Next came a young fellow wounded, sitting in a
rope swung from a pole; two fellows bearing him, two running behind for a
relief. At last about eleven, three or four heavy volleys and a great
shouting were heard from the bush town Tanungamanono; the affair was
over, the victorious force, on the march back, was there celebrating its
victory by the way. Presently after, it marched through Apia, five or
six hundred strong, in tolerable order and strutting with the ludicrous
assumption of the triumphant islander. Women who had been buying bread
ran and gave them loaves. At the tail end came Brandeis himself, smoking
a cigar, deadly pale, and with perhaps an increase of his usual nervous
manner. One spoke to him by the way. He expressed his sorrow the action
had been forced on him. "Poor people, it's all the worse for them!" he
said. "It'll have to be done another way now." And it was supposed by
his hearer that he referred to intervention from the German war-ships. He
meant, he said, to put a stop to head-hunting; his men had taken two that
day, he added, but he had not suffered them to bring them in, and they
had been left in Tanungamanono. Thither my informant rode, was attracted
by the sound of wailing, and saw in a house the two heads washed and
combed, and the sister of one of the dead lamenting in the island fashion
and kissing the cold face.
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