“Well, not what we would call games.”

“Very well, then, I’ll teach them base-ball.  Foot-ball would be too warm.  But that plaza in front of the King’s bungalow, where his palace is going to be, is just the place for a diamond.  On the whole, though,” added the consul, after a moment’s reflection, “you’d better attend to that yourself.  I don’t think it becomes my dignity as American consul to take off my coat and give lessons to young Opekians in sliding to bases; do you?  No; I think you’d better do that.  The Bradleys will help you, and you had better begin to-morrow.  You have been wanting to know what a secretary of legation’s duties are, and now you know.  It’s to organize base-ball nines.  And after you get yours ready,” he added, as he turned into his room for the night, “I’ll train one that will sweep yours off the face of the island.  For this American consul can pitch three curves.”

The best-laid plans of men go far astray, sometimes, and the great and beautiful city that was to rise on the coast of Opeki was not built in a day.  Nor was it ever built.  For before the Bradleys could mark out the foul-lines for the base-ball field on the plaza, or teach their standing army the goose step, or lay bamboo pipes for the water-mains, or clear away the cactus for the extension of the King’s palace, the Hillmen paid Opeki their quarterly visit.

Albert had called on the King the next morning, with Stedman as his interpreter, as he had said he would, and, with maps and sketches, had shown his Majesty what he proposed to do towards improving Opeki and ennobling her king, and when the King saw Albert’s free-hand sketches of wharves with tall ships lying at anchor, and rows of Opekian warriors with the Bradleys at their head, and the design for his new palace, and a royal sedan-chair, he believed that these things were already his, and not still only on paper, and he appointed Albert his Minister of War, Stedman his Minister of Home Affairs, and selected two of his wisest and oldest subjects to serve them as joint advisers.  His enthusiasm was even greater than Gordon’s, because he did not appreciate the difficulties.  He thought Gordon a semi-god, a worker of miracles, and urged the putting up of a monument to him at once in the public plaza, to which Albert objected, on the ground that it would be too suggestive of an idol; and to which Stedman also objected, but for the less unselfish reason that it would “be in the way of the pitcher’s box.”

They were feverishly discussing all these great changes, and Stedman was translating as rapidly as he could translate, the speeches of four different men,—­for the two counsellors had been called in, all of whom wanted to speak at once,—­when there came from outside a great shout, and the screams of women, and the clashing of iron, and the pattering footsteps of men running.

As they looked at one another in startled surprise, a native ran into the room, followed by Bradley, Jr., and threw himself down before the King.  While he talked, beating his hands and bowing before Ollypybus, Bradley, Jr., pulled his forelock to the consul, and told how this man lived on the far outskirts of the village; how he had been captured while out hunting, by a number of the Hillmen; and how he had escaped to tell the people that their old enemies were on the war path again, and rapidly approaching the village.