ore at the
Scanlons' house. Of this he took possession at the head of an old woman
and a mop, and was seen from the Tamasese breastwork directing
operations and plainly preparing to install himself there in a military
posture. So much he meant to be understood; so much he meant to carry
out, and an armed party from the _Adams_ was to have garrisoned on the
morrow the scene of the atrocity. But there is no doubt he managed to
convey more. No doubt he was a master in the art of loose speaking, and
could always manage to be overheard when he wanted; and by this, or some
other equally unofficial means, he spread the rumour that on the morrow
he was to bombard.

The proposed post, from its position, and from Leary's well-established
character as an artist in mischief, must have been regarded by the
Germans with uneasiness. In the bombardment we can scarce suppose them
to have believed. But Tamasese must have both believed and trembled. The
prestige of the European Powers was still unbroken. No native would then
have dreamed of defying these colossal ships, worked by mysterious
powers, and laden with outlandish instruments of death. None would have
dreamed of resisting those strange but quite unrealised Great Powers,
understood (with difficulty) to be larger than Tonga and Samoa put
together, and known to be prolific of prints, knives, hard biscuit,
picture-books, and other luxuries, as well as of overbearing men and
inconsistent orders. Laupepa had fallen in ill-blood with one of them;
his only idea of defence had been to throw himself in the arms of
another; his name, his rank, and his great following had not been able
to preserve him; and he had vanished from the eyes of men--as the Samoan
thinks of it, beyond the sky. Asi, Maunga, Tuiletu-funga, had followed
him in that new path of doom. We have seen how carefully Mataafa still
walked, how he dared not set foot on the neutral territory till assured
it was no longer sacred, how he withdrew from it again as soon as its
sacredness had been restored, and at the bare word of a consul (however
gilded with ambiguous promises) paused in his course of victory and left
his rival unassailed in Mulinuu. And now it was the rival's turn.
Hitherto happy in the continued support of one of the white Powers, he
now found himself--or thought himself--threatened with war by no less
than two others.

Tamasese boats as they passed Matautu were in the habit of firing on the
shore, as like as