ation; we must return, since nothing could be achieved
by debate. No, I don't think that I had any bodily feeling as to the
danger we ran, any burden of danger. Nobody can be afraid who has the
lives of others hanging upon his actions. A man who every instant is
applied to for orders, has not time to think of fear. It finds scope when
a person is acting under the direction of somebody else, and thus is
ignorant of the measures being carried out for the common protection and
success. Ignorance is ever the channel through which fear attacks a human
being, as watch a little child when it understands, and when it does
not.'

Perhaps Sir George Grey's nearest passage with death, in Maoriland,
occurred during the first war, but he did not learn of it until later. 'I
was,' he said, 'in the habit every forenoon of riding between our
military camp and the sea-shore, where the warships lay at anchor. Having
regard to the unsettled state of the country, it was maybe imprudent of
me to do this, and moreover I was only accompanied by an orderly
sergeant. It seemed that some Maoris hid in wait for me in a valley,
intending, I am afraid, to fire upon me. Two things fortunately happened.
I rode down very early that day, and some turn of duty took me back by
another road. Then, it proved to be the last day on which it was
necessary for me to communicate with the ships. Good luck attended me, as
I congratulated myself, when informed of the plot and its failure by a
Maori who had knowledge of it, Upon what slight chances do things depend!
No, they only seem so to depend!'

As to Wereroa, it must be captured by strength of arms, or rather by a
subtle use of these. There could be no idea of attacking it from the
front. That would have been a funeral march for Sir George's handful of
men. He devised the capture of a rough spur of ground which commanded the
pa. The Maoris built square to a hostile world, and forgot this height
behind them. If it should be attained, they were out-manoeuvred and
helpless. The British fighting men, with Maori allies, marched off to
break in upon the rear of the Wereroa. They filed past the Governor,
shaking hands with him; the moment was tense.

'Assuredly,' Sir George remarked, 'the mission was not without danger, as
what venture can be in war? Only, my people must have felt that I would
not put them to it, unless there was every hope of success. That little
parade brought up thoughts in all of us, and was ve