But these,though so important,are only small communities;and perhaps the chief numerical force of the Malietoas inhabits the island of Savaii.Savaii has no royal name to bestow,all the five being in the gift of different districts of Upolu;but she has the weight of numbers,and in these latter days has acquired a certain force by the preponderance in her councils of a single man,the orator Lauati.The reader will now understand the peculiar significance of a deputation which should embrace Lauati and the orators of both Malie and Manono,how it would represent all that is most effective on the Malietoa side,and all that is most considerable in Samoan politics,except the opposite feudal party of the Tupua.And in the temptation brought to bear on Mataafa,even the Tupua was conjoined.Tamasese was dead.His followers had conceived a not unnatural aversion to all Germans,from which only the loyal Brandeis is excepted;and a not unnatural admiration for their late successful adversary.Men of his own blood and clan,men whom he had fought in the field,whom he had driven from Matautu,who had smitten him back time and again from before the rustic bulwarks of Lotoanuu,they approached him hand in hand with their ancestral enemies and concurred in the same prayer.The treaty (they argued)was not carried out.The right to elect their king had been granted them;or if that were denied or suspended,then the right to elect "his successor."They were dissatisfied with Laupepa,and claimed,"according to the laws and customs of Samoa,"duly to appoint another.The orators of Malie declared with irritation that their second appointment was alone valid and Mataafa the sole Malietoa;the whole body of malcontents named him as their choice for king;and they requested him in consequence to leave Apia and take up his dwelling in Malie,the name-place of Malietoa;a step which may be described,to European ears,as placing before the country his candidacy for the crown.
I do not know when the proposal was first made.Doubtless the disaffection grew slowly,every trifle adding to its force;doubtless there lingered for long a willingness to give the new government a trial.The chief justice at least had been nearly five months in the country,and the president,Baron Senfft von Pilsach,rather more than a month before the mine was sprung.On May 31,1891,the house of Mataafa was found empty,he and his chiefs had vanished from Apia,and,what was worse,three prisoners,liberated from the gaol,had accompanied them in their secession;two being political offenders,and the third (accused of murder)having been perhaps set free by accident.Although the step had been discussed in certain quarters,it took all men by surprise.The inhabitants at large expected instant war.The officials awakened from a dream to recognise the value of that which they had lost.Mataafa at Vaiala,where he was the pledge of peace,had perhaps not always been deemed worthy of particular attention;Mataafa at Malie was seen,twelve hours too late,to be an altogether different quantity.With excess of zeal on the other side,the officials trooped to their boats and proceeded almost in a body to Malie,where they seem to have employed every artifice of flattery and every resource of eloquence upon the fugitive high chief.These courtesies,perhaps excessive in themselves,had the unpardonable fault of being offered when too late.Mataafa showed himself facile on small issues,inflexible on the main;he restored the prisoners,he returned with the consuls to Apia on a flying visit;he gave his word that peace should be preserved -a pledge in which perhaps no one believed at the moment,but which he has since nobly redeemed.On the rest he was immovable;he had cast the die,he had declared his candidacy,he had gone to Malie.
Thither,after his visit to Apia,he returned again;there he has practically since resided.
Thus was created in the islands a situation,strange in the beginning,and which,as its inner significance is developed,becomes daily stranger to observe.On the one hand,Mataafa sits in Malie,assumes a regal state,receives deputations,heads his letters "Government of Samoa,"tacitly treats the king as a co-ordinate;and yet declares himself,and in many ways conducts himself,as a law-abiding citizen.On the other,the white officials in Mulinuu stand contemplating the phenomenon with eyes of growing stupefaction;now with symptoms of collapse,now with accesses of violence.For long,even those well versed in island manners and the island character daily expected war,and heard imaginary drums beat in the forest.But for now close upon a year,and against every stress of persuasion and temptation,Mataafa has been the bulwark of our peace.Apia lay open to be seized,he had the power in his hand,his followers cried to be led on,his enemies marshalled him the same way by impotent examples;and he has never faltered.Early in the day,a white man was sent from the government of Mulinuu to examine and report upon his actions:
I saw the spy on his return;"It was only our rebel that saved us,"he said,with a laugh.There is now no honest man in the islands but is well aware of it;none but knows that,if we have enjoyed during the past eleven months the conveniences of peace,it is due to the forbearance of "our rebel."Nor does this part of his conduct stand alone.He calls his party at Malie the government,-"our government,"-but he pays his taxes to the government at Mulinuu.He takes ground like a king;he has steadily and blandly refused to obey all orders as to his own movements or behaviour;but upon requisition he sends offenders to be tried under the chief justice.