"But it will kill him," said Skiddy, again crossing an ocean and a continent.
"If the convict Satterlee should become ill, you are at liberty to send him to the hospital."
"Yes, but there isn't any hospital," said Skiddy.
"The Department cannot withdraw from the position it took up, nor the principle it laid down in Dispatch No. 214 B."
Thus the duel went on, while Skiddy cut down his cigars, sold his riding horse, and generally economized. A regret stole over him that he hadn't sentenced Satterlee to a shorter term, and he looked up the Consular Instructions to see what pardoning powers he possessed. On this point the little book was dumb. Not so the Department, however, to whom a hint on the subject provoked the reply, "that by so doing you would stultify your previous action and impugn the finding of the Consular Court. The Department would view with grave displeasure, etc.——"
Satterlee soon made himself very much at home in the Scanlon prison. His winning personality never showed to better advantage than in those days of his eclipse. He dandled the Scanlon off-spring on his knee; helped the women with their household tasks; played checkers with the burly brothers. He was prodigiously respected. He gathered in the Scanlon hearts, even to uncles and second cousins. You would have taken him for a patriarch in the bosom of a family of which he was the joy and pride. He received the best half-caste society on his front porch, and dispensed Scanlon hospitality with a lavish hand. These untutored souls had no proper conception of barratry. They couldn't see any crime in running away with a schooner. They pitied the captain as a bold spirit who had met with undeserved misfortunes. The Samoan has ever a sympathetic hand for the fallen mighty, and the hand is never empty of a gift. Bananas, pineapples, taro, sugar cane, palusami, sucking pigs, chickens, eggs, valo—all descended on Satterlee in wholesale lots. Girls brought him leis of flowers to wear round his neck; anonymous friends stole milk for his refreshment; pigeon hunters, returning singing from the mountains, deferentially laid their best at his feet. Nothing was too good for this unfortunate chief, who bore himself so nobly, and had a smile and a kind word for even the humblest of his admirers.
On Sundays Skiddy paid the captain a periodical visit. He would bring the latest papers, if there were any, or a novel or two from his scanty stock. Their original friendship had died a violent death, but a new one had gradually risen on the ashes of the old. Skiddy had no more illusions in respect to this romantic-minded humbug and semi-pirate; but the man was likable, tremendously likable, and, in spite of himself, the little consul could not forbear suffering some of the pangs of remorse. The world was so big, so wide, with such a sufficiency of room for all (even romantic-minded humbugs and semi-pirates), and it was hard that Providence should have singled him out to clip this eagle's wings. There was something, too, very pathetic in Satterlee's contentment. He confided to Skiddy that he had never been so happy. With glistening eyes he would discourse on "these simple people," "these good hearts," "this lovely and uncontaminated paradise, where evil seems never to have set its hand," and expatiate generally on the beauty, charm, and tranquillity of Samoan life. He dreaded the time, he said, when a ruthless civilization would sweep it all away.
Satterlee and he took long walks into the mountains, invariably accompanied by a Scanlon brother to give an official aspect to the excursion. It maintained the fast-disappearing principle that Satterlee was a convict and under vigilant guard. It served to take away the appearance, besides (which they might otherwise have presented), of two friends spending a happy day together in the country. A Scanlon brother stood for the United States Government and the majesty of law, and propriety demanded his presence as peremptorily as a chaperon for a young lady. A Scanlon brother could be useful, too, in climbing cocoanut trees, rubbing sticks together when the matches were lost, and in guiding them to noble waterfalls far hidden in the forest.
In this manner nearly a whole year passed, which, for the little consul, represented an unavoidable monthly outlay of fifty-five dollars. He got somewhat used to it, as everybody gets somewhat used to everything; but he could not resist certain recurring intervals of depression when he contrasted his present circumstances with his bygone glory. Fifty-five dollars a month made a big hole in a consular income, and he would gaze down that ten-year vista with a sinking heart. But relief was closer at hand than he had ever dared to hope. From the Department? No, but from Satterlee himself.
The news was brought to little Skiddy early one morning. Alfred Scanlon, with an air of gloom, deprecatingly coughed his way into the bedroom, and handed the consul a letter. It was written on pale pink note-paper, of the kind Samoans like best, with two lavender love birds embossed in the corner. It was from Satterlee. The letter ran thus: