Gordon said that he would be gone for two hours at least, and as Stedman did not feel capable of receiving any more nerve-stirring messages, he cut off all connection with Octavia by saying, “Good-by for two hours,” and running away from the office.  He sat down on a rock on the beach, and mopped his face with his handkerchief.

“After a man has taken nothing more exciting than weather reports from Octavia for a year,” he soliloquized, “it’s a bit disturbing to have all the crowned heads of Europe and their secretaries calling upon you for details of a massacre that never came off.”

At the end of two hours Gordon returned from the consulate with a mass of manuscript in his hand.

“Here’s three thousand words,” he said, desperately.  “I never wrote more and said less in my life.  It will make them weep at the office.  I had to pretend that they knew all that had happened so far; they apparently do know more than we do, and I have filled it full of prophecies of more trouble ahead, and with interviews with myself and the two ex-Kings.  The only news element in it is, that the messengers have returned to report that the German vessel is not in sight, and that there is no news.  They think she has gone for good.  Suppose she has, Stedman,” he groaned, looking at him helplessly, “what am I going to do?”

“Well, as for me,” said Stedman, “I’m afraid to go near that cable.  It’s like playing with a live wire.  My nervous system won’t stand many more such shocks as those they gave us this afternoon.”

Gordon threw himself down dejectedly in a chair in the office, and Stedman approached his instrument gingerly, as though it might explode.

“He’s swearing again,” he explained, sadly, in answer to Gordon’s look of inquiry.  “He wants to know when I am going to stop running away from the wire.  He has a stack of messages to send, he says, but I guess he’d better wait and take your copy first; don’t you think so?”

“Yes, I do,” said Gordon.  “I don’t want any more messages than I’ve had.  That’s the best I can do,” he said, as he threw his manuscript down beside Stedman.  “And they can keep on cabling until the wire burns red hot, and they won’t get any more.”

There was silence in the office for some time, while Stedman looked over Gordon’s copy, and Gordon stared dejectedly out at the ocean.

“This is pretty poor stuff, Gordon,” said Stedman.  “It’s like giving people milk when they want brandy.”

“Don’t you suppose I know that?” growled Gordon.  “It’s the best I can do, isn’t it?  It’s not my fault that we are not all dead now.  I can’t massacre foreign residents if there are no foreign residents, but I can commit suicide, though, and I’ll do it if something don’t happen.”

There was a long pause, in which the silence of the office was only broken by the sound of the waves beating on the coral reefs outside.  Stedman raised his head wearily.