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A Footnote to History-Part19_ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON(1850-1894)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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honest mind will believe it for a moment. Certainly the Samoans

fired first. As certainly they were betrayed into the engagement



in the agitation of the moment, and it was not till afterwards that

they understood what they had done. Then, indeed, all Samoa drew a



breath of wonder and delight. The invincible had fallen; the men

of the vaunted war-ships had been met in the field by the braves of



Mataafa: a superstition was no more. Conceive this people

steadily as schoolboys; and conceive the elation in any school if



the head boy should suddenly arise and drive the rector from the

schoolhouse. I have received one instance of the feeling instantly



aroused. There lay at the time in the consular hospital an old

chief who was a pet of the colonel's. News reached him of the



glorious event; he was sick, he thought himself sinking, sent for

the colonel, and gave him his gun. "Don't let the Germans get it,"



said the old gentleman, and having received a promise, was at

peace.



CHAPTER IX - "FUROR CONSULARIS"

DECEMBER 1888 TO MARCH 1889



KNAPPE, in the ADLER, with a flag of truce at the fore, was

entering Laulii Bay when the EBER brought him the news of the



night's reverse. His heart was doubtless wrung for his young

countrymen who had been butchered and mutilated in the dark woods,



or now lay suffering, and some of them dying, on the ship. And he

must have been startled as he recognised his own position. He had



gone too far; he had stumbled into war, and, what was worse, into

defeat; he had thrown away German lives for less than nothing, and



now saw himself condemned either to accept defeat, or to kick and

pummel his failure into something like success; either to accept



defeat, or take frenzy for a counsellor. Yesterday, in cold blood,

he had judged it necessary to have the woods to the westward



guarded lest the evacuation of Laulii should prove only the peril

of Apia. To-day, in the irritation and alarm of failure, he forgot



or despised his previousreasoning, and, though his detachment was

beat back to the ships, proceeded with the remainder of his maimed



design. The only change he made was to haul down the flag of

truce. He had now no wish to meet with Mataafa. Words were out of



season, shells must speak.

At this moment an incidentbefell him which must have been trying



to his self-command. The new American ship NIPSIC entered Laulii

Bay; her commander, Mullan, boarded the ADLER to protest, succeeded



in wresting from Knappe a period of delay in order that the women

might be spared, and sent a lieutenant to Mataafa with a warning.



The camp was already excited by the news and the trophies of

Fangalii. Already Tamasese and Lotoanuu seemed secondary



objectives to the Germans and Apia. Mullan's message put an end to

hesitation. Laulii was evacuated. The troops streamed westward by



the mountain side, and took up the same day a strong position about

Tanungamanono and Mangiangi, some two miles behind Apia, which they



threatened with the one hand, while with the other they continued

to draw their supplies from the devotedplantations of the German



firm. Laulii, when it was shelled, was empty. The British flags

were, of course, fired upon; and I hear that one of them was struck



down, but I think every one must be privately of the mind that it

was fired upon and fell, in a place where it had little business to



be shown.

Such was the military epilogue to the ill-judged adventure of



Fangalii; it was difficult for failure to be more complete. But

the other consequences were of a darker colour and brought the



whites immediately face to face in a spirit of ill-favoured

animosity. Knappe was mourning the defeat and death of his



country-folk, he was standingaghast over the ruin of his own

career, when Mullan boarded him. The successor of Leary served



himself, in that bitter moment, heir to Leary's part. And in

Mullan, Knappe saw more even than the successor of Leary, - he saw



in him the representative of Klein. Klein had hailed the praam

from the rifle-pits; he had there uttered ill-chosen words,



unhappily prophetic; it is even likely that he was present at the

time of the first fire. To accuse him of the design and conduct of



the whole attack was but a step forward; his own vapouring served

to corroborate the accusation; and it was not long before the



German consulate was in possession of sworn native testimony in

support. The worth of native testimony is small, the worth of



white testimony not overwhelming; and I am in the painful position

of not being able to subscribe either to Klein's own account of the






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