The adventurer was long since gone, but his guns remained, and one of them was now to make fresh history.

It had been cast overboard by Brandeis on the outer reef in the course of this retreat; and word of it coming to the ears of the Mataafas, they thought it natural that they should serve themselves the heirs of Tamasese.

On the 23rd a Manono boat of the kind called _taumualua_ dropped down the coast from Mataafa's camp, called in broad day at the German quarter of the town for guides, and proceeded to the reef.

Here, diving with a rope, they got the gun aboard; and the night being then come, returned by the same route in the shallow water along shore, singing a boat-song.

It will be seen with what childlike reliance they had accepted the neutrality of Apia bay; they came for the gun without concealment, laboriously dived for it in broad day under the eyes of the town and shipping, and returned with it, singing as they went.