aining force on the side of the head, causing the blood to flow
out of my mouth. One more short struggle, and he was conquered.

But now I had at last got angry: the drunkenness, the exhilaration of
fight, which comes on some constitutions, was fairly on me. I had also
a consciousness that now I must kill my man, or, sooner or later, he
would kill me. I thought of the place I would bury him; how I would
stun him first with the back of the tomahawk, to prevent too much blood
being seen; how I would then carry him off (I could carry two such men
now, easy): I would _murder_ him and cover him up. I unwound the
tomahawk from his wrist: he was passive and helpless now. I wished he
was stronger, and told him to get up and "die standing," as his
countrymen say. I clutched the tomahawk for the _coup-de-grace_ (I
can't help it, young ladies, the devil is in me);--at this instant a
thundering sound of feet is heard--a whole tribe are coming!

Now am I either lost or saved!--saved from doing that which I should
afterwards repent, though constrained by necessity to do it. The rush
of charging feet comes closer, and in an instant comes dashing and
smashing through doors and windows, in breathless haste and alarm, a
whole tribe of friends. Small ceremony now with my antagonist. He was
dragged by the heels, stamped on, kicked, and thrown half-dead, or
nearly quite dead, into his canoe.

All the time we had been fighting, a little slave imp of a boy
belonging to my antagonist had been loading the canoe with my goods and
chattels, and had managed to make a very fair plunder of it. These were
all now brought back by my friends, except one cloth jacket, which
happened to be concealed under the _whariki_; and which I only mention
because I remember that the attempt to recover it some time afterwards
cost one of my friends his life. The savage scoundrel, who had so
nearly done for me, broke two of his ribs, and so otherwise injured him
that he never recovered, and died after lingering about a year. My
friends were going on a journey, and had called to see me as they
passed. They saw the slave boy employed as I have stated, and knowing
to whom he belonged had rushed at once to the rescue, little expecting
to find me alive.

I may as well now dispose of this friend of mine, by giving his after
history. He for a long time after our fight went continually armed with
a double gun, and said he would shoot me wherever he met me; he however
had