His heart was doubtless wrung for his young countrymen who had been
butchered and mutilated in the dark woods, or now lay suffering, and some
of them dying, on the ship. And he must have been startled as he
recognised his own position. He had gone too far; he had stumbled into
war, and, what was worse, into defeat; he had thrown away German lives
for less than nothing, and now saw himself condemned either to accept
defeat, or to kick and pummel his failure into something like success;
either to accept defeat, or take frenzy for a counsellor. Yesterday, in
cold blood, he had judged it necessary to have the woods to the westward
guarded lest the evacuation of Laulii should prove only the peril of
Apia. To-day, in the irritation and alarm of failure, he forgot or
despised his previous reasoning, and, though his detachment was beat back
to the ships, proceeded with the remainder of his maimed design. The
only change he made was to haul down the flag of truce. He had now no
wish to meet with Mataafa. Words were out of season, shells must speak.
At this moment an incident befell him which must have been trying to his
self-command. The new American ship _Nipsic_ entered Laulii Bay; her
commander, Mullan, boarded the _Adler_ to protest, succeeded in wresting
from Knappe a period of delay in order that the women might be spared,
and sent a lieutenant to Mataafa with a warning.
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