But, incredible as it seems, public sympathy was on the side of this pander to savages, this pimp to cannibals.
Witnesses were spirited away, and at length the prosecution was abandoned.

Soon after Stewart died at sea off Cape Horn.

One authority says that he dropped dead on the deck of the _Elizabeth_, and that his carcass, reeking with rum, was pitched overboard without ceremony.
Another writes that he was washed overboard by a breaking sea.

Either way the Akaroa chief had not so easy a death.
Next year, Rauparaha, whose revenge was nothing if not deliberate, organized a strong attack on Kaiapoi.

With complete secrecy he brought down his men from Cook's Straits, and surprised his enemies peacefully digging in the potato grounds outside their stockade.