to be carried almost
by stealth out of the island; and what with the agitations of his mind,
and the results of a marsh fever contracted in the lines of Mataafa,
reached Honolulu a very proper object of commiseration. Nor was Klein
the only accused: de Coetlogon was himself involved. As the boats passed
Matautu, Knappe declares a signal was made from the British consulate.
Perhaps we should rather read "from its neighbourhood"; since, in the
general warding of the coast, the point of Matautu could scarce have been
neglected. On the other hand, there is no doubt that the Samoans, in the
anxiety of that night of watching and fighting, crowded to the friendly
consul for advice. Late in the night, the wounded Siteoni, lying on the
colonel's verandah, one corner of which had been blinded down that he
might sleep, heard the coming and going of bare feet and the voices of
eager consultation. And long after, a man who had been discharged from
the colonel's employment took upon himself to swear an affidavit as to
the nature of the advice then given, and to carry the document to the
German consul. It was an act of private revenge; it fell long out of
date in the good days of Dr. Stuebel, and had no result but to discredit
the gentleman who volunteered it. Colonel de Coetlogon had his faults,
but they did not touch his honour; his bare word would always outweigh a
waggon-load of such denunciations; and he declares his behaviour on that
night to have been blameless. The question was besides inquired into on
the spot by Sir John Thurston, and the colonel honourably acquitted. But
during the weeks that were now to follow, Knappe believed the contrary;
he believed not only that Moors and others had supplied ammunition and
Klein commanded in the field, but that de Coetlogon had made the signal
of attack; that though his blue-jackets had bled and fallen against the
arms of Samoans, these were supplied, inspired, and marshalled by
Americans and English.

The legend was the more easily believed because it embraced and was
founded upon so much truth. Germans lay dead, the German wounded groaned
in their cots; and the cartridges by which they fell had been sold by an
American and brought into the country in a British bottom. Had the
transaction been entirely mercenary, it would already have been hard to
swallow; but it was notoriously not so. British and Americans were
notoriously the partisans of Mataafa. They rejoiced in the