第46章 AFFAIRS OF LAULII AND FANGALII(5)

It was proposed to fire upon her ere she drew near.And at last,whether on his own suggestion or that of Seumanu,Klein hailed her in English,and in terms of unnecessary melodrama."Do not try to land here,"he cried."If you do,your blood will be upon your head."Spengler,who had never the least intention to touch at the Fuisa,put up the head of the praam to her true course and continued to move up the lagoon with an offing of some seventy or eighty yards.Along all the irregularities and obstructions of the beach,across the mouth of the Vaivasa,and through the startled village of Matafangatele,Seumanu,Klein,and seven or eight others raced to keep up,spreading the alarm and rousing reinforcements as they went.Presently a man on horse-back made his appearance on the opposite beach of Fangalii.Klein and the natives distinctly saw him signal with a lantern;which is the more strange,as the horseman (Captain Hufnagel,plantation manager of Vailele)had never a lantern to signal with.The praam kept in.Many men in white were seen to stand up,step overboard,and wade to shore.At the same time the eye of panic descried a breastwork of "foreign stone"(brick)upon the beach.Samoans are prepared to-day to swear to its existence,I believe conscientiously,although no such thing was ever made or ever intended in that place.The hour is doubtful."It was the hour when the streak of dawn is seen,the hour known in the warfare of heathen times as the hour of the night attack,"says the Mataafa official account.A native whom I met on the field declared it was at cock-crow.Captain Hufnagel,on the other hand,is sure it was long before the day.It was dark at least,and the moon down.Darkness made the Samoans bold;uncertainty as to the composition and purpose of the landing-party made them desperate.Fire was opened on the Germans,one of whom was here killed.The Germans returned it,and effected a lodgment on the beach;and the skirmish died again to silence.It was at this time,if not earlier,that Klein returned to Apia.

Here,then,were Spengler and the ninety men of the praam,landed on the beach in no very enviable posture,the woods in front filled with unnumbered enemies,but for the time successful.Meanwhile,Jaeckel and the boats had gone outside the reef,and were to land on the other side of the Vailele promontory,at Sunga,by the buildings of the plantation.It was Hufnagel's part to go and meet them.His way led straight into the woods and through the midst of the Samoans,who had but now ceased firing.He went in the saddle and at a foot's pace,feeling speed and concealment to be equally helpless,and that if he were to fall at all,he had best fall with dignity.Not a shot was fired at him;no effort made to arrest him on his errand.As he went,he spoke and even jested with the Samoans,and they answered in good part.One fellow was leaping,yelling,and tossing his axe in the air,after the way of an excited islander."FAIMALOSI!go it!"said Hufnagel,and the fellow laughed and redoubled his exertions.As soon as the boats entered the lagoon,fire was again opened from the woods.The fifty blue-jackets jumped overboard,hove down the boats to be a shield,and dragged them towards the landing-place.In this way,their rations,and (what was more unfortunate)some of their miserable provision of forty rounds got wetted;but the men came to shore and garrisoned the plantation house without a casualty.

Meanwhile the sound of the firing from Sunga immediately renewed the hostilities at Fangalii.The civilians on shore decided that Spengler must be at once guided to the house,and Haideln,the surveyor,accepted the dangerous errand.Like Hufnagel,he was suffered to pass without question through the midst of these platonic enemies.He found Spengler some way inland on a knoll,disastrously engaged,the woods around him filled with Samoans,who were continuously reinforced.In three successive charges,cheering as they ran,the blue-jackets burst through their scattered opponents,and made good their junction with Jaeckel.

Four men only remained upon the field,the other wounded being helped by their comrades or dragging themselves painfully along.

The force was now concentrated in the house and its immediate patch of garden.Their rear,to the seaward,was unmolested;but on three sides they were beleaguered.On the left,the Samoans occupied and fired from some of the plantation offices.In front,a long rising crest of land in the horse-pasture commanded the house,and was lined with the assailants.And on the right,the hedge of the same paddock afforded them a dangerous cover.It was in this place that a Samoan sharpshooter was knocked over by Jaeckel with his own hand.The fire was maintained by the Samoans in the usual wasteful style.The roof was made a sieve;the balls passed clean through the house;Lieutenant Sieger,as he lay,already dying,on Hufnagel's bed,was despatched with a fresh wound.The Samoans showed themselves extremely enterprising:

pushed their lines forward,ventured beyond cover,and continually threatened to envelop the garden.Thrice,at least,it was necessary to repel them by a sally.The men were brought into the house from the rear,the front doors were thrown suddenly open,and the gallant blue-jackets issued cheering:necessary,successful,but extremely costly sorties.Neither could these be pushed far.