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 previous reasoning, 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 incident befell 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 devoted plantations 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