R IV

THE NEW REPUBLIC

The fighting ended, and promptly both the invaders and the invaded
settled down to the new course of things without further exultation or
regret. An hour after it had happened, the capture of the village was
already regarded as ancient history, and the two white men had got a
long way on in their discussion on its ultimate fate.

"No," Captain Kettle was saying, "no being king for me, Doctor, thank
you. I've been offered a king's ticket once, and that sickened me of the
job for good and always. The world's evidently been going on too long to
start a new kingdom nowadays, and I'm too much of a conservative to try
and break the rule. No, a republic's the thing, and, as you say, I'm the
stronger man of the two of us. Doc, you may sign me on as President."

Dr. Clay turned away his face, and relieved his feelings with a grin.
But he very carefully concealed his merriment. He liked Kettle, liked
him vastly; but at the same time he was more than a little scared of
him, and he had a very accurate notion that the man who failed to take
him seriously about this new scheme, would come in contact with trouble.
The scheme was a big one; it purposed setting up a new state in the
heart of the Etat du Congo, on territory filched from that power; but
the little sailor was in deadly earnest over the project, and already
he had met with extraordinary luck in the initial stages. Central Africa
is a country where determined _coups de main_ can sometimes yield
surprising results.

The recent history of these two vagabond white men cannot be given in
this place with any web of detail. They had gone through their
apprenticeship amongst these African inlands as officers of the Congo
Free State; they had been divorced from that service with something of
suddenness; and a purist might have held that the severance of their
ties was complicated with something very near akin to piracy. I know
that they had been abominably oppressed; I know that Kettle chose
running away with his steamer to the alternative of handcuffs and
disgrace, and a possible hanging to follow; but there was no getting
over the fact that the stern-wheeler was Free State property, and that
these two had alienated it to their own uses.

The black crew of the launch and the black soldiers on board, some
seventy head all told, they had little trouble in dragooning into
obedience. The Central African native never troubles himself much about
niceties