quite different with us; we don't want
to rob him or Ollypybus, or to annex their land. All we want to do is
to, improve it, and have the fun of running it for them and meddling in
their affairs of state. Well, Stedman," he said, "what shall we do?"

Stedman said that the best and only thing to do was to threaten to take
the watch away from Messenwah, but to give him a revolver instead,
which would make a friend of him for life, and to keep him supplied
with cartridges only as long as he behaved himself, and then to make
him understand that, as Ollypybus had not given his consent to the loss
of the island, Messenwah's agreement, or treaty, or whatever it was,
did not stand, and that he had better come down the next day, early in
the morning, and join in a general consultation. This was done, and
Messenwah agreed willingly to their proposition, and was given his
revolver and shown how to shoot it, while the other presents were
distributed among the other men, who were as happy over them as girls
with a full dance-card.

"And now, to-morrow," said Stedman, "understand, you are all to come
down unarmed, and sign a treaty with great Ollypybus, in which he will
agree to keep to one-half of the island if you keep to yours, and there
must be no more wars or goat-stealing, or this gentleman on my right
and I will come up and put holes in you just as the gentleman on the
left did with the goat."

Messenwah and his warriors promised to come early, and saluted
reverently as Gordon and his three companions walked up together very
proudly and stiffly.

"Do you know how I feel?" said Gordon.

"How?" asked Stedman.

"I feel as I used to do in the city, when the boys in the street were
throwing snowballs, and I had to go by with a high hat on my head and
pretend not to know they were behind me. I always felt a cold chill
down my spinal column, and I could feel that snowball, whether it came
or not, right in the small of my back. And I can feel one of those men
pulling his bow now, and the arrow sticking out of my right shoulder."

"Oh, no, you can't," said Stedman. "They are too much afraid of those
rifles. But I do feel sorry for any of those warriors whom old man
Messenwah doesn't like, now that he has that revolver. He isn't the
sort to practise on goats."

There was great rejoicing when Stedman and Gordon told their story to
the King, and the people learned that they were not to have their huts
burned and their ca