The progress of the fight along the beach road was visible from Mulinuu,
and Brandeis despatched ten boats of reinforcements. They crossed the
harbour, paused for a while beside the _Adler_--it is supposed for
ammunition--and drew near the Matautu shore. The Mataafa men lay close
among the shore-side bushes, expecting their arrival; when a silly lad,
in mere lightness of heart, fired a shot in the air. My native friend,
Mrs. Mary Hamilton, ran out of her house and gave the culprit a good
shaking: an episode in the midst of battle as incongruous as the grazing
cow. But his sillier comrades followed his example; a harmless volley
warned the boats what they might expect; and they drew back and passed
outside the reef for the passage of the Fuisa. Here they came under the
fire of the right wing of the Mataafas on the river-bank. The beach,
raked east and west, appeared to them no place to land on. And they hung
off in the deep water of the lagoon inside the barrier reef, feebly
fusillading the pilot house.

Between four and five, the Fabeata regiment (or folk of that village) on
the Mataafa left, which had been under arms all day, fell to be withdrawn
for rest and food; the Siumu regiment, which should have relieved it, was
not ready or not notified in time; and the Tamaseses, gallantly profiting
by the mismanagement, recovered the most of the ground in their proper
right. It was not for long. They lost it again, yard by yard and from
house to house, till the pilot station was once more in the hands of the
Mataafas. This is the last definite incident in the battle. The
vicissitudes along the line of the entrenchments remain concealed from us
under the cover of the forest. Some part of the Tamasese position there
appears to have been carried, but what part, or at what hour, or whether
the advantage was maintained, I have never learned. Night and rain, but
not silence, closed upon the field. The trenches were deep in mud; but