And it is certain that the business of his deposition was put in hand at once.

The position of Weber, with his knowledge of things native, his prestige, and his enterprising intellect, must have always made him influential with the consul: at this juncture he was indispensable.

Here was the deed to be done; here the man of action.

"Mr.Weber rested not," says Laupepa.
It was "like the old days of his own consulate," writes Churchward.

His messengers filled the isle; his house was thronged with chiefs and orators; he sat close over his loom, delightedly weaving the future.
There was one thing requisite to the intrigue,--a native pretender; and the very man, you would have said, stood waiting: Mataafa, titular of Atua, descended from both the royal lines, late joint king with Tamasese, fobbed off with nothing in the time of the Lackawanna treaty, probably mortified by the circumstance, a chief with a strong following, and in character and capacity high above the native average.