hristmas-trees, at a wholesale house on Park Row. These he hoped to
exchange for furs or feathers or weapons, or for whatever other curious
and valuable trophies the Island of Opeki boasted. He already pictured
his rooms on his return hung fantastically with crossed spears and
boomerangs, feather head-dresses, and ugly idols.

His friends told him that he was doing a very foolish thing, and argued
that once out of the newspaper world, it would be hard to regain his
place in it. But he thought the novel that he would write while lost
to the world at Opeki would serve to make up for his temporary absence
from it, and he expressly and impressively stipulated that the editor
should wire him if there was a war.

Captain Travis and his secretary crossed the continent without
adventure, and took passage from San Francisco on the first steamer
that touched at Octavia. They reached that island in three days, and
learned with some concern that there was no regular communication with
Opeki, and that it would be necessary to charter a sailboat for the
trip. Two fishermen agreed to take them and their trunks, and to get
them to their destination within sixteen hours if the wind held good.
It was a most unpleasant sail. The rain fell with calm, unrelentless
persistence from what was apparently a clear sky; the wind tossed the
waves as high as the mast and made Captain Travis ill; and as there was
no deck to the big boat, they were forced to huddle up under pieces of
canvas, and talked but little. Captain Travis complained of frequent
twinges of rheumatism, and gazed forlornly over the gunwale at the
empty waste of water.

"If I've got to serve a term of imprisonment on a rock in the middle of
the ocean for four years," he said, "I might just as well have done
something first to deserve it. This is a pretty way to treat a man who
bled for his country. This is gratitude, this is." Albert pulled
heavily on his pipe, and wiped the rain and spray from his face and
smiled.

"Oh, it won't be so bad when we get there," he said; "they say these
Southern people are always hospitable, and the whites will be glad to
see anyone from the States."

"There will be a round of diplomatic dinners," said the consul, with an
attempt at cheerfulness. "I have brought two uniforms to wear at them."

It was seven o'clock in the evening when the rain ceased, and one of
the black, half-naked fishermen nodded and pointed at a little low line
on