第18章 THE ELEMENTS OF DISCORD:FOREIGN(13)

Seumanu Tafa,high chief of Apia,was known to be in the forest with the king;his wife,Fatuila,was seized,imprisoned in the German hospital,and when it was thought her spirit was sufficiently reduced,brought up for cross-examination.The wise lady confined herself in answer to a single word."Is your husband near Apia?""Yes.""Is he far from Apia?""Yes.""Is he with the king?""Yes.""Are he and the king in different places?""Yes."Whereupon the witness was discharged.About the 10th of September,Laupepa was secretly in Apia at the American consulate with two companions.The German pickets were close set and visited by a strong patrol;and on his return,his party was observed and hailed and fired on by a sentry.They ran away on all fours in the dark,and so doing plumped upon another sentry,whom Laupepa grappled and flung in a ditch;for the Sheet of Paper,although infirm of character,is,like most Samoans,of an able body.The second sentry (like the first)fired after his assailants at random in the dark;and the two shots awoke the curiosity of Apia.On the afternoon of the 16th,the day of the hand-shakings,Suatele,a high chief,despatched two boys across the island with a letter.

They were most of the night upon the road;it was near three in the morning before the sentries in the camp of Malietoa beheld their lantern drawing near out of the wood;but the king was at once awakened.The news was decisive and the letter peremptory;if Malietoa did not give himself up before ten on the morrow,he was told that great sorrows must befall his country.I have not been able to draw Laupepa as a hero;but he is a man of certain virtues,which the Germans had now given him an occasion to display.

Without hesitation he sacrificed himself,penned his touching farewell to Samoa,and making more expedition than the messengers,passed early behind Apia to the banks of the Vaisingano.As he passed,he detached a messenger to Mataafa at the Catholic mission.

Mataafa followed by the same road,and the pair met at the river-side and went and sat together in a house.All present were in tears."Do not let us weep,"said the talking man,Lauati."We have no cause for shame.We do not yield to Tamasese,but to the invincible strangers."The departing king bequeathed the care of his country to Mataafa;and when the latter sought to console him with the commodore's promises,he shook his head,and declared his assurance that he was going to a life of exile,and perhaps to death.About two o'clock the meeting broke up;Mataafa returned to the Catholic mission by the back of the town;and Malietoa proceeded by the beach road to the German naval hospital,where he was received (as he owns,with perfect civility)by Brandeis.

About three,Becker brought him forth again.As they went to the wharf,the people wept and clung to their departing monarch.Aboat carried him on board the BISMARCK,and he vanished from his countrymen.Yet it was long rumoured that he still lay in the harbour;and so late as October 7th,a boy,who had been paddling round the CAROLA,professed to have seen and spoken with him.Here again the needless mystery affected by the Germans bitterly disserved them.The uncertainty which thus hung over Laupepa's fate,kept his name continually in men's mouths.The words of his farewell rang in their ears:"To all Samoa:On account of my great love to my country and my great affection to all Samoa,this is the reason that I deliver up my body to the German government.That government may do as they wish to me.The reason of this is,because I do not desire that the blood of Samoa shall be spilt for me again.But I do not know what is my offence which has caused their anger to me and to my country."And then,apostrophising the different provinces:"Tuamasanga,farewell!Manono and family,farewell!So,also,Salafai,Tutuila,Aana,and Atua,farewell!

If we do not again see one another in this world,pray that we may be again together above."So the sheep departed with the halo of a saint,and men thought of him as of some King Arthur snatched into Avilion.