Fritze, ranking German officer, is understood to have opposed the measure.  His attitude earned him at the time unpopularity among his country-people on the spot, and should now redound to his credit.  It is to be hoped he extended his opposition to some of the details.  If it were possible to disarm Mataafa at all, it must be done rather by prestige than force.  A party of blue-jackets landed in Samoan bush, and expected to hold against Samoans a multiplicity of forest paths, had their work cut out for them.  And it was plain they should be landed in the light of day, with a discouraging openness, and even with parade.  To sneak ashore by night was to increase the danger of resistance and to minimise the authority of the attack.  The thing was a bluff, and it is impossible to bluff with stealth.  Yet this was what was tried.  A landing-party was to leave the Olga in Apia bay at two in the morning; the landing was to be at four on two parts of the foreshore of Vailele.  At eight they were to be joined by a second landing-party from the Eber.  By nine the Olgas were to be on the crest of Letongo Mountain, and the Ebers to be moving round the promontory by the seaward paths, “with measures of precaution,” disarming all whom they encountered.  There was to be no firing unless fired upon.  At the appointed hour (or perhaps later) on the morning of the 19th, this unpromising business was put in hand, and there moved off from the Olga two boats with some fifty blue-jackets between them, and a praam or punt containing ninety,—­the boats and the whole expedition under the command of Captain-Lieutenant Jaeckel, the praam under Lieutenant Spengler.  The men had each forty rounds, one day’s provisions, and their flasks filled.

In the meanwhile, Mataafa sympathisers about Apia were on the alert.  Knappe had informed the consuls that the ships were to put to sea next day for the protection of German property; but the Tamaseses had been less discreet.  “To-morrow at the hour of seven,” they had cried to their adversaries, “you will know of a difficulty, and our guns shall be made good in broken bones.”  An accident had pointed expectation towards Apia.  The wife of Le Mamea washed for the German ships—­a perquisite, I suppose, for her husband’s unwilling fidelity.  She sent a man with linen on board the Adler, where he was surprised to see Le Mamea in person, and to be himself ordered instantly on shore.  The news spread.  If Mamea were brought down from Lotoanuu, others might have come at the same time.  Tamasese himself and half his army might perhaps lie concealed on board the German ships.  And a watch was accordingly set and warriors collected along the line of the shore.  One detachment lay in some rifle-pits by the mouth of the Fuisa.  They were commanded by Seumanu; and with his party, probably as the most contiguous to Apia, was the war-correspondent, John Klein.  Of English birth, but naturalised