respect to himself; and, having removed
Te?ra to another of his wives, he ordered his
son Waipata to give her a beating over the
shoulders every day with a whip made of
strips of dogskin.

Now, the youth did not dare to disobey;
but as he had the utmost repugnance to strike
this young girl, he contrived to administer
the blows in a way not to give the slightest
pain—in fact, after a few mornings, Te?ra
ceased to shed tears at the indignity, but only
held down her head, and smiled amidst her
blushes. She even, after a few days, entered
into conversation with him, during the beating,
on the subject of her conversion to Christianity.

The king was not long in finding out how
he was again cheated. He sent his son off to
a distant hunting-ground, with orders not to
speak for three months and three days; and
then sat himself down to consider what cruelty
he should inflict upon Te?ra. He could not
condescend to raise his hand against her,
considering it beneath his dignity as a king
and a valiant warrior; but, after mature
reflection, he resolved to wound her in another
way. With this view, he ordered her into
his presence and made her dance, amidst her
deep sighs and lamentations, while he played
upon the doleful flute, in its loudest and most
discordant tones, in celebration of his triumph
over her noble-spirited father.

Having gratified his remorseless love of
vengeance, he betook himself to a wood at
some distance, and seating himself at the foot
of a tree, began to smoke and meditate on all
that had occurred before he became king of
Mokau; till gradually he fell into a train
of speculations on his present state, and laid
plans for provoking fresh hostilities with the
Waikatotos, in the hope of ultimately
subjugating them under his own rule, or else
driving them away, and seizing upon their
country. The sun had now set, and his pipe
was laid aside, but he still continued occupied
with these thoughts.

The tree beneath which the king was sitting
commanded a treble prospect. There was the
dark forest itself, with its great trunks, its
winding ways, deep nooks, and down-sweeping
masses of thick, broad-leaved foliage; and
there was an open space on the left, that led
downwards to a grassy glen, covered with
rich beds of the greenest grass, over which,
at intervals, lay clusters of the tea-tree shrub
in full bloom, and the crimson fuchsia, overrun
by a creeper with little white, bell-shaped
blossoms, the glen terminating in several
vistas of wild loveliness and changeful colour
in the fading light. To the right, there was
a large break in the forest, through which an
undulating sweep of land appeared, clothed
with numerous armies of feather-leaved ferns,
of red and of russet hue, that stood in separate
divisions, over which continually went fluttering
a number of black and white moths, like
bean-flowers dancing adrift on the wind; and
beyond the curling crests of the dense arrays
of these vegetable warriors, stretched away
long swamps of tohi-tohi grass, flanked by a
dark wall of bulrushes, till the swamp reached
the foot of a range of lofty indigo-shaded
mountains—over the heads of which, pale
blue and grey mountains were seen,—over
whose heads again, snow-white tops and
peaks were just visible, mingled with soft
clouds and filmy vapours.

Let it not be supposed that the mind of the
king was at all occupied with this beautiful
scenery; he had only chosen this spot as his
favourite smoking and meditating seat, on
account of its distance from any pah, and the
little chance of being disturbed. But now, as
the shades of evening were coming on, he
prepared to depart; for, though a thoroughly
valiant warrior, and also one of the bravest
of men in his mind, considering the amount
of his superstitious belief, he shared a portion
of the alarm common to all his nation at any
prospect of being left alone in the dark.
Before he rose, however, he took up his flute,
performed his usual tune of triumph upon it,
and, being in a state of considerable elasticity
of spirit, finished with a long insulting squeal
—a despicable quavering of the doleful
instrument, expressive of his splenetic scorn
and contempt for the memory of the dead
king, Te Pomar. As he concluded, however,
and before he had arisen from his seat, the
last part of the strain, or rather, the vile
squealing, was repeated by the forest echoes
—then by the echoes from the glen, each
time with certain modifications—then, from
the vistas beyond the glen—then, from the
undulating land, with its armies of ferns—
still with gradations that had now become
harmonious—till finally, the echoes took it up
from various parts of the distant mountains,
and gradually modulated and swelled into a
noble strain of music. It was grand, martial,
and solemn, like the lofty death-march of
some great hero.

Ta?nui sat listening with a puzzled expression
of awe. The march was not repeated;
all around was silent. He did not know what
to understand, nor what he should fear. Yet,
somehow or other, he associated it with the
tune of triumph he had just been playing,
and consequently with the memory of Te
Pomar. Should he fear any one dead, whom
he had defied and overthrown while living?
No:—and yet,—the dead were often able to
come back, and then they were tapu (sacred),
or at all events able to do harm, and particularly
when the air was getting dark.

It was now twilight, and as the king had
no means immediately at hand of procuring a
lighted stick, without the protection of which
no Mokaurie likes to be out at night alone,
he started up, and strode out of the forest.

He had not proceeded far, before he became
ashamed of his recent discomposure of mind,
and proportionately indignant at the cause.
Recovering himself with a scornful toss of the
head, he presently arrived at the opinion that