Mulinuu--suppose all this, and Becker is not helped. At the time of the
first fire, the boat was off Grevsmuhl's wharf. At the time of the
second (and that is the one complained of) she was off Carruthers's wharf
in Matautu. Was she still proceeding on Mulinuu? I trow not. The
danger to German property was no longer imminent, the shots had been
fired upon a very trifling provocation, the spirit implied was that of
designed disregard to the neutrality. Such was the impression here on
the spot; such in plain terms the statement of Count Hatzfeldt to Lord
Salisbury at home: that the neutrality of Apia was only "to prevent the
natives from fighting," not the Germans; and that whatever Becker might
have promised at the conference, he could not "restrict German
war-vessels in their freedom of action."

There was nothing to surprise in this discovery; and had events been
guided at the same time with a steady and discreet hand, it might have
passed with less observation. But the policy of Becker was felt to be
not only reckless, it was felt to be absurd also. Sudden nocturnal
onfalls upon native boats could lead, it was felt, to no good end whether
of peace or war; they could but exasperate; they might prove, in a
moment, and when least expected, ruinous. To those who knew how nearly
it had come to fighting, and who considered the probable result, the
future looked ominous. And fear was mingled with annoyance in the minds
of the Anglo-Saxon colony. On the 24th, a public meeting appealed to the
British and American consuls. At half-past seven in the evening guards
were landed at the consulates. On the morrow they were each fortified
with sand-bags; and the subjects informed by proclamation that these
asylums stood open to them on any alarm, and at any hour of the day or
night. The social bond in Apia was dissolved. The consuls, like barons
of old, dwelt each in his armed citadel. The rank and file of the white
nationalities dared each other, and sometimes fell to on the street like