y 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 Fangalii.

But whether the advances of Becker were sincere or not--whether he
meditated treachery against the old king or was practising treachery
upon the new, and the choice is between one or other--no doubt but he
contrived to gain his points with Mataafa, prevailing on him to change
his camp for the better protection of the German plantations, and
persuading him (long before he could persuade his brother consuls) to
accept that miraculous new neutral territory of his, with a piece cut
out for the immediate needs of Tamasese.

During the rest of September, Tamasese continued to decline. On the 19th
one village and half of another deserted him; on the 22nd two more. On
the 21st the Mataafas burn