“Don’t I talk as if I was?” demanded Gordon, wiping the perspiration from his forehead.
“And can I be consul?” said Stedman, cheerfully.
“Of course. Tell them what I propose to do.”
Stedman turned and spoke rapidly to the two kings. The people gathered closer to hear.
The two rival monarchs looked at one another in silence for a moment, and then both began to speak at once, their consular interrupting them and mumbling their guttural comments with anxious earnestness. It did not take them very long to see that they were all of one mind, and then they both turned to Gordon and dropped on one knee, and placed his hands on their foreheads, and Stedman raised his cap.
“They agree,” he explained, for it was but pantomime to Albert. “They salute you as a ruler; they are calling you Tellaman, which means peacemaker. The Peacemaker, that is your title. I hope you will deserve it, but I think they might have chosen a more appropriate one.”
“Then I’m really King?” demanded Albert, decidedly, “and I can do what I please? They give me full power. Quick, do they?”
“Yes, but don’t do it,” begged Stedman, “and just remember I am American consul now, and that is a much superior being to a crowned monarch; you said so yourself.”
Albert did not reply to this, but ran across the plaza followed by the two Bradleys. The boats had gone.
“Hoist that flag beside the brass cannon,” he cried, “and stand ready to salute it when I drop this one.”