“You don’t say! Please express my sympathy to the ship’s company,” exclaimed the lieutenant. “How extraordinary! We received orders by cable at Rio to proceed to Trinadaro in time to intercept this vessel of yours.”
“And what were the orders, and why is that Brazilian man-of-war anchored alongside of you?” asked O’Shea.
“It is all about the ownership of the island,” the lieutenant explained. “Nobody wanted it for centuries, and now everybody seems keen on getting hold of it. The English government suddenly decided, after you sailed from London, that it might need Trinadaro as a landing-base for a new cable between South America and Africa, and sent us to hoist the flag over the place. Brazil heard of the affair and sent a ship to set up a claim on the basis of an early discovery. The Portuguese have presented their evidence, I believe, because their people made some kind of a settlement at Trinadaro once upon a time.”
“And the forsaken island was totally forgotten until poor King Osmond got himself and his project into the newspapers,” slowly commented O’Shea.
“That is the truth of the matter, I fancy.” The naval lieutenant paused, and commiseration was strongly reflected in his manly face. “Tell me,” said he, “what was the opinion at home about this King of Trinadaro? He was a bit mad, I take it.”
“No more than you or me,” answered O’Shea. “He had a beautiful dream, and it made him very happy, but it was not his fate to see it come true. And no doubt it is better that he did not live to know that the scheme was ruined. His island has been taken away from him. It will be wrangled over by England and Brazil and the rest of them, and there is no room for a king that hoped to enjoy himself in his own way. The world has no place for a man like Colonel Osmond George Sydenham-Leach, my dear sir.”
“Too bad!” sighed the lieutenant. “And what are your plans, Captain O’Shea? Do you intend to make any formal claim in behalf of the late king?”
“No. His dreams died with him. There is no heir to the throne. I’m thankful that his finish was so bright and hopeful. There will be funeral services and a burial to-morrow. I should take it as a great favor if detachments from the British cruiser and the Brazilian war-vessel could be present.”
“I will attend to it,” said the lieutenant.
When the coffin of King Osmond I was carried ashore it was draped with the flag of Trinadaro, which he himself had designed. Launches from the two cruisers towed sailing-cutters filled with bluejackets, who splashed through the surf and formed in column led by the bugles and the muffled drums. The parade wound along the narrow valleys and climbed to the plateau on which the ruler had planned to build his capital.