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 coaling-station three
hundred miles distant from the coast of California.
Steamers from San Francisco to Yokohama stopped every
third week at Octavia, and that was all that either
Captain Travis or his secretary could learn of their
new home. This was so very little, that Albert
stipulated to stay only as long as he liked it, and
to return to the States within a few months if he
found such a change of plan desirable.
As he was going to what was an almost undiscovered
country, he thought it would be advisable to furnish
himself with a supply of articles with which he might
trade with the native Opekians, and for this purpose
he purchased a large quantity of brass rods, because
he had read that Stanley did so, and added to these,
brass curtain chains and about two hundred leaden
medals similar to those sold by street pedlers during
the Constitutional Centennial celebration in New York
City.