Along all the irregularities and obstructions of the beach,
across the mouth of the Vaivasa, and through the startled village of
Matafangatele, Seumanu, Klein, and seven or eight others raced to keep
up, spreading the alarm and rousing reinforcements as they went.
Presently a man on horse-back made his appearance on the opposite beach
of Fangalii. Klein and the natives distinctly saw him signal with a
lantern; which is the more strange, as the horseman (Captain Hufnagel,
plantation manager of Vailele) had never a lantern to signal with. The
praam kept in. Many men in white were seen to stand up, step overboard,
and wade to shore. At the same time the eye of panic descried a
breastwork of "foreign stone" (brick) upon the beach. Samoans are
prepared to-day to swear to its existence, I believe conscientiously,
although no such thing was ever made or ever intended in that place. The
hour is doubtful. "It was the hour when the streak of dawn is seen, the
hour known in the warfare of heathen times as the hour of the night
attack," says the Mataafa official account. A native whom I met on the
field declared it was at cock-crow. Captain Hufnagel, on the other hand,
is sure it was long before the day. It was dark at least, and the moon
down.
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