top. Many were injured in the
concussion; many tossed into the water; twenty perished. The survivors
crept again on board their ship, as it now lay, and as it still remains,
keel to the waves, a monument of the sea's potency. In still weather,
under a cloudless sky, in those seasons when that ill-named ocean, the
Pacific, suffers its vexed shores to rest, she lies high and dry, the
spray scarce touching her--the hugest structure of man's hands within a
circuit of a thousand miles--tossed up there like a schoolboy's cap upon
a shelf; broken like an egg; a thing to dream of.

The unfriendly consuls of Germany and Britain were both that morning in
Matautu, and both displayed their nobler qualities. De Coetlogon, the
grim old soldier, collected his family and kneeled with them in an agony
of prayer for those exposed. Knappe, more fortunate in that he was
called to a more active service, must, upon the striking of the _Adler_,
pass to his own consulate. From this he was divided by the Vaisingano,
now a raging torrent, impetuously charioting the trunks of trees. A
kelpie might have dreaded to attempt the passage; we may conceive this
brave but unfortunate and now ruined man to have found a natural joy in
the exposure of his life; and twice that day, coming and going, he
braved the fury of the river. It was possible, in spite of the darkness
of the hurricane and the continual breaching of the seas, to remark
human movements on the _Adler_; and by the help of Samoans, always nobly
forward in the work, whether for friend or enemy, Knappe sought long to
get a line conveyed from shore, and was for long defeated. The shore
guard of fifty men stood to their arms the while upon the beach, useless
themselves, and a great deterrent of Samoan usefulness. It was perhaps
impossible that this mistake should be avoided. What more natural, to
the mind of a European, than that the Mataafas should fall upon the
Germans in this hour of their disadvantage? But they had no other
thought than to assist; and those who now rallied beside Knappe braved
(as they supposed) in doing so a double danger, from the fury of the sea
and the weapons of their enemies. About nine, a quarter-master swam
ashore, and reported all the officers and some sixty men alive but in
pitiable case; some with broken limbs, others insensible from the
drenching of the breakers. Later in the forenoon, certain valorous
Samoans succeeded in reaching the wreck and returning with a l