The question was, who pickled the _pakeha_? A Hauhau prisoner some time later enlightened the Government Maoris. A scouting party from Titoko's camp had dodged down to Manawapou, and discovered there, not far from the redoubt--which had been temporarily vacated by the troops--a new-made grave. Opening it, they disinterred a white man's corpse. In sheer devilment they cut it up, put it into a cask of brine that stood handy, and then recovered the cask and left it.
It would have been an exquisite joke, from the cannibal Hauhau view-point, had the Government soldiers unknowingly helped themselves to a joint of white man!
Titokowaru's entrenched position at Otoia was not a strong one, and shortly he, after a council of war with his principal men, decided to abandon it and build a new bush _pa_, which should be as nearly impregnable as a Maori fort could be.
So one morning a long line of Hauhaus of all ages and both sexes--the armed men in front and rear--bearing their simple belongings in flax-basket _pikaus_ on their backs, left the Otoia redoubt, and marched away through the bush to a spot about twelve miles from the mouth of the Patea River and a mile and a half from the old Okotuku _pa_, which had been attacked by the troops two years previously. At this place, Moturoa--the "Song Bush," so called because of a long strip of forest which covered the plain here--the war-chief ordered that the new fort should be constructed.
The position was on partially cleared land, nearly level, surrounded by the forest. The men, after hastily constructing huts, roofed with the fronds of tree-fern and _nikau_, set to work with their axes to hew out a large clearing. Titoko marked out the lines of the entrenchments and palisades. The forest-trees quickly fell before the practised assault of many bushmen, and the shrubby cover in front of the _pa_ was carefully burned.
Then came the setting up of the stockade. _Tawa_ and other trees of small size were cut into suitable lengths for the palisade-posts. There were two rows of palisades; the outside one was the largest and strongest. For the heavy outside row of stockading, timbers from eight to twelve inches in diameter were sunk solidly in the ground, forming a wall some ten feet high. Saplings were cut to serve as cross-ties or rails to lash across the posts, and with supplejack and _aka_ vines the whole were bound strongly and closely together.