forbidden ground is, for I do not wish to go on any neutral
territory, or on any foreigner's property. I do not want to offend any
of the great Powers. Another thing I would like. Would it be possible
for you three consuls to make Tamasese remove from German property? for
I am in awe of going on German land." He must have received a reply
embodying Becker's renunciation of the principle, at once; for he broke
camp the same day, and marched eastward through the bush behind Apia.

Brandeis, expecting attack, sought to improve his indefensible position.
He reformed his centre by the simple expedient of suppressing it. Apia
was evacuated. The two flanks, Mulinuu and Matautu, were still held and
fortified, Mulinuu (as I have said) to the isthmus, Matautu on a line
from the bayside to the little river Fuisa. The centre was represented
by the trajectory of a boat across the bay from one flank to another,
and was held (we may say) by the German war-ship. Mataafa decided (I am
assured) to make a feint on Matautu, induce Brandeis to deplete Mulinuu
in support, and then fall upon and carry that. And there is no doubt in
my mind that such a plan was bruited abroad, for nothing but a belief in
it could explain the behaviour of Brandeis on the 12th. That it was
seriously entertained by Mataafa I stoutly disbelieve; the German flag
and sailors forbidding the enterprise in Mulinuu. So that we may call
this false intelligence the beginning and the end of Mataafa's strategy.

The whites who sympathised with the revolt were uneasy and impatient.
They will still tell you, though the dates are there to show them wrong,
that Mataafa, even after his coronation, delayed extremely: a proof of
how long two days may seem to last when men anticipate events. On the
evening of the 11th, while the new king was already on the march, one of
these walked into Matautu. The moon was bright. By the way he observed
the native houses dark and silent; the men had been about a fortnight in
the bush, but now the women and children were gone also; at which he
wondered. On the sea-beach, in the camp of the Tamaseses, the solitude
was near as great; he saw three or four men smoking before the British
consulate, perhaps a dozen in all; the rest were behind in the bush upon
their line of forts. About the midst he sat down, and here a woman drew
near to him. The moon shone in her face, and he knew her for a
householder near by, and a partisan of Mataafa's. She looked