So through an ill-timed skirmish, two severed heads, and a dead

body, the rule of Brandeis came to a sudden end. We shall see him
a while longer fighting for existence in a losing battle; but his

government - take it for all in all, the most promising that has
ever been in these unlucky islands - was from that hour a piece of

history.
CHAPTER V - THE BATTLE OF MATAUTU

SEPTEMBER 1888
THE revolution had all the character of a popular movement. Many

of the high chiefs were detained in Mulinuu; the commons trooped to
the bush under inferior leaders. A camp was chosen near Faleula,

threatening Mulinuu, well placed for the arrival of recruits and
close to a German plantation from which the force could be

subsisted. Manono came, all Tuamasanga, much of Savaii, and part
of Aana, Tamasese's own government and titular seat. Both sides

were arming. It was a brave day for the trader, though not so
brave as some that followed, when a single cartridge is said to

have been sold for twelve cents currency - between nine and ten
cents gold. Yet even among the traders a strong party feeling

reigned, and it was the common practice to ask a purchaser upon
which side he meant to fight.

On September 5th, Brandeis published a letter: "To the chiefs of
Tuamasanga, Manono, and Faasaleleanga in the Bush: Chiefs, by

authority of his majesty Tamasese, the king of Samoa, I make known
to you all that the German man-of-war is about to go together with

a Samoan fleet for the purpose of burning Manono. After this
island is all burnt, 'tis good if the people return to Manono and

live quiet. To the people of Faasaleleanga I say, return to your
houses and stop there. The same to those belonging to Tuamasanga.

If you obey this instruction, then you will all be forgiven; if you
do not obey, then all your villages will be burnt like Manono.

These instructions are made in truth in the sight of God in the
Heaven." The same morning, accordingly, the ADLER steamed out of

the bay with a force of Tamasese warriors and some native boats in
tow, the Samoan fleet in question. Manono was shelled; the

Tamasese warriors, under the conduct of a Manono traitor, who paid
before many days the forfeit of his blood, landed and did some

damage, but were driven away by the sight of a force returning from
the mainland; no one was hurt, for the women and children, who

alone remained on the island, found a refuge in the bush; and the
ADLER and her acolytes returned the same evening. The letter had

been energetic; the performance fell below the programme. The
demonstration annoyed and yet re-assured the insurgents, and it

fully disclosed to the Germans a new enemy.
Captain Yon Widersheim had been relieved. His successor, Captain

Fritze, was an officer of a different stamp. I have nothing to say
of him but good; he seems to have obeyed the consul's requisitions

with secret distaste; his despatches were of admirablecandour; but
his habits were retired, he spoke little English, and was far

indeed from inheriting von Widersheim's close relations with
Commander Leary. It is believed by Germans that the American

officer resented what he took to be neglect. I mention this, not
because I believe it to depict Commander Leary, but because it is

typical of a prevailinginfirmity among Germans in Samoa. Touchy
themselves, they read all history in the light of personal affronts

and tiffs; and I find this weakness indicated by the big thumb of
Bismarck, when he places "sensitiveness to small disrespects -

EMPFINDLICHKEIT UEBER MANGEL AN RESPECT," among the causes of the
wild career of Knappe. Whatever the cause, at least, the natives

had no sooner taken arms than Leary appeared with violence upon
that side. As early as the 3rd, he had sent an obscure but

menacing despatch to Brandeis. On the 6th, he fell on Fritze in
the matter of the Manono bombardment. "The revolutionists," he

wrote, "had an armed force in the field within a few miles of this
harbour, when the vessels under your command transported the

Tamasese troops to a neighbouring island with the avowed intention
of making war on the isolated homes of the women and children of

the enemy. Being the only other representative of a naval power
now present in this harbour, for the sake of humanity I hereby

respectfully and solemnly protest in the name of the United States
of America and of the civilised world in general against the use of

a national war-vessel for such services as were yesterday rendered
by the German corvette ADLER." Fritze's reply, to the effect that

he is under the orders of the consul and has no right of choice,
reads even humble; perhaps he was not himself vain of the exploit,

perhaps not prepared to see it thus described in words. From that
moment Leary was in the front of the row. His name is diagnostic,

but it was not required; on every step of his subsequent action in
Samoa Irishman is writ large; over all his doings a malign spirit

of humour presided. No malice was too small for him, if it were
only funny. When night signals were made from Mulinuu, he would

sit on his own poop and confound them with gratuitous rockets. He
was at the pains to write a letter and address it to "the High

Chief Tamasese" - a device as old at least as the wars of Robert
Bruce - in order to bother the officials of the German post-office,

in whose hands he persisted in leaving it, although the address was
death to them and the distribution of letters in Samoa formed no

part of their profession. His great masterwork of pleasantry, the
Scanlon affair, must be narrated in its place. And he was no less

bold than comical. The ADAMS was not supposed to be a match for
the ADLER; there was no glory to be gained in beating her; and yet

I have heard naval officers maintain she might have proved a
dangerous antagonist in narrow waters and at short range.

Doubtless Leary thought so. He was continuallydaring Fritze to
come on; and already, in a despatch of the 9th, I find Becker

complaining of his language in the hearing of German officials, and
how he had declared that, on the ADLER again interfering, he would

interfere himself, "if he went to the bottom for it - UND WENN SEIN
SCHIFF DABEI ZU GRUNDE GINGE." Here is the style of opposition

which has the merit of being frank, not that of being agreeable.
Becker was annoying, Leary infuriating; there is no doubt that the

tempers in the German consulate were highly ulcerated; and if war
between the two countries did not follow, we must set down the

praise to the forbearance of the German navy. This is not the last
time that I shall have to salute the merits of that service.

The defeat and death of Saifaleupolu and the burning of Manono had
thus passed off without the least advantage to Tamasese. But he

still held the significant position of Mulinuu, and Brandeis was
strenuous to make it good. The whole peninsula was surrounded with

a breastwork; across the isthmus it was six feet high and
strengthened with a ditch; and the beach was staked against

landing. Weber's land claim - the same that now broods over the
village in the form of a signboard - then appeared in a more

military guise; the German flag was hoisted, and German sailors
manned the breastwork at the isthmus - "to protect German property"

and its trifling parenthesis, the king of Samoa. Much vigilance
reigned and, in the island fashion, much wild firing. And in spite

of all, desertion was for a long time daily. The detained high
chiefs would go to the beach on the pretext of a natural occasion,

plunge in the sea, and swimming across a broad, shallow bay of the
lagoon, join the rebels on the Faleula side. Whole bodies of

warriors, sometimes hundreds strong, departed with their arms and
ammunition. On the 7th of September, for instance, the day after

Leary's letter, Too and Mataia left with their contingents, and the
whole Aana people returned home in a body to hold a parliament.

Ten days later, it is true, a part of them returned to their duty;
but another part branched off by the way and carried their

services, and Tamasese's dear-bought guns, to Faleula.
On the 8th, there was a defection of a different kind, but yet

sensible. The High Chief Seumanu had been still detained in
Mulinuu under anxiousobservation. His people murmured at his

absence, threatened to "take away his name," and had already
attempted a rescue. The adventure was now taken in hand by his

wife Faatulia, a woman of much sense and spirit and a strong
partisan; and by her contrivance, Seumanu gave his guardians the

slip and rejoined his clan at Faleula. This process of winnowing
was of course counterbalanced by another of recruitment. But the