第35章 LAST EXPLOITS OF BECKER(5)

I have had occasion to refer to the strange appearance in these islands of an American adventurer with a battery of cannon.The adventurer was long since gone,but his guns remained,and one of them was now to make fresh history.It had been cast overboard by Brandeis on the outer reef in the course of this retreat;and word of it coming to the ears of the Mataafas,they thought it natural that they should serve themselves the heirs of Tamasese.On the 23rd a Manono boat of the kind called TAUMUALUA dropped down the coast from Mataafa's camp,called in broad day at the German quarter of the town for guides,and proceeded to the reef.Here,diving with a rope,they got the gun aboard;and the night being then come,returned by the same route in the shallow water along shore,singing a boat-song.It will be seen with what childlike reliance they had accepted the neutrality of Apia bay;they came for the gun without concealment,laboriously dived for it in broad day under the eyes of the town and shipping,and returned with it,singing as they went.On Grevsmuhl's wharf,a light showed them a crowd of German blue-jackets clustered,and a hail was heard.

"Stop the singing so that we may hear what is said,"said one of the chiefs in the TAUMUALUA.The song ceased;the hail was heard again,"AU MAI LE FANA -bring the gun";and the natives report themselves to have replied in the affirmative,and declare that they had begun to back the boat.It is perhaps not needful to believe them.A volley at least was fired from the wharf,at about fifty yards'range and with a very ill direction,one bullet whistling over Pelly's head on board the LIZARD.The natives jumped overboard;and swimming under the lee of the TAUMUALUA(where they escaped a second volley)dragged her towards the east.

As soon as they were out of range and past the Mulivai,the German border,they got on board and (again singing -though perhaps a different song)continued their return along the English and American shore.Off Matautu they were hailed from the seaward by one of the ADLER'S boats,which had been suddenly despatched on the sound of the firing or had stood ready all evening to secure the gun.The hail was in German;the Samoans knew not what it meant,but took the precaution to jump overboard and swim for land.Two volleys and some dropping shot were poured upon them in the water;but they dived,scattered,and came to land unhurt in different quarters of Matautu.The volleys,fired inshore,raked the highway,a British house was again pierced by numerous bullets,and these sudden sounds of war scattered consternation through the town.

Two British subjects,Hetherington-Carruthers,a solicitor,and Maben,a land-surveyor -the first being in particular a man well versed in the native mind and language -hastened at once to their consul;assured him the Mataafas would be roused to fury by this onslaught in the neutral zone,that the German quarter would be certainly attacked,and the rest of the town and white inhabitants exposed to a peril very difficult of estimation;and prevailed upon him to intrust them with a mission to the king.By the time they reached headquarters,the warriors were already taking post round Matafele,and the agitation of Mataafa himself was betrayed in the fact that he spoke with the deputation standing and gun in hand:a breach of high-chief dignity perhaps unparalleled.The usual result,however,followed:the whites persuaded the Samoan;and the attack was countermanded,to the benefit of all concerned,and not least of Mataafa.To the benefit of all,I say;for I do not think the Germans were that evening in a posture to resist;the liquor-cellars of the firm must have fallen into the power of the insurgents;and I will repeat my formula that a mob is a mob,a drunken mob is a drunken mob,and a drunken mob with weapons in its hands is a drunken mob with weapons in its hands,all the world over.

In the opinion of some,then,the town had narrowly escaped destruction,or at least the miseries of a drunken sack.To the knowledge of all,the air of the neutral territory had once more whistled with bullets.And it was clear the incident must have diplomatic consequences.Leary and Pelly both protested to Fritze.