"Oh, it won't be so bad when we get there," he said; "they say these
Southern people are always hospitable, and the whites will be glad to
see any one from the States."

"There will be a round of diplomatic dinners," said the consul, with an
attempt at cheerfulness. "I have brought two uniforms to wear at them."

It was seven o'clock in the evening when the rain ceased, and one of the
black, half-naked fishermen nodded and pointed at a little low line on
the horizon.

"Opeki," he said. The line grew in length until it proved to be an
island with great mountains rising to the clouds, and as they drew
nearer and nearer, showed a level coast running back to the foot of the
mountains and covered with a forest of palms. They next made out a
village of thatched huts around a grassy square, and at some distance
from the village a wooden structure with a tin roof.

"I wonder where the town is," asked the consul, with a nervous glance at
the fishermen. One of them told him that what he saw was the town.

"That?" gasped the consul. "Is that where all the people on the island
live?"

The fisherman nodded; but the other added that there were other natives
further back in the mountains, but that they were bad men who fought and
ate each other. The consul and his attaché of legation gazed at the
mountains with unspoken misgivings. They were quite near now, and could
see an immense crowd of men and women, all of them black, and clad but
in the simplest garments, waiting to receive them. They seemed greatly