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Page 80
"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 snowballs, 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 snowball, 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 much 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 that 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 to 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.
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