eing molested "by any
other nation." "But if a German man-of-war does it?" asked Knappe.--"We
shall prevent it to the best of our ability," replied the colonel. It is
to the credit of both men that this trying interview should have been
conducted and concluded without heat; but Knappe must have returned to
the _Adler_ with darker anticipations.

At sunrise on the morning of the 15th, the three ships, each loaded with
its consul, put to sea. It is hard to exaggerate the peril of the
forenoon that followed, as they lay off Laulii. Nobody desired a
collision, save perhaps the reckless Leary; but peace and war trembled in
the balance; and when the _Adler_, at one period, lowered her gun ports,
war appeared to preponderate. It proved, however, to be a last--and
therefore surely an unwise--extremity. Knappe contented himself with
visiting the rival kings, and the three ships returned to Apia before
noon. Beyond a doubt, coming after Knappe's decisive letter of the day
before, this impotent conclusion shook the credit of Germany among the
natives of both sides; the Tamaseses fearing they were deserted, the
Mataafas (with secret delight) hoping they were feared. And it gave an
impetus to that ridiculous business which might have earned for the whole
episode the name of the war of flags. British and American flags had
been planted the night before, and were seen that morning flying over
what they claimed about Laulii. British and American passengers, on the
way up and down, pointed out from the decks of the war-ships, with
generous vagueness, the boundaries of problematical estates. Ten days
later, the beach of Saluafata bay fluttered (as I have told in the last
chapter) with the flag of Germany. The Americans riposted with a claim
to Tamasese's camp, some small part of which (says Knappe) did really
belong to "an American nigger." The disease spread, the flags were
multiplied, the operations of war became an egg-dance among miniature
neutral territories; and though all men took a hand in these proceedings,
all men in turn were struck with their absurdity. Mullan, Leary's
successor, warned Knappe, in an emphatic despatch, not to squander and
discredit the solemnity of that emblem which was all he had to be a
defence to his own consulate. And Knappe himself, in his despatch of
March 21st, 1889, castigates the practice with much sense. But this was
after the tragicomic culmination had been reached, and the burnt rag