gradually thinning and thinning.

"At last, at daybreak on the third day, Hongi delivered a grand assault.
The Ngapuhi came up in three columns on the eastern slope of the hill,
where the principal gate of the pa was. The two outer flanks
concentrated all their fire on the point, while the centre, headed by
Hongi himself, wearing a helmet and breastplate that King George had
given him, constituted the storming party.

"The struggle at the gate must have been terrific. At close quarters
fire-arms were no longer of service, and the Ngatewhatua would be equal
to their assailants. Both sides fought with all the fierce courage of
their race. Tama says that the bodies of the slain lay in piles, and
that their blood flowed in streams down the hill.

"Tuwhare was the name of the ariki or supreme chief of the Ngatewhatua;
he was also a tohunga, or priest. A lion-like old man he seems to have
been, from Tama's description. Seeing that all was lost, when the
conquering Ngapuhi had forced their way into the pa, and were
mercilessly slaughtering men, women, and children, he did the only thing
left to be done. He took from its perch the palladium of the tribe, an
heitiki ponamu, or greenstone image, and, summoning around him the
remnant of his men, together with some of the women, they fled from the
western side of the pa, hotly pursued by the victors.

"The fugitives came down through that little gully, here to the bay,
intending to take to their boats, and escape down the river. Tama was
among them, and he afterwards concealed himself in a tree, and, thus
hidden, was a witness of the final scene; for a band of Hongi's men had
come along the beach, and had captured the canoes beforehand, so that
retreat was cut off.

"But a short time was there to consider what should now be done. The
pursuing Ngapuhi were close at their heels. The sacred tiki was placed
in the branches of a tree for safety. And as the yelling and elated
victors came bounding down the gully, brave old Tuwhare and his
remaining warriors, with mere in hand and war-cry ringing through the
woods, hurled themselves against the foe. Overpowered by numbers, and
by superiority of weapons, the grim fight was soon over, and the last of
the Ngatewhatua were slain. But, beside their bodies, many a Ngapuhi
corpse showed that the vanquished had died as warriors should.

"The Ngapuhi who had slain Tuwhare, cut off the dead chiefs head, and
placing it in the nearest tree, ru