Page:Tales-of-Banks-Peninsula Jacobson 2ed 1893 cropped.pdf/183

trying three times without avail, they called out that the church was bewitched by an unfortunate woman who was sitting near, and murdered her most barbarously with their tomahawks, literally chopping her to atoms in their mad frenzy. The great majority now went down to the block-house, and burned and destroyed as they went. Finding the stores that Captain Campbell had landed from the Hero, they soon got at the grog, and before long many were in a state of beastly intoxication. Night now descended on the horrible scene. There were four of “Chips’” children in the pa, the eldest, a girl of fifteen, having recently married a Maori. Their poor old grandfather, who had been such a good friend to “Chips,” had been murdered, and they determined to endeavor to escape. Slowly and cautiously they made a hole through the wall of the pa on to the side of the precipice, across which ran a narrow and difficult path. At length the work was accomplished, and one by one three of “Chips’” children and two others, who were their friends, crept through the hole, and stood in safety outside the pa, the watchfulness of the Hau Haus being relaxed through their frequent potations. It was only then that they discovered that the youngest one was not amongst them. Her heroic elder sister did not hesitate a moment. Telling the others to proceed, she returned to the scene of danger, and miraculously passing unharmed amid the drunken Hau Haus returned with the little one, and at last stood safe outside on the ledge of the precipice. But her second passage had aroused some of the Hau Hau guards; the alarm was given, and two of them discovering the hole through which the brave children had escaped, rushed through in pursuit, after giving the alarm by firing their guns. They met with a speedy and terrible death. Not knowing the ledge, they stepped into the outer darkness, and falling