behind
the stream, which though only waist-deep had a rushing current of chilly
water. Rauparaha said: "Here am I. What do you want with me?" Mr.
Thompson said he must go to Nelson; and an irritating conversation
ensued. Rangihaeata drew up his tall form, his curly black hair setting
off a face of eagle sharpness, and from his eye there gleamed an angry
light. Behind him stood his wife, the daughter of Rauparaha, and near
them this latter chief himself, short and broad, but strong and
wiry-looking, a man with a cunning face, yet much dignity of manner.
When the handcuffs were produced by Mr. Thompson, Rauparaha warned him
not to be so foolish. The magistrates gave the order to fix bayonets and
advance; as the white men were crossing the stream a shot was fired by
one of them. It struck dead the wife of Rangihaeata. Thereupon the
Maoris fired a volley and the white men hesitated on the brink of the
water; a second volley and a third told upon them with deadly effect,
and the labourers, who carried arms but had neither martial spirit nor
experience, turned and fled.

Five of the gentlemen with four of the labourers stood their ground, and
when the Maoris crossed they surrendered. Rauparaha called out to spare
them; but Rangihaeata, mad at the loss of a wife he loved, brained them
with his tomahawk one after another, while the young men hunted the
labourers through the trees and slew such as they overtook. Twenty-seven
white men reached the shore and were carried quickly in the boats to the
brig, five of them badly wounded. Twenty-two lay dead alongside of five
natives whom the white men had slain.

Rauparaha feared the vengeance of the white man. He had few resources in
the South Island, while the Nelson settlers could send 500 armed men
against him. He crossed in his own war canoes, over a stormy strait in
wild weather; weary and wet with spray, he landed in the south of the
North Island, roused his countrymen by his fervid oratory, to which he
gave a fine effect by jingling before them the handcuff's with which he
was to have been led a prisoner to Nelson. A day or two after the
massacre, a Wesleyan clergyman went out from Nelson to Wairau and
reverently buried those ghastly bodies with the cloven skulls. Not one
had been mangled, far less had there been any cannibalism.

#3. Effects of Wairau Massacre.#--The Maoris were clearly less ferocious
than they had been, and more than half of them had become fervid
Christi