ifles?

True, I could sympathise with the German officers in their
embarrassment. Here was the son of the old King whom they had raised,
and whom they had deserted. What an unenviable office was theirs when
they must make war upon, suppress, and make a feint of punishing, this
man to whom they stood bound by a hereditary alliance, and to whose
father they had already failed so egregiously! They were loyal all
round. They were loyal to their Tamasese, and got him off with his fine.
And shall I not be a little loyal to Mataafa? And will you not help me?
He is now an old man, very piously inclined, and I believe he would
enter at least the lesser orders of the Church if he were suffered to
come back. But I do not even ask so much as this, though I hope it. It
would be enough if he were brought back to Fiji, back to the food and
fresh water of his childhood, back into the daylight from the darkness
of the Marshalls, where some of us could see him, where we could write
to him and receive answers, where he might pass a tolerable old age. If
you can help me to get this done, I am sure that you will never regret
it. In its small way, this is another case of Toussaint L'Ouverture, not
so monstrous if you like, not on so large a scale, but with
circumstances of small perfidy that make it almost as odious.

I may tell you in conclusion that, circumstances co-operating with my
tedious insistence, the last of the Mataafa chiefs here in Apia has been
liberated from gaol. All this time they stayed of their own free will,
thinking it might injure Mataafa if they escaped when others did. And
you will see by the enclosed paper how these poor fellows spent the
first hours of their liberty.[12] You will see also that I am not the
firebrand that I am sometimes painted, and that in helping me, if you
shall decide to do so, you will be doing nothing against the peace and
prosperity of Samoa.

With many excuses for having occupied so much of your valuable time, I
remain, yours truly,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

_P.S._--On revisal, I observe some points: in the first place, I do not
believe Captain Bickford was to blame; I suspect him to have been a
victim. I have been told, but it seems incredible, that he underwent an
examination about Mataafa's daughter having been allowed to accompany
him. Certainly he liked his job little, and some of his colleagues less.

R. L. S.

_Oct._ 9.

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