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 standing aghast 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 affair
or to that of his accusers. Klein was extremely flurried; his interest
as a reporter must have tempted him at first to make the most of his
share in the exploit, the immediate peril in which he soon found himself
to stand must have at least suggested to him the idea of minimising it;
one way and another, he is not a good witness. As for the natives, they
were no doubt cross-examined in that hall of terror, the German
consulate, where they might be trusted to lie like schoolboys, or (if the
reader prefer it) like Samoans. By outside white testimony, it remains
established for me that Klein returned to Apia either before or
immediately after the first shots. That he ever sought or was ever
allowed a share in the command may be denied peremptorily; but it is more
than likely that he expressed himself in an excited manner and with a
highly inflammatory effect upon his hearers. He was, at least, severely
punished. The Germans, enraged by his provocative behaviour and what
they thought to be his German birth, demanded him to be tried before
court-martial; he had to skulk inside the sentries of the American
consulate, to be smuggled on board a war-ship, and