the know': but they themselves are not the secret. That is much,
much bigger thing still!"

He paused, and she saw his blue eyes looking far away, as though he had
forgotten her presence.

"Well?" she said encouragingly, "you are going to tell me, are you not?"

"Oh, yes! That is what I am come for." His tone was quite business-like
now.

"That big country I told you of--it belongs to nobody. You know that
those North Americans say that nobody from Europe is to have it, though
they do not use it themselves. Well, I am going to have it."

"You?"

"Schnapps-Wasser,--me, with my water-bottles. I have turned them into a
company; and they are going to give for it--well, never mind how much.
But with what my bottles bring me I can make that country so that no
power in the world can prevent it from being a great country to itself."

"But you say it has no coast?"

"No--just like Jingalo; that is what makes it strong. If I were foolish,
if I were only going there to make money, I should try to get some
treaty, some concession, some sort of trade-monopoly--rubber, or gum, or
niggers' blood, it is all the same thing--I should try to get that from
the Brazils or the Bolivias or whoever thinks that it is theirs to sell.
I am not such a fool: I do not want to trade, if I have got the people.
They are strong, they can run, they live clean lives--nobody has spoiled
them; they do not want to be rich; they are still a wonderful people;
they know a leader when they have found him. And when they gave me these
dragons that I have on me, then I became their King. That is my secret.
Now!"

"But if I were to tell people _that_----"

"Pooh! They would not believe you. 'Mad,' that is what they would say.
'Don't marry that man, he is mad!' And besides I am not King as we talk
of kings here in Europe; they would not pay taxes to me or anybody, but
I can show them what to do. That country on the map may 'belong' to
anybody--the United States may write 'Monroe'--one of their big
'bow-wows' that was--they may write 'Monroe' all round the coasts of
South America and at every port that they like to stick in their noses;
but they cannot get there to say that the people living on that land
shall not become great and strong in their own way, without any one else
to say about it. To those men outside I shall only look like a trader
what is too stupid to trade with them; but all my trade will be among my
own people. That country can live on it