Now we must change all that."
"That is just what we will do," said Albert. "We will transform Opeki
into a powerful and beautiful city. We will make these people work.
They must put up a palace for the King, and lay out streets, and build
wharves, and drain the town properly, and light it. I haven't seen
this patent lighting apparatus of yours, but you had better get to
work at it at once, and I'll persuade the King to appoint you
commissioner of highways and gas, with authority to make his people
toil. And I," he cried, in free enthusiasm, "will organize a navy and
a standing army. Only," he added, with a relapse of interest, "there
isn't anybody to fight."
"There isn't?" said Stedman, grimly, with a scornful smile. "You just
go hunt up old Messenwah and the Hillmen with your standing army once
and you'll get all the fighting you want."
"The Hillmen?" said Albert.
"The Hillmen are the natives that live up there in the hills," Stedman
said, nodding his head toward the three high mountains at the other
end of the island, that stood out blackly against the purple, moonlit
sky. "There are nearly as many of them as there are Opekians, and they
hunt and fight for a living and for the pleasure of it. They have an
old rascal named Messenwah for a king, and they come down here about
once every three months, and tear things up."
Albert sprang to his feet.
"Oh, they do, do they?" he said, staring up at the mountain-tops.
"They come down here and tear up things, do they? Well, I think we'll
stop that, I think we'll stop that! I, don't care how many there are.
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