360 
MANIHERA AND KEREOPA. 
go to Pukawa, where Iwikau te Heuheu would give them a 
kind reception, and were told to be satisfied with having come 
thus far, for the tribe they were so desirous of visiting was a 
very wicked one, and would not attend to them, but most 
probably put them to death. Manihera replied, that the great 
object for which they came was to preach the Gospel to the 
wicked, and therefore the reason he gave why they should not 
go, was the very reason for which they should. He answered, 
Well, then, you go with your eyes open to the consequences. 
They preached at Motutere ; thence they visited Waimarino, 
and went on to Waiariki; there they again received a 
hearty welcome. He preached to them in a very solemn 
strain, which deeply affected his hearers, and in the morning 
he said he felt that his time was at hand, and that before the 
sun set he should be an inhabitant of another world; that 
during the night he had been in the Reinga, and met many of 
his deceased friends, who told him he should soon be with them. 
A small party of young men, about ten or a dozen, accom¬ 
panied these two devoted men on their way, for Waiariki was 
the very next place to Tokanu, the residence of Herekiekie, 
and the tribe they were going to visit. 
Their coming was known to the inhabitants of that pa, and 
bearing in remembrance the death of their relatives at Waita- 
tora, and their duty of avenging them, ITuia-tahi, chiefly at 
the instigation of the widow of Tauteka, went with a small 
party, and laid in wait for them ; they concealed themselves 
in a thicket by the road they were to pass, and suffered the 
young men of Waiariki to go on before, for all were walking in 
single file, the usual custom, the native roads not allowing of 
two walking abreast. Immediately Manihera and Kereopa came 
in a line with them, they fired. Manihera was only wounded, 
but his companion was shot dead. Huiatahi, an old Chief 
nearly seventy, immediately rushed out of the thicket, and 
chopped at poor Manihera with his hatchet, but his blows 
were too feeble to kill him, and it was a long time before 
he fell: one blow destroyed his sight; he then put up his 
hand as it were to wipe away the blood from his eyes ; at last 
he fell, but still lingered from the morning when this cruel 
