(again singing--though perhaps a different song) continued their return
along the English and American shore. Off Matautu they were hailed from
the seaward by one of the _Adler's_ boats, which had been suddenly
despatched on the sound of the firing or had stood ready all evening to
secure the gun. The hail was in German; the Samoans knew not what it
meant, but took the precaution to jump overboard and swim for land. Two
volleys and some dropping shot were poured upon them in the water; but
they dived, scattered, and came to land unhurt in different quarters of
Matautu. The volleys, fired inshore, raked the highway, a British house
was again pierced by numerous bullets, and these sudden sounds of war
scattered consternation through the town.

Two British subjects, Hetherington-Carruthers, a solicitor, and Maben, a
land-surveyor--the first being in particular a man well versed in the
native mind and language--hastened at once to their consul; assured him
the Mataafas would be roused to fury by this onslaught in the neutral
zone, that the German quarter would be certainly attacked, and the rest
of the town and white inhabitants exposed to a peril very difficult of
estimation; and prevailed upon him to intrust them with a mission to the
king. By the time they reached headquarters, the warriors were already
taking post round Matafele, and the agitation of Mataafa himself was
betrayed in the fact that he spoke with the deputation standing and gun
in hand: a breach of high-chief dignity perhaps unparalleled. The usual
result, however, followed: the whites persuaded the Samoan; and the
attack was countermanded, to the benefit of all concerned, and not least
of Mataafa. To the benefit of all, I say; for I do not think the Germans
were that evening in a posture to resist; the liquor-cellars of the firm
must have fallen into the power of the insurgents; and I will repeat my
formula that a mob is a mob, a drunken mob is a drunken mob, and a
drunken mob with weapons in its hands is a drunken mob with weapons in