another whispered. It is openly alleged that Bayard had shown himself
impracticable; it is whispered that the Hawaiian embassy was an
expression of American intrigue, and that the Germans only did as they
were done by. The sufficiency of these excuses may be left to the
discretion of the reader. But, however excused, the breach of faith was
public and express; it must have been deliberately predetermined and it
was resented in the States as a deliberate insult.

By the middle of August 1887 there were five sail of German war-ships in
Apia bay: the _Bismarck_, of 3000 tons displacement; the _Carola_, the
_Sophie_, and the _Olga_, all considerable ships; and the beautiful
_Adler_, which lies there to this day, kanted on her beam, dismantled,
scarlet with rust, the day showing through her ribs. They waited
inactive, as a burglar waits till the patrol goes by. And on the 23rd,
when the mail had left for Sydney, when the eyes of the world were
withdrawn, and Samoa plunged again for a period of weeks into her
original island-obscurity, Becker opened his guns. The policy was too
cunning to seem dignified; it gave to conduct which would otherwise have
seemed bold and even brutally straightforward, the appearance of a timid
ambuscade; and helped to shake men's reliance on the word of Germany. On
the day named, an ultimatum reached Malietoa at Afenga, whither he had
retired months before to avoid friction. A fine of one thousand dollars
and an _ifo_, or public humiliation, were demanded for the affair of the
Emperor's birthday. Twelve thousand dollars were to be "paid quickly"
for thefts from German plantations in the course of the last four years.
"It is my opinion that there is nothing just or correct in Samoa while
you are at the head of the government," concluded Becker. "I shall be at
Afenga in the morning of to-morrow, Wednesday, at 11 A.M." The blow fell
on Laupepa (in his own expression) "out of the bush"; the dilatory fellow
had seen things hang over so long, he had perhaps begun to suppose they