While they still spoke, five Tamasese women were brought in with their hands bound; they had been stealing "our" bananas.
All morning the town was strangely deserted, the very children gone.

A sense of expectation reigned, and sympathy for the attack was expressed publicly.

Some men with unblacked faces came to Moors's store for biscuit.

A native woman, who was there marketing, inquired after the news, and, hearing that the battle was now near at hand, "Give them two more tins," said she; "and don't put them down to my husband--he would growl; put them down to me." Between twelve and one, two white men walked toward Matautu, finding as they went no sign of war until they had passed the Vaisingano and come to the corner of a by-path leading to the bush.

Here were four blackened warriors on guard,--the extreme left wing of the Mataafa force, where it touched the waters of the bay.