nearly to the ground.  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.  Soon after, a small grave was dug, the heads were buried in a beef box, and the pastor read the service.  The body of Saifaleupolu himself was recovered unmutilated, brought down from the forest, and buried behind Apia.

The same afternoon, the men of Vaimaunga were ordered to report in Mulinuu, where Tamasese’s flag was half-masted for the death of a chief in the skirmish.  Vaimaunga is that district of Taumasanga which includes the bay and the foothills behind Apia; and both province and district are strong Malietoa.  Not one man, it is said, obeyed the summons.  Night came, and the town lay in unusual silence; no one abroad; the blinds down around the native houses, the men within sleeping on their arms; the old women keeping watch in pairs.  And in the course of the two following days all Vaimaunga was gone into the bush, the very gaoler setting free his prisoners and joining them in their escape.  Hear the words of the chiefs in the 23rd article of their complaint:  “Some of the chiefs fled to the bush from fear of being reported, fear of German men-of-war, constantly being accused, etc., and Brandeis commanded that they were to be shot on sight.  This act was carried out by Brandeis on the 31st day of August, 1888.  After this we evaded these laws; we could not stand them; our patience was worn out with the constant wickedness of Tamasese and Brandeis.  We were tired out and could stand no longer the acts of these two men.”

So through an ill-timed skirmish, two severed heads, and a dead body, the rule of Brandeis came to a sudden end.  We shall see him a while longer fighting for existence in a losing battle; but his government—­take it for all in all, the most promising that has ever been in these unlucky islands—­was from that hour a piece of history.