"Then," said Sir Ferdinando, "there is nothing for it but that he must take you with him."
There came upon me a sudden shock when I heard these words, which exceeded anything which I had yet felt. Me, the President of a foreign nation, the first officer of a people with whom Great Britain was at peace,—the captain of one of her gunboats must carry me off, hurry me away a prisoner, whither I knew not, and leave the country ungoverned, with no President as yet elected to supply my place! And I, looking at the matter from my own point of view, was a husband, the head of a family, a man largely concerned in business,—I was to be carried away in bondage—I, who had done no wrong, had disobeyed no law, who had indeed been conspicuous for my adherence to my duties! No opposition ever shown to Columbus and Galileo had come near to this in audacity and oppression. I, the President of a free republic, the elected of all its people, the chosen depository of its official life,—I was to be kidnapped and carried off in a ship of war, because, forsooth, I was deemed too popular to rule the country! And this was told to me in my own room in the executive chambers, in the very sanctum of public life, by a stout florid gentleman in a black coat, of whom I hitherto knew nothing except that his name was Brown!
"Sir," I said, after a pause, and turning to Captain Battleax and addressing him, "I cannot believe that you, as an officer in the British navy, will commit any act of tyranny so oppressive, and of injustice so gross, as that which this gentleman has named."
"You hear what Sir Ferdinando Brown has said," replied Captain Battleax.
"I do not know the gentleman,—except as having been introduced to him at your hospitable table. Sir Ferdinando Brown is to me—simply Sir Ferdinando Brown."
"Sir Ferdinando has lately been our British Governor in Ashantee, where he has, as I may truly say, 'bought golden opinions from all sorts of people.' He has now been sent here on this delicate mission, and to no one could it be intrusted by whom it would be performed with more scrupulous honour." This was simply the opinion of Captain Battleax, and expressed in the presence of the gentleman himself whom he so lauded.
"But what is the delicate mission?" I asked.
Then Sir Ferdinando told his whole story, which I think should have been declared before I had been asked to sit down to dinner with him in company with the captain on board the ship. I was to be taken away and carried to England or elsewhere,—or drowned upon the voyage, it mattered not which. That was the first step to be taken towards carrying out the tyrannical, illegal, and altogether injurious intention of the British Government. Then the republic of Britannula was to be declared as non-existent, and the British flag was to be exalted, and a British Governor installed in the executive chambers! That Governor was to be Sir Ferdinando Brown.
I was lost in a maze of wonderment as I attempted to look at the proceeding all round. Now, at the close of the twentieth century, could oppression be carried to such a height as this? "Gentlemen," I said, "you are powerful. That little instrument which you have hidden in your cabin makes you the master of us all. It has been prepared by the ingenuity of men, able to dominate matter though altogether powerless over mind. On myself, I need hardly say that it would be inoperative. Though you should reduce me to atoms, from them would spring those opinions which would serve altogether to silence your artillery. But the dread of it is to the generality much more powerful than the fact of its possession."
"You may be quite sure it's there," said Captain Battleax, "and that I can so use it as to half obliterate your town within two minutes of my return on board."