ace. The
gentleman who had been appointed by the President to act as consul at
Opeki was Captain Leonard T. Travis, a veteran of the Civil War, who
had contracted a severe attack of rheumatism while camping out at
night in the dew, and who on account of this souvenir of his efforts
to save the Union had allowed the Union he had saved to support him in
one office or another ever since. He had met young Gordon at a dinner,
and had had the presumption to ask him to serve as his secretary, and
Gordon, much to his surprise, had accepted his offer. The idea of a
quiet life in the tropics with new and beautiful surroundings, and
with nothing to do and plenty of time in which to do it, and to write
his novel besides, seemed to Albert to be just what he wanted; and
though he did not know nor care much for his superior officer, he
agreed to go with him promptly, and proceeded to say good-by to his
friends and to make his preparations. Captain Travis was so delighted
with getting such a clever young gentleman for his secretary, that he
referred to him to his friends as "my attache of legation"; nor did he
lessen that gentleman's dignity by telling any one that the attache's
salary was to be five hundred dollars a year. His own salary was only
fifteen hundred dollars; and though his brother-in-law, Senator
Rainsford, tried his best to get the amount raised, he was
unsuccessful. The consulship to Opeki was instituted early in the
'50's, to get rid of and reward a third or fourth cousin of the
President's, whose services during the campaign were important, but
whose after-presence was embarrassing. He had been created consul to
Opeki as being more distant and unaccessible than any other known
spot, and had lived and died there; and so little was known of the
island, and so difficult was communication with it, that no one knew
he was dead, until Captain Travis, in his hungry haste for office, had
uprooted the sad fact. Captain Travis, as well as Albert, had a
secondary reason for wishing to visit Opeki. His physician had told
him to go to some warm climate for his rheumatism, and in accepting
the consulship his object was rather to follow out his doctor's orders
at his country's expense, than to serve his country at the expense of
his rheumatism.

Albert could learn but very little of Opeki; nothing, indeed, but that
it was situated about one hundred miles from the Island of Octavia,
which island, in turn, was simply described as a c