In anguish of mind and body the poor fellow lay there for some time, till the Hauhau, realising that they had beaten off the attack, came hurrying along the track in pursuit. At sight of Russell helpless there, one of them ran gleefully forward with upraised tomahawk, only to receive a bullet in his brain from the brave sergeant's revolver. After that the rest circumspectly shot the lonely cripple from a safe distance and rushed on the trail of his comrades.
McDonnell was under fire the whole way through the bush until darkness fell, and when at last he reached Waihi with his broken and dispirited column, it was to find that nothing had been heard of Captain Roberts and his contingent, nor did these reach camp until the 8th had dawned.
One-fifth of the men engaged had fallen, the total casualties of the disastrous affair being one major, two captains, two lieutenants, a sergeant and eighteen men killed, and twenty-six wounded. The final result was a blaze of anger against McDonnell, during which those who should have known better forgot his eminent services and used so bitter and unjust words that the colonel resigned the chief command into the hands of Colonel Whitmore.
Thus were the Nga-Ruanui under Titokowaru successful to an extent which caused the gravest apprehension among the colonists, while the friendly Whanganui retired to their homes. For they knew of Te Kooti's success on the east, and now, when the colonial troops evacuated all the advanced posts and fell back upon Patea before Titokowaru's formidable force, it seemed to them that the long-impending doom of the Pakeha was about to fall at last.
Whitmore had at first no better success; for, when storming the defences of Motorua on the 7th of November, he was repulsed with the heavy loss of nineteen killed and twenty wounded, Major Hunter being among the dead. The gallant colonel then fell back upon Nukumaru and, on the news of the massacre at Poverty Bay reaching Wellington, was ordered back to the east with every available man of his command.
The remainder of the year was filled by skirmishes between the friendly Maori and Te Kooti, who had more than one narrow escape, and who, unable to run because of the wound in his ankle, was on one occasion carried into safety upon a woman's back. But in January, 1869, he received a serious set-back when the _pa_ of Ngatapa, in the Poverty Bay district, was taken after a siege of six days by Colonel Whitmore and Ropata with his men of the Ngati-Porou. Te Kooti again managed to escape; but he lost many of his fighting chiefs, nearly one hundred and fifty of his men and, more than all, his band was dispersed and pursued in all directions.
