Part 15 (2/2)
”Great Heavens!” gasped Gordon.
Stedman grew very white under his tan, and the perspiration rolled on his cheeks.
”Your message was so general in its nature, that it allowed my imagination full play, and I sent on what I thought would please the papers, and, what was much more important to me, would advertise the Y.C.C. stock. This I have been doing while waiting for material from you. Not having a clear idea of the dimensions or population of Opeki, it is possible that I have done you and your newspaper friend some injustice. I killed off about a hundred American residents, two hundred English, because I do not like the English, and a hundred French. I blew up old Ollypybus and his palace with dynamite, and sh.e.l.led the city, destroying some hundred thousand dollars' worth of property, and then I waited anxiously for your friend to substantiate what I had said. This he has most unkindly failed to do. I am very sorry, but much more so for him than for myself, for I, my dear friend, have cabled on to a man in San Francisco, who is one of the directors of the Y.C.C, to sell all my stock, which he has done at one hundred and two, and he is keeping the money until I come. And I leave Octavia this afternoon to reap my just reward. I am in about twenty thousand dollars on your little war, and I feel grateful. So much so that I will inform you that the s.h.i.+p of war _Kaiser_ has arrived at San Francisco, for which port she sailed directly from Opeki. Her captain has explained the real situation, and offered to make every amend for the accidental indignity shown to our flag. He says he aimed at the cannon, which was trained on his vessel, and which had first fired on him. But you must know, my dear Stedman, that before his arrival, war vessels belonging to the several powers mentioned in my revised dispatches, had started for Opeki at full speed, to revenge the butchery of the foreign residents. A word, my dear young friend, to the wise is sufficient. I am indebted to you to the extent of twenty thousand dollars, and in return I give you this kindly advice.
Leave Opeki. If there is no other way, swim. But leave Opeki.”
The sun, that night, as it sank below the line where the clouds seemed to touch the sea, merged them both into a blazing, blood-red curtain, and colored the most wonderful spectacle that the natives of Opeki had ever seen. Six great s.h.i.+ps of war, stretching out over a league of sea, stood blackly out against the red background, rolling and rising, and leaping forward, flinging back smoke and burning sparks up into the air behind them, and throbbing and panting like living creatures in their race for revenge. From the south, came a three-decked vessel, a great island of floating steel, with a flag as red as the angry sky behind it, snapping in the wind. To the south of it plunged two long low-lying torpedo boats, flying the French tri-color, and still further to the north towered three magnificent hulls of the White Squadron. Vengeance was written on every curve and line, on each straining engine rod, and on each polished gun muzzle.
And in front of these, a clumsy fis.h.i.+ng boat rose and fell on each pa.s.sing wave. Two sailors sat in the stern, holding the rope and tiller, and in the bow, with their backs turned forever toward Opeki, stood two young boys, their faces lit by the glow of the setting sun and stirred by the sight of the great engines of war plunging past them on their errand of vengeance.
”Stedman,” said the elder boy, in an awestruck whisper, and with a wave of his hand, ”we have not lived in vain.”
BOOKS BY RICHARD HARDING DAVIS.
GALLEGHER,
AND OTHER STORIES.
BY
Richard Harding Davis.
As pictures of human life in a great city, these ten stories are simply unique.--_Newark Advertiser_.
New York has a new meaning to his readers, as London has a new meaning to the reader of d.i.c.kens.--_N.Y. Commercial Advertiser_.
Mr. Davis is a writer of unquestioned genius. His sketches of city life in the poorer districts have a force which makes them exceptionally vivid and inspiring.--_Albany Express_.
Ten remarkable newspaper and magazine stories. They will make capital winter reading, and the book is one that will find a welcome everywhere.--_N.Y. Journal of Commerce_.
The freshness, the strength, and the vivid picturesqueness of the stories are indisputable, and their originality and their marked distinction are no less decided.--_Boston Sat.u.r.day Gazette_.
His figures stand forth clear cut, and marvellously truthful and lifelike. Their wholesome tone is in grateful contrast to the false and exaggerated note so often struck by young authors,--_Philadelphia Ledger_.
BOOKS BY RICHARD HARDING DAVIS.
STORIES FOR BOYS.
BY
RICHARD HARDING DAVIS.
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