During the engagement Titokowaru remained in the _pa_, shouting to his men, urging them to continue firing, and yelling such battle-cries as "_Whakawhiria_! _Whakawhiria_!" ("Twist them round and round!" or "Encircle them!") It was from this circumstance that the warrior Whakawhiria assumed his present name.[8]
On von Tempsky's fall, Captain J. M. Roberts, a cool and gallant young Constabulary officer, ordered his bugler to sound the "Halt" and the "Officers' Call," and tried to form the rear-guard into some order. Collecting as many of the wounded as he could, he began his retreat through that terrible death-haunted forest.
All through the fighting Titokowaru remained within the stockade, directing the defence and reciting incantations and chanting sacred _waiatas_ to his gods for success in the fight. With him was the priestess Tangamoko, the woman who had that morning garbed the young warrior Tutangé with the sacred war-mat.
When von Tempsky fell and the retreat of the survivors began, Titokowaru ordered a _kokiri_, or charge, in pursuit, which, as Tutangé has mentioned, was led by the warrior Kātené Tu-Whakaruru.
Those of the Hauhaus who were in or near the stockade gathered under Kātené and danced in their ferocious joy a dance of victory, and this is the _ngeri_ (war-song) they shouted all together as they leaped in that terrifying _tutu-waewae_:
"_Kia kutia-- Au--au! Kia wherahia-- Au--au! A kia rere atu Te Kawana ki tawhiti, Titiro mai ai! Ae--ae--au!_"
("Squeeze close-- _Au--au!_ (imitating the bark of a dog) Spread out-- _Au--au!_ See the Government soldiers flee away, And turn and fearfully gaze at me. Yes, yes--_au_!")
The puffy clouds of smoke now drew away from the _pa_, as the Hauhaus followed their defeated foes into the dark forest. With appalling yells they rushed at their white enemies, tomahawking those who had fallen to make sure of them, as Tutangé had done with von Tempsky.
"_Ka horo! Ka horo!_" they yelled. "They are beaten!" And thrusting their bloody tomahawks into their belts they recharged their guns, and, leaping from tree to tree, fired heavily and incessantly at the gallant little rear-guard who were struggling through the tangled bush, caps gone, uniforms torn, nearly every man either wounded or blood-stained from his comrades' wounds.