of Walker's camp—I don't know how or from what cause—that the soldiers were about to decamp under cover of darkness, and that the chief of the soldiers had proposed to shoot all his wounded men to prevent them falling alive into the hands of the enemy. When we heard this we got into a state of commotion and great alarm, and did not know what to do. I ran off to a hut where an old pakeha friend of mine slept, and having aroused him, I told him what I had heard, and asked him if such things ever had been done by his countrymen, and also what he thought would be best for us to do. My friend said nothing for some time, but lit his pipe and smoked a little, and at last he said, "Such a thing has never yet been done by English soldiers, and be assured will not be done to-night; but, nevertheless, go you to all your relations and those who will listen to your words, and make them watch with their arms in their hands till daylight. I will do the same with my friends, for, perhaps, the soldiers might go to-night to take away the wounded to the Waimate and then return: who knows? And in the morning, perhaps, the enemy may think they are gone away entirely, and may come out of the pa; so, in that case, you and I will elevate our names by fighting them ourselves, without the soldiers." So I and my pakeha friend watched all night with the people, until the sun rose. But the soldiers did not go away that night, so I suppose the report was false, but it alarmed us much at the time, and some of us were very near running away that night.[40]