he one from Dodge;
tell him things have quieted down a bit, and that I'll send four
thousand words on the flight of the natives from the village, and their
encampment at the foot of the mountains, and of the exploring party we
have sent out to look for the German vessel; and now I am going out to
make something happen."

Gordon said that he would be gone for two hours at least, and as Stedman
did not feel capable of receiving any more nerve-stirring messages, he
cut off all connection with Octavia, by saying, "Good-by for two hours."
and running away from the office. He sat down on a rock on the beach,
and mopped his face with his handkerchief.

"After a man has taken nothing more exciting than weather reports from
Octavia for a year," he soliloquized, "it's a bit disturbing to have all
the crowned heads of Europe and their secretaries calling upon you for
details of a massacre that never came off."

At the end of two hours Gordon returned from the consulate with a mass
of manuscript in his hand.

"Here's three thousand words," he said desperately. "I never wrote more
and said less in my life. It will make them weep at the office. I had to
pretend that they knew all that had happened so far; they apparently do
know more than we do, and I have filled it full of prophesies of more
trouble ahead, and with interviews with myself and the two ex-Kings. The
only news element in it is, that the messengers have returned to report
that the German vessel is not in sight, and that there is no news. They
think she has gone for good. Suppose she has, Stedman," he groaned,
looking at him helplessly, "what _am_ I going to do?"

"Well, as for me," said Stedman, "I'm afraid to go near that cable. It's
like playing with a live wire. My nervous system won't stand many more
such shocks as those they gave us this morning."

Gordon threw himself down dejectedly in a chair in the office, and
Stedman approached his instrument gingerly, as though it might explode.

"He's swearing again," he explained sadly, in answer to Gordon's look of
inquiry. "He wants to know when I am going to stop running away from the
wire. He has a stack of messages to send, he says, but I guess he'd
better wait and take your copy first; don't you think so?"

"Yes, I do," said Gordon. "I don't want any more messages than I've had.
That's the best I can do," he said, as he threw his manuscript down
beside Stedman. "And they can keep on cabling until the wire burns