him, and then turned
and walked back to where the King and Stedman were whispering together.
Just as he turned, one of the men pulled the halyards, the ball of
bunting ran up into the air, bobbed, twitched, and turned, and broke
into the folds of the German flag. At the same moment the marines raised
their muskets and fired a volley, and the officers saluted and the
sailors cheered.

"Do you see that?" cried Stedman, catching Gordon's humor, to Ollypybus;
"that means that you are no longer king, that strange people are coming
here to take your land, and to turn your people into servants, and to
drive you back into the mountains. Are you going to submit? are you
going to let that flag stay where it is?"

Messenwah and Ollypybus gazed at one another with fearful, helpless
eyes. "We are afraid," Ollypybus cried; "we do not know what we should
do."

"What do they say?"

"They say they do not know what to do."

"I know what I'd do," cried Gordon. "If I were not an American consul,
I'd pull down their old flag, and put a hole in their boat and sink
her."

"Well, I'd wait until they get under way, before you do either of those
things," said Stedman, soothingly. "That captain seems to be a man of
much determination of character."

"But I will pull it down," cried Gordon. "I will resign, as Travis did.
I am no longer consul. You can be consul if you want to. I promote you.
I am going up a step higher. I mean to be king. Tell those two," he ran
on excitedly, "that their only course and only hope is in me; that they
must make me ruler of the island until this thing is over; that I will
resign again as soon as it is settled, but that some one must act at
once, and if they are afraid to, I am not, only they must give me
authority to act for them. They must abdicate in my favor."

"Are you in earnest?" gasped Stedman.

"Don't I talk as if I were?" demanded Gordon, wiping the perspiration
from his forehead.

"And can I be consul?" said Stedman, cheerfully.

"Of course. Tell them what I propose to do."

Stedman turned and spoke rapidly to the two kings. The people gathered
closer to hear.

The two rival monarchs looked at one another in silence for a moment,
and then both began to speak at once, their counsellors interrupting
them and mumbling their guttural comments with anxious earnestness. It
did not take them very long to see that they were all of one mind, and
then they both turned to Gordon and dropped on one kn