ean to send them back, so they ran off to hide again: they'll be back,
though, when they get hungry."

The supper young Stedman spread for his guests, as he still treated
them, was very refreshing and very good. There was cold fish and pigeon
pie, and a hot omelet filled with mushrooms and olives and tomatoes and
onions all sliced up together, and strong black coffee. After supper,
Stedman went off to see the King, and came back in a little while to say
that his Majesty would give them an audience the next day after
breakfast. "It is too dark now," Stedman explained; "and it's raining so
that they can't make the street lamps burn. Did you happen to notice our
lamps? I invented them; but they don't work very well yet. I've got the
right idea, though, and I'll soon have the town illuminated all over,
whether it rains or not."

The consul had been very silent and indifferent, during supper, to all
around him. Now he looked up with some show of interest.

"How much longer is it going to rain, do you think?" he asked.

"Oh, I don't know," said Stedman, critically. "Not more than two months,
I should say." The consul rubbed his rheumatic leg and sighed, but said
nothing.

The Bradleys returned about ten o'clock, and came in very sheepishly.
The consul had gone off to pay the boatmen who had brought them, and
Albert in his absence assured the sailor's that there was not the least
danger of their being sent away. Then he turned into one of the beds,
and Stedman took one in another room, leaving the room he had occupied
heretofore for the consul. As he was saying good-night, Albert suggested
that he had not yet told them how he came to be on a deserted island;
but Stedman only laughed and said that that was a long story, and that
he would tell him all about it in the morning. So Albert went off to bed
without waiting for the consul to return, and fell asleep, wondering at
the strangeness of his new life, and assuring himself that if the rain
only kept up, he would have his novel finished in a month.

The sun was shining brightly when he awoke, and the palm-trees outside
were nodding gracefully in a warm breeze. From the court came the odor
of strange flowers, and from the window he could see the ocean
brilliantly blue, and with the sun coloring the spray that beat against
the coral reefs on the shore.

"Well, the consul can't complain of this," he said, with a laugh of
satisfaction; and pulling on a bath-robe, he stepped