Albert had called on the King the next morning, with Stedman as his
interpreter, as he had said he would, and, with maps and sketches, had
shown his Majesty what he proposed to do toward improving Opeki and
ennobling her king, and when the King saw Albert's free-hand sketches
of wharves with tall ships lying at anchor, and rows of Opekian
warriors with the Bradleys at their head, and the design for his new
palace, and a royal sedan chair, he believed that these things were
already his, and not still only on paper, and he appointed Albert his
Minister of War, Stedman his Minister of Home Affairs, and selected
two of his wisest and oldest subjects to serve them as joint advisers.
His enthusiasm was even greater than Gordon's, because he did not
appreciate the difficulties. He thought Gordon a semi-god, a worker of
miracles, and urged the putting up of a monument to him at once in the
public plaza, to which Albert objected, on the ground that it would be
too suggestive of an idol; and to which Stedman also objected, but for
the less unselfish reason that it would "be in the way of the
pitcher's box."
They were feverishly discussing all these great changes, and Stedman
was translating as rapidly as he could translate, the speeches of four
different men--for the two counsellors had been called in--all of whom
wanted to speak at once when there came from outside a great shout,
and the screams of women, and the clashing of iron, and the pattering
footsteps of men running.
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