first:  upon the one condition, that Mataafa be excluded. “Pourvu qu’il sache signer!”—­an official is said to have thus summed up the qualifications necessary in a Samoan king.  And it was perhaps feared that Mataafa could do no more and might not always do so much.  But this original diffidence was heightened by late events to something verging upon animosity.  Fangalii was unavenged:  the arms of Mataafa were

   Nondum inexpiatis uncta cruoribus,
   Still soiled with the unexpiated blood

of German sailors; and though the chief was not present in the field, nor could have heard of the affair till it was over, he had reaped from it credit with his countrymen and dislike from the Germans.

I may not say that trouble was hoped.  I must say—­if it were not feared, the practice of diplomacy must teach a very hopeful view of human nature.  Mataafa and Laupepa, by the sudden repatriation of the last, found themselves face to face in conditions of exasperating rivalry.  The one returned from the dead of exile to find himself replaced and excelled.  The other, at the end of a long, anxious, and successful struggle, beheld his only possible competitor resuscitated from the grave.  The qualities of both, in this difficult moment, shone out nobly.  I feel I seem always less than partial to the lovable Laupepa; his virtues are perhaps not those which chiefly please me, and are certainly not royal; but he found on his return an opportunity to display the admirable sweetness of his nature.  The two entered into a competition of generosity, for which I can recall no parallel in history, each waiving the throne for himself, each pressing it upon his rival; and they embraced at last a compromise the terms of which seem to have been always obscure and are now disputed.  Laupepa at least resumed his style of King of Samoa; Mataafa retained much of the conduct of affairs, and continued to receive much of the attendance and respect befitting royalty; and the two Malietoas, with so many causes of disunion, dwelt and met together in the same town like kinsmen.  It was so, that I first saw them; so, in a house set about with sentries—­for there was still a haunting fear of Germany,—­that I heard them relate their various experience in the past; heard Laupepa tell with touching candour of the sorrows of his exile, and Mataafa with mirthful simplicity of his resources and anxieties in the war.  The relation was perhaps too beautiful to last; it was perhaps impossible but the titular king should grow at last uneasily conscious of the maire de palais at his side, or the king-maker be at last offended by some shadow of distrust or assumption in his creature.  I repeat the words king-maker and creature; it is so that Mataafa himself conceives of their relation:  surely not without justice; for, had he not contended and prevailed, and been helped by the folly of consuls and the fury of the storm, Laupepa must have died in exile.