It was a steaming day. I had been up from before dawn in order to make my pilgrimage to Vailima. Half the morning was not yet gone when I returned to the little hotel in Apia, situated beside the reefs, to hide myself away from the burning sun. Even within the shade of the upper veranda my flesh squirmed beneath my shirt and the shoes upon my feet became unbearable. So off went my shoes. Nothing merely romantic could have induced me to crawl from under the shadows. There I was content to listen to the lapping of the broken waves as they washed shoreward over the reefs. There I inhaled the scent of tropical vegetation as it reached me, tempered and sifted to the satisfaction of one who dreads the sun and its overweening brilliance.
Suddenly a wail lanced the silence. It sounded for all the world like the melancholy "extra" which New York newsboys cry through the side streets when they wish to make a fire the concern of the world. I sprang up and, leaning over the veranda rail, strained my neck in the direction of the crier, who was still behind the bend in the road which is Apia's Main Street. It seemed to take him an unconscionable time to come into view, his voice approaching and receding, and being battologized as though by a hundred megaphones. Prancing, crouching, and shading his eyes in the manner of an Amerindian scout, he finally made his appearance,—a grotesque fiend, one to strike terror to the heart of a god. His oiled body glistened in the sun; his charcoal-blackened jaw resembled that of a gorilla; while a scarlet turban of cheese-cloth wound after the fashion of the Hindu gave flaming finish to this frightful impersonation of the devil. Nothing but the presence of the army of occupation and the Encounter out in the harbor could have allayed my apprehension, not even the vanity of racial superiority or the oft-repeated prophecies about this vanishing race. For he seemed savagery come to life.
Presently four others, similar personifications of deviltry, came on behind him. In addition to make-up, each brandished a long knife used for cutting sugar-cane, or a clumsy ax. They squatted, they jumped, whirling their weapons in heavy blows at imagined enemies. Never was make-believe played with greater conviction, never was the wish father to the act with more pathetic earnestness. The pitcher of a chosen nine never hurled his ball across an empty field with greater determination to win the coming game than did these warless warriors wield their weapons.
Slowly from the rear came the army, four abreast, in stately procession. There were seventy-five Samoans, each over six feet tall, men of girth and bone and pride. Their glistening bodies reflected the sun like a heaving sea. Their loins were draped in leaves in place of the every-day sulu, with girdles of pink tissue paper round them. Their faces, too, were blackened with charcoal, and turbans of red cheese-cloth capped them. Those of them who could not secure knives or axes, wielded sticks with threatening realism.
In an instant I was in my shoes again and out upon the road, a bit of flotsam in the wake of a great pageant.
I fell in with a Samoan policeman, dressed like an English Bobby, trailing along in the rear. "What's the trouble?" I asked. "Is this a preliminary uprising?" There was much talk of the Germans stirring the natives to rebellion against British occupation, but evidently the natives had had enough of alien squabbles, and it seemed to matter little to them by which of the white invaders they were ruled. A strange expression came into the policeman's face, a mixture of awe and contempt. He could speak only a very scant amount of English, but enough to unlock this awe-inspiring secret. "Tamasese, the king he dead," he said. I fumbled about in my memory for coincidences. The policeman was old enough to have been an understanding boy at the time Stevenson took up the cause of Mataafa as opposed to the German interests and antagonistic even to the British and American attitude. It must have been strange to him, therefore, to find himself a British policeman in a uniform of blue, with a heavy helmet, timidly following a funeral procession in honor of the son of a king disfavored of Stevenson,—while all about were the soldiers of New Zealand. I got nothing from him of any political significance, but much in the way of the spirit of his race. For though an officer of "the" law, perhaps the only one of his kind in Samoa, he dared not go too close to the ranks of these stalwarts. They had come from every islet of the Samoan group, the pick of the race, representatives declaring before the whole world: Our race is not dead; long live our race!
So, all along the way for over a mile into the country behind Apia, continued the procession. Not for a moment did the antics cease; not for a moment did the wail of the warriors subside. Every time the advance scouts called out, "O-o-o-o-s-o-o-o" [The king is dead], the four behind him thundered their denial, "E sa" [Long live the king], and the entire regiment droned the confession "O so." For the king was truly no more. Not only the king but his kingdom. For not only was there now no struggle of aliens over its precincts, but the second conqueror, Britain, who once did not think Samoa worthy as spoils, had stepped in and taken possession.
The procession filled the native population with awe. No one ventured near. A dog ran across the road and was immediately cut down by the sugar-cane knife in a warrior's hand. A Chinese, with the contempt of the fanatic for the fanaticism of others, drove his cart indifferently into their line. Knives, axes, and other borrowed, stolen, or improvised weapons found their way into the chariot of the Celestial.
Half-way along, a limping old man whose leg was swollen with elephantiasis advanced against them. He challenged their approach. They cut the air with furious blows aimed in his direction. He pretended to fall, in the manner of a Russian dancer, picked himself up and started on a wild retreat. The army had routed an enemy.
Here the roadside spread in open land dotted everywhere with native huts. Presently the army arrived at the king's grounds, where a simple hut sat back about two hundred feet from the road, with a bit of green before it. The army broke "rank," and squatted in a double row just at the side of the road. For a few minutes there was silence.