During the voyage he was twice flogged for refusing to work on the plea of illness.

The captain added insult to the stripes by the words, "You are no chief!" The sting of this lay in the sacredness attached by Maori custom to a chief's person, which was _tapu_--_i.e._ a thing not to be touched.

George--according to his own account[1]--merely replied that when they reached New Zealand the captain would see that he was a chief.

But he vowed vengeance, and on reaching Whangaroa showed his stripes to his kinsfolk, as Boadicea hers to the Britons of old.

The tribesmen, with the craft of which the apparently frank and cheerful Maori has so ample a share, quietly laid their plans.