About the
same time or but a little earlier than this conversation, the same spirit
was being displayed. Hufnagel, with a party of labour, had gone out to
bring in the German dead, when he was surprised to be suddenly fired on
from the wood. The boys he had with him were not negritos, but
Polynesians from the Gilbert Islands; and he suddenly remembered that
these might be easily mistaken for a detachment of Tamaseses. Bidding
his boys conceal themselves in a thicket, this brave man walked into the
open. So soon as he was recognised, the firing ceased, and the labourers
followed him in safety. This is chivalrous war; but there was a side to
it less chivalrous. As Moors drew nearer to Vailele, he began to meet
Samoans with hats, guns, and even shirts, taken from the German sailors.
With one of these who had a hat and a gun he stopped and spoke. The hat
was handed up for him to look at; it had the late owner's name on the
inside. "Where is he?" asked Moors. "He is dead; I cut his head off."
"You shot him?" "No, somebody else shot him in the hip. When I came, he
put up his hands, and cried: 'Don't kill me; I am a Malietoa man.' I did
not believe him, and I cut his head off...... Have you any ammunition to
fit that gun?" "I do not know.
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