"Do you know how I feel?" said Gordon.
"How?" asked Stedman.
"I feel as I used to do in the city, when the boys in the street were
throwing snowballs, and I had to go by with a high hat on my head and
pretend not to know they were behind me. I always felt a cold chill
down my spinal column, and I could feel that snowball, whether it came
or not, right in the small of my back. And I can feel one of those men
pulling his bow now, and the arrow sticking out of my right shoulder."
"Oh, no, you can't," said Stedman. "They are too much afraid of those
rifles. But I do feel sorry for any of those warriors whom old man
Messenwah doesn't like, now that he has that revolver. He isn't the
sort to practise on goats."
There was great rejoicing when Stedman and Gordon told their story to
the King, and the people learned that they were not to have their huts
burned and their cattle stolen. The armed Opekians formed a guard
around the ambassadors and escorted them to their homes with cheers
and shouts, and the women ran to their side and tried to kiss Gordon's
hand.
"I'm sorry I can't speak the language, Stedman," said Gordon, "or I
would tell them what a brave man you are. You are too modest to do it
yourself, even if I dictated something for you to say. As for me," he
said, pulling off his uniform, "I am thoroughly disgusted and
disappointed. It never occurred to me until it was all over that this
was my chance to be a war correspondent. It wouldn't have been much of
a war, but then I would have been the only one on the spot, and that
counts for a great deal. Still, my time may come."
"We have a great deal on hand for to-morrow," said Gordon that
evening, "and we had better turn in early."
And so the people were still singing and rejoicing down in the village
when the two conspirators for the peace of the country went to sleep
for the night. It seemed to Gordon as though he had hardly turned his
pillow twice to get the coolest side when some one touched him, and he
saw, by the light of the dozen glowworms in the tumbler by his
bedside, a tall figure at its foot.
"It's me--Bradley," said the figure.
"Yes," said Gordon, with the haste of a man to show that sleep has no
hold on him; "exactly; what is it?"
"There is a ship of war in the harbor," Bradley answered in a whisper.
"I heard her anchor chains rattle when she came to, and that woke me.
I could hear that if I were dead. And then I made sure by her lights;
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