Loaded with booty, Heke’s men went off inland in high spirits.  Three vessels crowded with the ruined Alsatians sailed to Auckland, where for a while the astonished people expected nightly to be roused from their beds by the yells of Ngapuhi warriors.  Our loss had been thirty-one killed and wounded, and it was small consolation to know that, thanks to the ship’s guns, the Maoris’ had been three times as great.  The disaster was a greater blow to the English Mana than even the Wairau Massacre.  But the settlements showed spirit everywhere, and under the stress of the time the Governor forgot some of his prejudices.  Even those much-suspected people, the Wellington settlers, were allowed to form themselves into a militia at last.

Thanks to the divisions among the Ngapuhi, Heke did not follow up his victory.  Troops were procured from Sydney, but they had no artillery.  The natives relied on their pas or stockades.  These, skilfully constructed by means of double or triple rows of heavy palisades, masked by flax and divided by shallow ditches which did duty for rifle-pits, could not be carried without being breached by cannon.  A fruitless attack upon one of them soon demonstrated this.  The pa, called Okaihau, though strong in front, was weak in the rear.  Four hundred soldiers, supported by as many Ngapuhi friendlies under Waka Nene, marched against it.  Fruitlessly Nene advised the English Colonel to assail the place from behind.  The Colonel, who had seen Nene yelling in a war-dance, and looked upon him as a degraded savage, approached the front, where Okaihau was really strong.  As he had no guns he tried the effect of rockets, but though terrified by the strange fire, the defenders gained heart when they found that the rockets hit nothing.  They even charged the English in the open with long-handled tomahawks, and only fell back before a bayonet charge in regular form.  After skirmishing all day and losing fifty-four in killed and wounded with but negative results, the English retreated to Auckland to request artillery.  Waka Nene carried on the fighting on his own account, and in a skirmish with him Heke was badly wounded.  Guns were fetched from Australia, and Heke’s men were brought to bay at their principal pa, Ohaeawai.  Colonel Despard commanded the besiegers, who outnumbered the defenders by more than three to one.  After bombarding the palisades for some days, the colonel, in defiance of the advice of his artillery officer—­who declared there was no practicable breach—­ordered an assault.  Two hundred soldiers and sailors were told off for the duty, and at four o’clock on a pleasant, sunny afternoon they charged up a gentle, open slope to the simple-looking stockade.  Only two or three got inside.  In a quarter of an hour half the force were shot down, and the survivors only saved by the bugle-call which Despard ordered to be sounded.  Forty, including a captain and two lieutenants, were killed on the spot or died of their wounds.  Sixty-two