"As I am a sinful sinner, what I tell you is the plain unvarnished truth. As the flock passed below our eyes, we saw no beast of any kind but sheep. No dog was visible there, that I could swear to. And yet, close before us, a fine fat wether suddenly leapt up and dropped, so near that we could see the fresh blood spurting from a wound in its throat. I rushed out upon the clearing and looked at it; I looked after the vanishing flock and all around me, but no sign of the destroyer could I see. A horrible thrill passed all through me, for this was something mysterious, unnatural, and unnerving. I could not resist the sudden shivery feeling that crept over me at this most unaccountable occurrence.
"And then, from close beside me, rose Tama's shrill coo-ee. Louder and louder it rang out into the still night, till answers came pealing from the camps on the ranges around us. After a little we saw the other watchers coming to us from their various posts on the run, until presently all were collected together, a silent wondering group—a hundred Maoris, and Karl and I. Then Tama spoke. What he said I do not know. It was some vague relation of what we had seen, together with frequent references to the 'tahipo'—devil—and some 'kararehe tahipo'—demon dog. But the wild excitement of the chief, the deadly terror that possessed him, soon infected all the others. They gathered round him in an eager cluster, and the deep 'Ai,' and 'kuia' that broke from one and another, testified their earnest attention and concurrence.
"Then they knelt down, there on the grass around the dead wether. It was a curious group we made in the moonlight on the hill-side, just beyond the shadows of the bush. And Tama lifted up his voice—literally so—and prayed. He prayed through the Lord's Prayer, and the Creed, and through half the questions and answers of the Catechism beside. Being agitated, no doubt, he scarcely knew exactly what he was saying. And then it seemed to me, as well as I could follow the Maori, that he indulged in an extempore delivery, half prayer, half incantation, to meet the special requirements of the case.
"When this performance, so grotesque yet so simply serious, was over, these half-savage Christians rose and began to take leave of us. They could not stay to fight devils, they said; God and his angels could alone do that, and they had prayed that it might be so. Many blubbered as they shook hands with us; they would have willingly fought for us with anything of flesh and blood, but terror of the unseen had now overmastered their sympathy. They hurried away over the range and down to the beach where their canoes lay, and so, flying from haunted Hapuakohe, they left us two alone.