Part 11 (1/2)
Only,” he added, with a relapse of interest, ”there isn't anybody to fight.”
”There isn't?” said Stedman, grimly, with a scornful smile. ”You just go hunt up old Messenwah and the Hillmen with your standing army once, and you'll get all the fighting you want.”
”The Hillmen?” said Albert.
”The Hillmen are the natives that live up there in the hills,” Stedman said, nodding his head towards the three high mountains at the other end of the island, that stood out blackly against the purple, moonlit sky.
”There are nearly as many of them as there are Opekians, and they hunt and fight for a living and for the pleasure of it. They have an old rascal named Messenwah for a king, and they come down here about once every three months, and tear things up.”
Albert sprang to his feet.
”Oh, they do, do they?” he said, staring up at the mountain tops. ”They come down here and tear up things, do they? Well, I think we'll stop that, I think we'll stop that! I don't care how many there are. I'll get the two Bradleys to tell me all they know about drilling, to-morrow morning, and we'll drill these Opekians, and have sham battles, and attacks, and repulses, until I make a lot of wild, howling Zulus out of them. And when the Hillmen come down to pay their quarterly visit, they'll go back again on a run. At least some of them will,” he added ferociously. ”Some of them will stay right here.”
”Dear me, dear me!” said Stedman, with awe; ”you are a born fighter, aren't you?”
”Well, you wait and see,” said Gordon; ”may be I am. I haven't studied tactics of war and the history of battles, so that I might be a great war correspondent, without learning something. And there is only one king on this island, and that is old Ollypybus himself. And I'll go over and have a talk with him about it to-morrow.”
Young Stedman walked up and down the length of the veranda, in and out of the moonlight, with his hands in his pockets, and his head on his chest. ”You have me all stirred up, Gordon,” he said; ”you seem so confident and bold, and you're not so much older than I am, either.”
”My training has been different; that's all,” said the reporter.
”Yes,” Stedman said bitterly; ”I have been sitting in an office ever since I left school, sending news over a wire or a cable, and you have been out in the world, gathering it.”
”And now,” said Gordon, smiling, and putting his arm around the other boy's shoulders, ”we are going to make news ourselves.”
”There is one thing I want to say to you before you turn in,” said Stedman. ”Before you suggest all these improvements on Ollypybus, you must remember that he has ruled absolutely here for twenty years, and that he does not think much of consuls. He has only seen your predecessor and yourself. He likes you because you appeared with such dignity, and because of the presents; but if I were you, I wouldn't suggest these improvements as coming from yourself.”
”I don't understand,” said Gordon; ”who could they come from?”
”Well,” said Stedman, ”if you will allow me to advise,--and you see I know these people pretty well,--I would have all these suggestions come from the President direct.”
”The President!” exclaimed Gordon; ”but how? what does the President know or care about Opeki? and it would take so long--oh, I see, the cable. Is that what you have been doing?” he asked.
”Well, only once,” said Stedman, guiltily; ”that was when he wanted to turn me out of the consul's office, and I had a cable that very afternoon, from the President, ordering me to stay where I was.
Ollypybus doesn't understand the cable, of course, but he knows that it sends messages; and sometimes I pretend to send messages for him to the President; but he began asking me to tell the President to come and pay him a visit, and I had to stop it.”
”I'm glad you told me,” said Gordon. ”The President shall begin to cable to-morrow. He will need an extra appropriation from Congress to pay for his private cablegrams alone.”
”And there's another thing,” said Stedman. ”In all your plans, you've arranged for the people's improvement, but not for their amus.e.m.e.nt; and they are a peaceful, jolly, simple sort of people, and we must please them.”
”Have they no games or amus.e.m.e.nts of their own?” asked Gordon.
”Well, not what we would call games.”
”Very well, then, I'll teach them base-ball. Foot-ball would be too warm. But that plaza in front of the King's bungalow, where his palace is going to be, is just the place for a diamond. On the whole, though,”
added the consul, after a moment's reflection, ”you'd better attend to that yourself. I don't think it becomes my dignity as American consul to take off my coat and give lessons to young Opekians in sliding to bases; do you? No; I think you'd better do that. The Bradleys will help you, and you had better begin to-morrow. You have been wanting to know what a secretary of legation's duties are, and now you know. It's to organize base-ball nines. And after you get yours ready,” he added, as he turned into his room for the night, ”I'll train one that will sweep yours off the face of the island. For _this_ American consul can pitch three curves.”
The best-laid plans of men go far astray, sometimes, and the great and beautiful city that was to rise on the coast of Opeki was not built in a day. Nor was it ever built. For before the Bradleys could mark out the foul-lines for the base-ball field on the plaza, or teach their standing army the goose step, or lay bamboo pipes for the water-mains, or clear away the cactus for the extension of the King's palace, the Hillmen paid Opeki their quarterly visit.
Albert had called on the King the next morning, with Stedman as his interpreter, as he had said he would, and, with maps and sketches, had shown his Majesty what he proposed to do towards improving Opeki and enn.o.bling her king, and when the King saw Albert's free-hand sketches of wharves with tall s.h.i.+ps lying at anchor, and rows of Opekian warriors with the Bradleys at their head, and the design for his new palace, and a royal sedan-chair, he believed that these things were already his, and not still only on paper, and he appointed Albert his Minister of War, Stedman his Minister of Home Affairs, and selected two of his wisest and oldest subjects to serve them as joint advisers. His enthusiasm was even greater than Gordon's, because he did not appreciate the difficulties.