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A Brave Powder-carrier.

The attack now steadied down into a regular siege, but the Hauhaus curiously did not push their attack on any but the south face of the pa. Sheltered in their trench and shallow rifle pits, they maintained a heavy fire on the Ngati-Pukeko defenders, which those warriors as hotly returned. There were a number of women in the pa, but it was not strongly garrisoned, since most of the men were away on the coast sandhills, with Hori Kawakura, a capable leader, when the attack was delivered. When the alarm was raised in Whakatane by refugees from Rauporoa, Hori hurried up to the besieged pa, and entered it under fire, with his party of about twenty men. As ammunition was running short, he came out again at great risk, with a few men, and took back a supply of powder and bullets. This fine deed was performed under heavy fire.

Te Kooti's force possessed superiority not only in numbers but in arms. The Hauhaus had many good rifles and carbines, besides their shot-guns. The defenders of the pa had nothing but muzzle-loading single and double barrel guns, some of them old-fashioned flintlocks. They endeavoured to burn out those of the attackers who were posted behind the whare on the south by tying burning rags to stones and throwing them on to the thatched roof, but the Hauhaus extinguished the fire. Several dead of the attacking party lay between the stockade and this house.

The second Ngati-pukeko man killed was Heremaia Tautari. He was shot while standing on the parapet of the south-east angle, calling out across the river to his children, who were at that moment defending the redoubt at the Poronu flour-mill against the final rush, bidding them retreat to the pa.