Here, in a safe place,
he built himself a town in the forest, where he received a continual
stream of visitors and messengers. Day after day the German blue-jackets
were employed in the hopeless enterprise of beating the forests for the
fugitive; day after day they were suffered to pass unhurt under the guns
of ambushed Samoans; day after day they returned, exhausted and
disappointed, to Apia. Seumanu Tafa, high chief of Apia, was known to be
in the forest with the king; his wife, Fatuila, was seized, imprisoned in
the German hospital, and when it was thought her spirit was sufficiently
reduced, brought up for cross-examination. The wise lady confined
herself in answer to a single word. "Is your husband near Apia?" "Yes."
"Is he far from Apia?" "Yes." "Is he with the king?" "Yes." "Are he
and the king in different places?" "Yes." Whereupon the witness was
discharged. About the 10th of September, Laupepa was secretly in Apia at
the American consulate with two companions. The German pickets were
close set and visited by a strong patrol; and on his return, his party
was observed and hailed and fired on by a sentry. They ran away on all
fours in the dark, and so doing plumped upon another sentry, whom Laupepa
grappled and flung in a ditch; for the Sheet of Paper, although infirm of
character, is, like most Samoans, of an able body.
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