The real story of the negotiations that followed we shall perhaps never learn.  But so much is plain:  that while Becker was thus outwardly straining decency in the interest of Tamasese, he was privately intriguing, or pretending to intrigue, with Mataafa.  In his despatch of the 11th, he had given an extended criticism of that chieftain, whom he depicts as very dark and artful; and while admitting that his assumption of the name of Malietoa might raise him up followers, predicted that he could not make an orderly government or support himself long in sole power “without very energetic foreign help.”  Of what help was the consul thinking?  There was no helper in the field but Germany.  On the 15th he had an interview with the victor; told him that Tamasese’s was the only government recognised by Germany, and that he must continue to recognise it till he received “other instructions from his government, whom he was now advising of the late events”; refused, accordingly, to withdraw the guard from the isthmus; and desired Mataafa, “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.”