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Page 87
"Here's three thousand words," he said, desperately. "I never wrote
more and said less in my life. It will make them weep at the office. I
had to pretend that they knew all that had happened so far; they
apparently do know more than we do, and I have filled it full of
prophecies of more trouble ahead, and with interviews with myself and
the two ex-Kings. The only news element in it is, that the messengers
have returned to report that the German vessel is not in sight, and
that there is no news. They think she has gone for good. Suppose she
has, Stedman," he groaned, looking at him helplessly, "what _am_
I going to do?"
"Well, as for me," said Stedman, "I'm afraid to go near that cable.
It's like playing with a live wire. My nervous system won't stand many
more such shocks as those they gave us this afternoon."
Gordon threw himself down dejectedly in a chair in the office, and
Stedman approached his instrument gingerly, as though it might
explode.
"He's swearing again," he explained, sadly, in answer to Gordon's look
of inquiry. "He wants to know when I am going to stop running away
from the wire. He has a stack of messages to send, he says, but I
guess he'd better wait and take your copy first; don't you think so?"
"Yes, I do," said Gordon. "I don't want any more messages than I've
had. That's the best I can do," he said, as he threw his manuscript
down beside Stedman. "And they can keep on cabling until the wire
burns red hot, and they won't get any more."
There was silence in the office for some time, while Stedman looked
over Gordon's copy, and Gordon stared dejectedly out at the ocean.
"This is pretty poor stuff, Gordon," said Stedman. "It's like giving
people milk when they want brandy."
"Don't you suppose I know that?" growled Gordon. "It's the best I can
do, isn't it? It's not my fault that we are not all dead now. I can't
massacre foreign residents if there are no foreign residents, but I
can commit suicide, though, and I'll do it if something don't happen."
There was a long pause, in which the silence of the office was only
broken by the sound of the waves beating on the coral reefs outside.
Stedman raised his head wearily.
"He's swearing again," he said; "he says this stuff of yours is all
nonsense. He says stock in the Y.C.C. has gone up to one hundred and
two, and that owners are unloading and making their fortunes, and that
this sort of descriptive writing is not what the company want."
"What's he think I'm here for?" cried Gordon. "Does he think I pulled
down the German flag and risked my neck half a dozen times and had
myself made King just to boom his Yokohama cable stock? Confound him!
You might at least swear back. Tell him just what the situation is in
a few words. Here, stop that rigmarole to the paper, and explain to
your home office that we are awaiting developments, and that, in the
meanwhile, they must put up with the best we can send them. Wait; send
this to Octavia."
Gordon wrote rapidly, and read what he wrote as rapidly as it was
written.
"Operator, Octavia. You seem to have misunderstood my first message.
The facts in the case are these. A German man-of-war raised a flag on
this island. It was pulled down and the American flag raised in its
place and saluted by a brass cannon. The German man-of-war fired once
at the flag and knocked it down, and then steamed away and has not
been seen since. Two huts were upset, that is all the damage done; the
battery consisted of the one brass cannon before mentioned. No one,
either native or foreign, has been massacred. The English residents
are two sailors. The American residents are the young man who is
sending you this cable and myself. Our first message was quite true in
substance, but perhaps misleading in detail. I made it so because I
fully expected much more to happen immediately. Nothing has happened,
or seems likely to happen, and that is the exact situation up to date.
Albert Gordon."
"Now," he asked, after a pause, "what does he say to that?"
"He doesn't say anything," said Stedman.
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