d opposite. They had ravaged the
south of the island, as the Ngapuhi under Hongi had devastated the
north; and Rauparaha was the most powerful and influential personage in
New Zealand, except--Henry Williams. And now the two powers had met, for
the young men who had arrived at Paihia were none other than the son and
the nephew of Rauparaha, and the cause of their coming was due to the
forgotten slave Ripahau himself.

This seemingly insignificant person had reached Otaki in the new
territory of the Ngatitoas some three years before. There he had met
with Rauparaha's son, Tamihana, a young man who was sick at heart of his
father's violent ways. Fascinated by the slave's story of the peaceful
life of the missionaries at the Bay of Islands, he had compelled him to
teach his friends and himself to read. Ripahau had but a Prayer Book
with him, and it was hard to teach a class from one book. But he
remembered that a few more books had been brought from Rotorua by the
party with whom he travelled. These he procured, and among them there
was a much-damaged copy of the Gospel of St. Luke. This bore the name of
Ngakuku, and was in fact the very copy upon which little Tarore was
sleeping when she was murdered in the night! In order to study in quiet,
Tamihana and his cousin Te Whiwhi took Ripahau to the island and made
him teach them there. The two cousins had Tarore's gospel for their
lesson book. "We learnt," they said, "every day, every night. We sat at
night in the hut, all round the fire in the middle. Whiwhi had part of
the book, and I part. Sometimes we went to sleep upon the book, then
woke up and read again. After we had been there six months, we could
read a little, very slowly."

But they had learned something even better than the art of reading. They
had learned--and learned with the spirit--the subject-matter of the
book. They now took Ripahau with them to some villages on the mainland
to teach the people about the book: "These people believed, and they all
wanted the book. I told them I could not give them any part of it, but I
told Ripahau to write for them on paper, Our Father, &c. He wrote it for
them all, and they learnt it. Before, Ripahau had not believed, but now
his heart began to grow. We talked to him, and he believed."

The result of this marvellous conversion was the visit of the two
cousins to the Bay of Islands. They asked for a white teacher to come
and live among them. The call was an urgent one, an