They were carried with parade in front of the fine house which
our late President built for himself before he was removed. Here, on the
verandah, the King sat to receive them, and utter words of course and
compliment to each successful warrior. They were _spolia opima_ in the
number. Leaupepe, Mataafa's nephew--or, as Samoans say, his son--had
fallen by the first wall, and whether from those sentiments of kindred
and friendship that so often unite the combatants in civil strife, or to
mark by an unusual formality the importance of the conquest, not only
his head but his mutilated body also was brought in. From the mat in
which the corpse was enveloped a bloody hand protruded, and struck a
chill in white eye-witnesses. It were to attribute to [Malietoa] Laupepa
sentiments entirely foreign to his race and training, if we were to
suppose him otherwise than gratified.

But it was not so throughout. Every country has its customs, say native
apologists, and one of the most decisive customs of Samoa ensures the
immunity of women. They go to the front, as our women of yore went to a
tournament. Bullets are blind; and they must take their risk of bullets,
but of nothing else. They serve out cartridges and water; they jeer the
faltering and defend the wounded. Even in this skirmish of Vaitele they
distinguished themselves on either side. One dragged her skulking
husband from a hole, and drove him to the front. Another, seeing her
lover fall, snatched up his gun, kept the head-hunters at bay, and drew
him unmutilated from the field. Such services they have been accustomed
to pay for centuries; and often, in the course of centuries, a bullet or
a spear must have despatched one of these warlike angels. Often enough,
too, the head-hunter, springing ghoul-like on fallen bodies, must have
decapitated a woman for a man. But, the case arising, there was an
established etiquette. So soon as the error was discovered the head was
buried, and the exploit forgotten. There had never yet, in the history
of Samoa, occurred an instance in which a man had taken a woman's head
and kept it and laid it at his monarch's feet.

Such was the strange and horrid spectacle, which must have immediately
shaken the heart of Laupepa, and has since covered the faces of his
party with confusion. It is not quite certain if there were three, or
only two: a recent attempt to reduce the number to one must be received
with caution as an afterthought; the admissions i