LONG AGO STORIES

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 147, 24 June 1933, Page 3 (Supplement)

LONG AGO STORIES

ROBERT AND THE BLACK KING. Robert and his father were going to court to see the Black King, but the crowd round the palace was so great that they were obliged to get down from their horse and walk. Nobles, beggars, soldiers, merchants, girls and boys all pressed along together, and those who had invitations entered the palace, and those who had none crowded round the windows, and doors, for the young king, Henry the Eighth, never objected to the public looking at him while he ate, danced,, or entertained his friends and enemies. Dressed in gold and green, flashing with jewels, the handsome young king ! moved gracefully among his guests, and, if a beggar who had managed to push in through the guards plucked a gold tag from the king's sleeve, he only laughed. He considered himself the greatest king on earth, and trusted to the love of his people, but, when his seamen brought a Black King from South America as a curiosity, Henry and his people were shocked, for they did not think it possible for a savage black man to be a king. "Will they kill the Black King at the end of the feast?" asked Robert in a great state of excitement. "It will be as the King's Highness wills," replied his father. "A black man cannot be a king." Now in the crowd Robert became separated from his father and, being a small boy, he managed to poke his way through the guests till he reached the room where the Black King sat. For a long time he stood watching the silent, dark man, who was wrapped in a fur cloak, and who held his thin brown hands clasped together in his lap. A number of dark men and boys crouched round this strange creature, and the people pressed about him, touched him, asked him questions which he could not answer, yet he kept quite still, like an idol. "What think you, boy? Is he a king?" asked a deep voice suddenly, and, looking tip, Robert beheld Henry the Eighth. | The boy fell upon his knees, and gazed into the eves of the silent dark man. ; "Aye, Highness," he murmured, "I think he is a king." "Why?" asked Henry sharply. "I see royal courage in his eyes, sire. Who but a king could sit proudly before the Majesty of your Highness?" "We think alike, boy," smilM the king, "yet out of the thousands who have come to view him thou alone hast dared to tell me that he is my equal. He shall return with gifts to his own land, and I make thee a present of one of these boys for thy slave." Greatly delighted Robert took the dark boy home, dressed liirh in silks, gave him the richest food, and he lived happily with Robert—his pet and his servant.