on a hill that rose gradually from
the margin of a reedy swamp. The troops had driven out the defenders,
who were shown escaping across the swamp through the reeds, the women
and children in the centre, the men surrounding them on all sides to
protect them from the hail of bullets that swept down upon them from the
heights above the captured fortress.

A shadow fell across the face of Dr. Rauparaha, and his hand tightened
upon and almost crumpled the paper in his grasp; then he smiled, but
with a red gleam in his dark eyes.

"'The assault on Maungatabu by the 18th Royal Irish,'" he read.

"The brave Irish," he said, with a mocking smile, raising his head and
looking intently into the pale face of the girl; "the brave Irish! So
ardent for liberty themselves, such loud-mouthed clamourers to the world
for justice to their country--yet how they sell themselves for a paltry
wage to butcher women and children"--then he stopped suddenly.

"Pardon me, I forgot myself. I did not remember that your father was an
officer of that regiment."

She gave him her hand, and her eyes filled. "No, do not ask my pardon. I
think it was horrible, horrible. How can such dreadful things be? I have
heard my father say that that very victory filled him with shame.... He
led the storming party, and when the _pah_ was carried, and he saw the
natives escaping--the men surrounding the women and children--he ordered
the 'Cease firing' to be sounded, but----" and her voice faltered.

"But----" and the lurid gleam in Rauparaha's eyes made her face flush
and then pale again.

"The men went mad, and took no notice of him and the other two officers
who were both wounded--the rest were killed in the assault. They had
lost heavily, and were maddened with rage when they saw the Maoris
escaping, and continued firing at them till they crossed the swamp, and
hid in the long fern scrub on the other side."

"And even then a shell was fired into them as they lay there in the
fern, resting their exhausted bodies ere they crept through it to gain
the hills beyond," added the young man slowly.

"Yes," she murmured, "I have heard my father speak of it. But it was
not by his orders--he was a soldier, but not a cruel man. See, this next
sketch shows the bursting of the shell."

He took it from her hand and looked. At the foot of it was written, "The
Last Shot at Maungatabu."

His hand trembled for a moment; then he placed the drawing back in the
portfolio, a