needn’t go if you don’t like it. You see, you know the language and I
don’t, but I know how to shoot, and you don’t.”
“That’s perfectly satisfactory,” said Stedman, handing his gun to old
Bradley. “I only wanted to know why I was to be sacrificed, instead
of one of the Bradleys. It’s because I know the language. Bradley, Sr.,
you see the evil results of a higher education. Wish me luck, please,”
he said, “and for goodness’ sake,” he added impressively, “don’t waste
much time shooting goats.”
[Illustration: “About time to begin on the goats!”]
The Hillmen had stopped about two hundred yards off, and were drawn up
in two lines, shouting, and dancing, and hurling taunting remarks at
their few adversaries. The stolen cattle were bunched together back
of the King. As Stedman walked steadily forward with his handkerchief
fluttering, and howling out something in their own tongue, they stopped
and listened. As he advanced, his three companions followed him at
about fifty yards in the rear. He was one hundred and fifty yards from
the Hillmen, before they made out what he said, and then one of the
young braves, resenting it as an insult to his chief, shot an arrow at
him. Stedman dodged the arrow, and stood his ground without even taking
a step backwards, only turning slightly to put his hands to his mouth,
and to shout something which sounded to his companions like, “About
time to begin on the goats.” But the instant the young man had fired,
King Messenwah swung his club and knocked him down, and none of the
others moved. Then Messenwah advanced before his men to meet Stedman,
and on Stedman’s opening and shutting his hands to show that he was
unarmed, the King threw down his club and spears, and came forward as
empty-handed as himself.
“Ah,” gasped Bradley, Jr., with his finger trembling on his lever, “let
me take a shot at him now.” Gordon struck the man’s gun up, and walked
forward in all the glory of his gold and blue uniform; for both he and
Stedman saw now that Messenwah was more impressed by their appearance,
and in the fact that they were white men, than with any threats of
immediate war. So when he saluted Gordon haughtily, that young man
gave him a haughty nod in return, and bade Stedman tell the King that
he would permit him to sit down. The King did not quite appear to like
this, but he sat down, nevertheless, and nodded his head gravely.
“Now tell him,” said Gordon, “that I come from the ruler of the
greatest nation on earth, and that I recognize Ollypybus as the only
King of this island, and that I come to this little three-penny King
with either peace and presents, or bullets and war.”
“Have I got to tell him he’s a little three-penny King?” said Stedman,
plaintively.
“No; you needn’t give a literal translation; it can be as free as you
please.”
“Thanks,” said the secretary, humbly.
“And tell him,” continued Gordon, “that we will give presents to him
and his warriors if he keeps away from Ollypybus, and agrees to keep
away always. If he won’t do that, try to get him to agree to stay away
for three months at least, and by that time we can get word to San
Francisco, and have a dozen muskets over here in two months; and when
our time of probation is up, and he and his merry men come dancing
down the hillside, we will blow them up as high as his mountains. But
you needn’t tell him that, either. And if he is proud and haughty, and
would rather fight, ask him to restrain himself until we show what we
can do with our weapons at two hundred yards.”
Stedman seated himself in the long grass in front of the King, and
with many revolving gestures of his arms, and much pointing at Gordon,
and profound nods and bows, retold what Gordon had dictated. When he
had finished, the King looked at the bundle of presents, and at the
guns, of which Stedman had given a very wonderful account, but answered
nothing.
“I guess,” said Stedman, with a sigh, “that we will have to give him a
little practical demonstration to help matters. I am sorry, but I think
one of those goats has got to die. It’s like vivisection. The lower
order of animals have to suffer for the good of the higher.”
“Oh,” said Bradley, Jr., cheerfully, “I’d just as soon shoot one of
those niggers as one of the goats.”
So Stedman bade the King tell his men to drive a goat towards them, and
the King did so, and one of the men struck one of the goats with his
spear, and it ran clumsily across the plain.
“Take your time, Bradley,” said Gordon. “Aim low, and if you hit it,
you can have it for supper.”
“And if you miss it,” said Stedman, gloomily, “Messenwah may have us
for supper.”
The Hillmen had seated themselves a hundred yards off, while the
leaders were debating, and they now rose curiously and watched
Bradley, as he sank upon one knee, and covered the goat with his rifle.
When it was about one hundred and fifty yards off, he fired, and the
goat fell over dead.
And then all the Hillmen, with the King himself, broke away on a run,
towards the dead animal, with much shouting. The King came back alone,
leaving his people standing about and examining the goat. He was much
excited, and talked and gesticulated violently.
“He says--” said Stedman; “He says--”
“What? yes; go on.”
“He says--goodness me!--what do you think he says?”
“Well, what does he say?” cried Gordon, in a great state of nerves.
“Don’t keep it all to yourself.”
“He says,” said Stedman, “that we are deceived. That he is no longer
King of the Island of Opeki, that he is in great fear of us, and that
he has got himself into no end of trouble. He says he sees that we are
indeed mighty men, that to us he is as helpless as the wild boar before
the javelin of the hunter.”
“Well, he’s right,” said Gordon. “Go on.”
“But that which we ask is no longer his to give. He has sold his
kingship and his right to this island to another king, who came to him
two days ago in a great canoe, and who made noises as we do,--with
guns, I suppose he means,--and to whom he sold the island for a watch
that he has in a bag around his neck. And that he signed a paper, and
made marks on a piece of bark, to show that he gave up the island
freely and forever.”
“What does he mean?” said Gordon. “How can he give up the island.
Ollypybus is the king of half of it, anyway, and he knows it.”
“That’s just it,” said Stedman. “That’s what frightens him. He said
he didn’t care about Ollypybus, and didn’t count him in when he made
the treaty, because he is such a peaceful chap that he knew he could
thrash him into doing anything he wanted him to do. And now that you
have turned up and taken Ollypybus’s part, he wishes he hadn’t sold the
island, and wishes to know if you are angry.”
“Angry? of course I’m angry,” said Gordon, glaring as grimly at the
frightened monarch as he thought was safe. “Who wouldn’t be angry? Who
do you think these people were who made a fool of him, Stedman? Ask him
to let us see this watch.”
Stedman did so, and the King fumbled among his necklaces until he
had brought out a leather bag tied round his neck with a cord, and
containing a plain stem-winding silver watch marked on the inside
“Munich.”
“That doesn’t tell anything,” said Gordon. “But it’s plain enough. Some
foreign ship of war has settled on this place as a coaling-station,
or has annexed it for colonization, and they’ve sent a boat ashore,
and they’ve made a treaty with this old chap, and forced him to sell
his birthright for a mess of porridge. Now, that’s just like those
monarchical pirates; imposing upon a poor old black.”
Old Bradley looked at him impudently.
“Not at all,” said Gordon; “it’s quite different with us; we don’t want
to rob him or Ollypybus, or to annex their land. All we want to do is
to improve it, and have the fun of running it for them and meddling in
their affairs of state. Well, Stedman,” he said, “what shall we do?”
Stedman said that the best and only thing to do was to threaten to take
the watch away from Messenwah, but to give him a revolver instead,
which would make a friend of him for life, and to keep him supplied
with cartridges only as long as he behaved himself, and then to make
him understand that as Ollypybus had not given his consent to the loss
of the island, Messenwah’s agreement, or treaty, or whatever it was,
did not stand, and that he had better come down the next day, early
in the morning, and join in a general consultation. This was done,
and Messenwah agreed willingly to their proposition, and was given
his revolver and shown how to shoot it, while the other presents were
distributed among the other men, who were as happy over them as girls
with a full dance-card.
“And now, to-morrow,” said Stedman, “understand, you are all to come
down unarmed, and sign a treaty with great Ollypybus, in which he will
agree to keep to one half of the island, if you keep to yours, and
there must be no more wars or goat stealing, or this gentleman on my
right and I will come up and put holes in you just as the gentleman on
the left did with the goat.”
Messenwah and his warriors promised to come early, and saluted
reverently as Gordon and his three companions walked up together very
proudly and stiffly.
“Do you know how I feel?” said Gordon.
“How?” asked Stedman.
“I feel as I used to do in the city, when the boys in the street were
throwing snow-balls, and I had to go by with a high hat on my head and
pretend not to know they were behind me. I always felt a cold chill
down my spinal column, and I could feel that snow-ball, whether it came
or not, right in the small of my back. And I can feel one of those men
pulling his bow, now, and the arrow sticking out of my right shoulder.”
“Oh, no, you can’t,” said Stedman. “They are too afraid of those
rifles. But I do feel sorry for any of those warriors whom old man
Messenwah doesn’t like, now that he has that revolver. He isn’t the
sort to practise on goats.”
There was great rejoicing when Stedman and Gordon told their story
to the King, and the people learned they were not to have their huts
burned and their cattle stolen. The armed Opekians formed a guard
around the ambassadors and escorted them to their homes with cheers
and shouts, and the women ran at their side and tried to kiss Gordon’s
hand.
“I’m sorry I can’t speak the language, Stedman,” said Gordon, “or
I would tell them what a brave man you are. You are too modest to
do it yourself, even if I dictated something for you to say. As for
me,” he said, pulling off his uniform, “I am thoroughly disgusted and
disappointed. It never occurred to me until it was all over, that this
was my chance to be a war correspondent. It wouldn’t have been much of
a war, but then I would have been the only one on the spot, and that
counts for a great deal. Still, my time may come.”
“We have a great deal on hand for to-morrow,” said Gordon that evening,
“and we had better turn in early.”
And so the people were still singing and rejoicing down in the village,
when the two conspirators for the peace of the country went to sleep
for the night. It seemed to Gordon as though he had hardly turned his
pillow twice to get the coolest side, when some one touched him, and he
saw, by the light of the dozen glowworms in the tumbler by his bedside,
a tall figure at its foot.
“It’s me--Bradley,” said the figure.
“Yes,” said Gordon, with the haste of a man to show that sleep has no
hold on him; “exactly; what is it?”
“There is a ship of war in the harbor,” said Bradley, in a whisper.
“I heard her anchor chains rattle when she came to, and that woke me.
I could hear that if I were dead. And then I made sure by her lights;
she’s a great boat, sir, and I can know she’s a ship of war by the
challenging, when they change the watch. I thought you’d like to know,
sir.”
Gordon sat up and clutched his knees with his hands. “Yes, of course,”
he said; “you are quite right. Still, I don’t see what there is to do.”
He did not wish to show too much youthful interest, but though fresh
from civilization, he had learnt how far from it he was, and he was
curious to see this sign of it that had come so much more quickly than
he had anticipated.
“Wake Mr. Stedman, will you?” said he, “and we will go and take a look
at her.”
“You can see nothing but the lights,” said Bradley, as he left the
room; “it’s a black night, sir.”
Stedman was not new from the sight of men and ships of war, and came in
half dressed and eager.
“Do you suppose it’s the big canoe Messenwah spoke of?” he said.
“I thought of that,” said Gordon.
The three men fumbled their way down the road to the plaza, and saw,
as soon as they turned into it, the great outlines and the brilliant
lights of an immense vessel, still more immense in the darkness, and
glowing like a strange monster of the sea, with just a suggestion here
and there, where the lights spread, of her cabins and bridges. As they
stood on the shore, shivering in the cool night wind, they heard the
bells strike over the water.
“It’s two o’clock,” said Bradley, counting.
“Well, we can do nothing, and they cannot mean to do much to-night,”
Albert said. “We had better get some more sleep, and, Bradley, you keep
watch and tell us as soon as day breaks.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” said the sailor.
“If that’s the man-of-war that made the treaty with Messenwah, and
Messenwah turns up to-morrow, it looks as if our day would be pretty
well filled up,” said Albert, as they felt their way back to the
darkness.
“What do you intend to do?” asked his secretary, with a voice of some
concern.
“I don’t know,” Albert answered gravely, from the blackness of the
night. “It looks as if we were getting ahead just a little too fast;
doesn’t it? Well,” he added, as they reached the house, “let’s try to
keep in step with the procession, even if we can’t be drum-majors and
walk in front of it.” And with this cheering tone of confidence in
their ears, the two diplomats went soundly asleep again.
The light of the rising sun filled the room, and the parrots were
chattering outside, when Bradley woke him again.
“They are sending a boat ashore, sir,” he said excitedly, and filled
with the importance of the occasion. “She’s a German man-of-war, and
one of the new model. A beautiful boat, sir; for her lines were laid in
Glasgow, and I can tell that, no matter what flag she flies. You had
best be moving to meet them: the village isn’t awake yet.”
Albert took a cold bath and dressed leisurely; then he made Bradley,
Jr., who had slept through it all, get up breakfast, and the two
young men ate it and drank their coffee comfortably and with an air
of confidence that deceived their servants, if it did not deceive
themselves. But when they came down the path, smoking and swinging
their sticks, and turned into the plaza, their composure left them
like a mask, and they stopped where they stood. The plaza was enclosed
by the natives gathered in whispering groups, and depressed by fear
and wonder. On one side were crowded all the Messenwah warriors,
unarmed, and as silent and disturbed as the Opekians. In the middle of
the plaza some twenty sailors were busily rearing and bracing a tall
flag-staff that they had shaped from a royal palm, and they did this as
unconcernedly and as contemptuously, and with as much indifference to
the strange groups on either side of them, as though they were working
on a barren coast, with nothing but the startled sea-gulls about them.
As Albert and Stedman came upon the scene, the flag-pole was in place,
and the halliards hung from it with a little bundle of bunting at the
end of one of them.
“We must find the King at once,” said Gordon. He was terribly excited
and angry. “It is easy enough to see what this means. They are going
through the form of annexing this island to the other lands of the
German government. They are robbing old Ollypybus of what is his. They
have not even given him a silver watch for it.”
The King was in his bungalow, facing the plaza. Messenwah was with him,
and an equal number of each of their councils. The common danger had
made them lie down together in peace; but they gave a gasp of relief as
Gordon strode into the room with no ceremony, and greeted them with a
curt wave of the hand.
“Now then, Stedman, be quick,” he said. “Explain to them what this
means; tell them that I will protect them; that I am anxious to see
that Ollypybus is not cheated; that we will do all we can for them.”
Outside, on the shore, a second boat’s crew had landed a group of
officers and a file of marines. They walked in all the dignity of full
dress across the plaza to the flag-pole, and formed in line on the
three sides of it, with the marines facing the sea. The officers, from
the captain with a prayer book in his hand, to the youngest middy,
were as indifferent to the frightened natives about them as the other
men had been. The natives, awed and afraid, crouched back among their
huts, the marines and the sailors kept their eyes front, and the German
captain opened his prayer book. The debate in the bungalow was over.
“If you only had your uniform, sir,” said Bradley, Sr., miserably.
“This is a little bit too serious for uniforms and bicycle medals,”
said Gordon. “And these men are used to gold lace.”
He pushed his way through the natives, and stepped confidently across
the plaza. The youngest middy saw him coming, and nudged the one next
him with his elbow, and he nudged the next, but none of the officers
moved, because the captain had begun to read.
“One minute, please,” called Gordon.
He stepped out into the hollow square formed by the marines, and raised
his helmet to the captain.
“Do you speak English or French?” Gordon said in French; “I do not
understand German.”
The captain lowered the book in his hands and gazed reflectively at
Gordon through his spectacles, and made no reply.
“If I understand this,” said the younger man, trying to be very
impressive and polite, “you are laying claim to this land, in behalf of
the German government.”
The captain continued to observe him thoughtfully, and then said, “That
iss so,” and then asked, “Who are you?”
“I represent the King of this island, Ollypybus, whose people you see
around you. I also represent the United States government that does not
tolerate a foreign power near her coast, since the days of President
Monroe and before. The treaty you have made with Messenwah is an
absurdity. There is only one king with whom to treat, and he--”
The captain turned to one of his officers and said something, and then,
after giving another curious glance at Gordon, raised his book and
continued reading, in a deep, unruffled monotone. The officer whispered
an order, and two of the marines stepped out of line, and dropping the
muzzles of their muskets, pushed Gordon back out of the enclosure,
and left him there with his lips white, and trembling all over with
indignation. He would have liked to have rushed back into the lines and
broken the captain’s spectacles over his sun-tanned nose and cheeks,
but he was quite sure this would only result in his getting shot, or in
his being made ridiculous before the natives, and that was almost as
bad, so he stood still for a moment, with his blood choking him, and
then turned and walked back where the King and Stedman were whispering
together. Just as he turned, one of the men pulled the halliards, the
ball of bunting ran up into the air, bobbed, twitched, and turned, and
broke into the folds of the German flag. At the same moment the marines
raised their muskets and fired a volley, and the officers saluted and
the sailors cheered.
“Do you see that?” cried Stedman, catching Gordon’s humor, to
Ollypybus; “that means that you are no longer king, that strange
people are coming here to take your land, and to turn your people into
servants, and to drive you back into the mountains. Are you going to
submit? are you going to let that flag stay where it is?”
Messenwah and Ollypybus gazed at one another with fearful, helpless
eyes. “We are afraid,” Ollypybus cried; “we do not know what we should
do.”
“What do they say?” asked Gordon.
“They say they do not know what to do.”
“I know what I’d do,” cried Gordon. “If I were not an American consul,
I’d pull down their old flag, and put a hole in their boat and sink
her.”
“Well, I’d wait until they get under way, before you do either of those
things,” said Stedman soothingly. “That captain seems to be a man of
much determination of character.”
“But I will pull it down,” cried Gordon. “I will resign, as Travis did.
I am no longer consul. You can be consul if you want to. I promote you.
I am going up a step higher. I mean to be king. Tell those two,” he
ran on excitedly, “that their only course and only hope is in me; that
they must make me ruler of the island until this thing is over; that I
will resign again as soon as it is settled, but that some one must act
at once, and if they are afraid to, I am not, only they must give me
authority to act for them. They must abdicate in my favor.”
“Are you in earnest?” gasped Stedman.
“Don’t I talk as if I was?” demanded Gordon, wiping the perspiration
from his forehead.
“And can I be consul?” said Stedman, cheerfully.
“Of course. Tell them what I propose to do.”
Stedman turned and spoke rapidly to the two kings. The people gathered
closer to hear.
The two rival monarchs looked at one another in silence for a moment,
and then both began to speak at once, their consular interrupting them
and mumbling their guttural comments with anxious earnestness. It did
not take them very long to see that they were all of one mind, and then
they both turned to Gordon and dropped on one knee, and placed his
hands on their foreheads, and Stedman raised his cap.
“They agree,” he explained, for it was but pantomime to Albert. “They
salute you as a ruler; they are calling you Tellaman, which means
peacemaker. The Peacemaker, that is your title. I hope you will deserve
it, but I think they might have chosen a more appropriate one.”
“Then I’m really King?” demanded Albert, decidedly, “and I can do what
I please? They give me full power. Quick, do they?”
“Yes, but don’t do it,” begged Stedman, “and just remember I am
American consul now, and that is a much superior being to a crowned
monarch; you said so yourself.”
Albert did not reply to this, but ran across the plaza followed by the
two Bradleys. The boats had gone.
“Hoist that flag beside the brass cannon,” he cried, “and stand ready
to salute it when I drop this one.”
Bradley, Jr., grasped the halliards of the flag, which he had forgotten
to raise and salute in the morning in all the excitement of the
man-of-war’s arrival. Bradley, Sr., stood by the brass cannon, blowing
gently on his lighted fuse. The Peacemaker took the halliards of the
German flag in his two hands, gave a quick, sharp tug, and down came
the red, white, and black piece of bunting, and the next moment young
Bradley sent the stars and stripes up in their place. As it rose,
Bradley’s brass cannon barked merrily like a little bull-dog, and the
Peacemaker cheered.
“Why don’t you cheer, Stedman?” he shouted. “Tell those people to cheer
for all they are worth. What sort of an American consul are you?”
Stedman raised his arm half-heartedly to give the time, and opened
his mouth; but his arm remained fixed and his mouth open, while his
eyes stared at the retreating boat of the German man-of-war. In the
stern sheets of this boat, the stout German captain was struggling
unsteadily to his feet; he raised his arm and waved it to some one on
the great man-of-war, as though giving an order. The natives looked
from Stedman to the boat, and even Gordon stopped in his cheering and
stood motionless, watching. They had not very long to wait. There was
a puff of white smoke, and a flash, and then a loud report, and across
the water came a great black ball skipping lightly through and over the
waves, as easily as a flat stone thrown by a boy. It seemed to come
very slowly. At least it came slowly enough for every one to see that
it was coming directly towards the brass cannon. The Bradleys saw this
certainly, for they ran as fast as they could, and kept on running.
The ball caught the cannon under its mouth, and tossed it in the air,
knocking the flag-pole into a dozen pieces, and passing on through two
of the palm-covered huts.
“Great Heavens, Gordon!” cried Stedman; “they are firing on us.”
But Gordon’s face was radiant and wild.