even to the delay of islanders. As the white men stood and looked, the
Tamasese line thundered into a volley; it was answered; the crowd of
silent workers broke forth in laughter and cheers; and the battle had
begun.

Thenceforward, all day and most of the next night, volley followed
volley; and pounds of lead and pounds sterling of money continued to be
blown into the air without cessation and almost without result. Colonel
de Coetlogon, an old soldier, described the noise as deafening. The
harbour was all struck with shots; a man was knocked over on the German
war-ship; half Apia was under fire; and a house was pierced beyond the
Mulivai. All along the two lines of breastwork, the entrenched enemies
exchanged this hail of balls; and away on the east of the battle the
fusillade was maintained, with equal spirit, across the narrow barrier of
the Fuisa. The whole rear of the Tamaseses was enfiladed by this flank
fire; and I have seen a house there, by the river brink, that was riddled
with bullets like a piece of worm-eaten wreck-wood. At this point of the
field befell a trait of Samoan warfare worth recording. Taiese (brother
to Siteoni already mentioned) shot a Tamasese man. He saw him fall, and,
inflamed with the lust of glory, passed the river single-handed in that
storm of missiles to secure the head. On the farther bank, as was but
natural, he fell himself; he who had gone to take a trophy remained to
afford one; and the Mataafas, who had looked on exulting in the prospect
of a triumph, saw themselves exposed instead to a disgrace. Then rose
one Vingi, passed the deadly water, swung the body of Taiese on his back,
and returned unscathed to his own side, the head saved, the corpse filled
with useless bullets.

At this rate of practice, the ammunition soon began to run low, and from
an early hour of the afternoon, the Malietoa stores were visited by