第40章 THE SAMOAN CAMPS(3)

Thanks to the misconduct of the Mataafas,the most of the foreshore was still in the hands of the Tamaseses;and they were thus able to receive from the EBER both the stores and weapons.The weapons had been sold long since to Tarawa,Apaiang,and Pleasant Island;places unheard of by the general reader,where obscure inhabitants paid for these instruments of death in money or in labour,misused them as it was known they would be misused,and had been disarmed by force.The EBER had brought back the guns to a German counter,whence many must have been originally sold;and was here engaged,like a shopboy,in their distribution to fresh purchasers.Such is the vicious circle of the traffic in weapons of war.Another aid of a more metaphysical nature was ministered by the EBER to Tamasese,in the shape of uncountable German flags.The full history of this epidemic of bunting falls to be told in the next chapter.But the fact has to be chronicled here,for I believe it was to these flags that we owe the visit of the ADAMS,and my next and best authentic glance into a native camp.The ADAMS arrived in Saluafata on the 26th.On the morrow Leary and Moors landed at the village.It was still occupied by Mataafas,mostly from Manono and Savaii,few in number,high in spirit.The Tamasese pickets were meanwhile within musket range;there was maintained a steady sputtering of shots;and yet a party of Tamasese women were here on a visit to the women of Manono,with whom they sat talking and smoking,under the fire of their own relatives.It was reported that Leary took part in a council of war,and promised to join with his broadside in the next attack.It is certain he did nothing of the sort:equally certain that,in Tamasese circles,he was firmly credited with having done so.And this heightens the extraordinary character of what I have now to tell.Prudence and delicacy alike ought to have forbid the camp of Tamasese to the feet of either Leary or Moors.Moors was the original -there was a time when he had been the only -opponent of the puppet king.Leary had driven him from the seat of government;it was but a week or two since he had threatened to bombard him in his present refuge.Both were in close and daily council with his adversary,and it was no secret that Moors was supplying the latter with food.They were partisans;it lacked but a hair that they should be called belligerents;it were idle to try to deny they were the most dangerous of spies.And yet these two now sailed across the bay and landed inside the Tamasese lines at Salelesi.On the very beach they had another glimpse of the artlessness of Samoan war.