a, "until the arrival of these
fresh instructions," to refrain from an attack on Mulinuu. One thing of
two: either this language is extremely perfidious, or Becker was
preparing to change sides. The same detachment appears in his despatch
of October 7th. He computes the losses of the German firm with an easy
cheerfulness. If Tamasese get up again (_gelingt die Wiederherstellung
der Regierung Tamasese's_), Tamasese will have to pay. If not, then
Mataafa. This is not the language of a partisan. The tone of
indifference, the easy implication that the case of Tamasese was already
desperate, the hopes held secretly forth to Mataafa and secretly reported
to his government at home, trenchantly contrast with his external
conduct. At this very time he was feeding Tamasese; he had German
sailors mounting guard on Tamasese's battlements; the German war-ship lay
close in, whether to help or to destroy. If he meant to drop the cause
of Tamasese, he had him in a corner, helpless, and could stifle him
without a sob. If he meant to rat, it was to be with every condition of
safety and every circumstance of infamy.

Was it conceivable, then, that he meant it? Speaking with a gentleman
who was in the confidence of Dr. Knappe: "Was it not a pity," I asked,
"that Knappe did not stick to Becker's policy of supporting Mataafa?"
"You are quite wrong there; that was not Knappe's doing," was the reply.
"Becker had changed his mind before Knappe came." Why, then, had he
changed it? This excellent, if ignominious, idea once entertained, why
was it let drop? It is to be remembered there was another German in the
field, Brandeis, who had a respect, or rather, perhaps, an affection, for
Tamasese, and who thought his own honour and that of his country engaged
in the support of that government which they had provoked and founded.
Becker described the captain to Laupepa as "a quiet, sensible gentleman."
If any word came to his ears of the intended manoeuvre, Brandeis would
certainly show himself very sensible of the affront; but Becker might
have been tempted to withdraw his former epithet of quiet. Some such
passage, some such threatened change of front at the consulate, opposed
with outcry, would explain what seems otherwise inexplicable, the bitter,
indignant, almost hostile tone of a subsequent letter from Brandeis to
Knappe--"Brandeis's inflammatory letter," Bismarck calls it--the
proximate cause of the German landing and reverse at F