A QUEEN’S ERROR

Thames Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 17928, 2 July 1930, Page 3

A QUEEN’S ERROR

[OUR SERIAL story

CHAPTER XIIL DON JUAN D’ALTA. I slept until within half an hour of our running into Valoro station late in the afternoon, and just had time to have a • delicious bath and emerge fresh and hungry into the restaurant car in which St. Nivel, Lady Ethel and Dolores, looking very pale and ill, were just finishing lunch. My darling sat beside me while I lunched and held my hand—when it was disengaged—unheeded by Mrs Darbyshire. ' This lady, I think, considered that the case had got beyond her, and had better be relegated to a higher court—Don Juan d’Alta—for judgment.

- Dolores even lighted my cigarette for me, but soon after her aunt took her away to prepare to leave the train.

“What on earth made you hand that poor devil of a brigand that box of cigars, Jack?” I asked St. Nivel, when we, were alone with Ethel, and he had restored my precious casket to me; “he might have taken it and got the whole shoot.”

“At that moment,” replied St. Nivel glancing through the rings of his cigar smoke quite affectionately at me, “I wished he would take it. Things looked very ugly for you, and we were powerless to help you. I thought if he took the cigar case the casket would at least be with you and you’ would know it, and could use your own discretion about giving them the tip if your life were threatened as I imagined it would be.” “Very clever of you, Jack,” I answered, “and I’m very much obliged to you for thinking of it, but I am glad that the poor devil didn’t take it after all. I believe it to be my duty to take it to Don Juan d’Alta, even at the risk of my life.” St. Nivel sat thinking a moment or two;, then he spoke. “Why do you use the term ‘poor devil’?” he asked, “when you speak of the robber chief?” I told him why. I told him how I had shot him.

“Well, really, Bill,” he said, very seriously. “I wish the thing had gone. It has already cost several lives, and seems to carry ill-luck with it. Who knows how many more lives may be sacrificed? Of course, there cannot be a doubt but that the train was held up solely to obtain it; the taking of the hundred dollars a head

(By CAPTAIN HENRY CURTIES). Author of “The Blood Bond,” “Th e Idol of the King” “Tears of Angela,” “The Queen’s Gate Mystery,” “Out of the Shadows” etc.

was simply a ruse to cover the other. Old Prampton says such a raid on a train is a thing unheard of now in Aquazilia.” . “Yes,” I answered, “but it came to a good round sum all the same. Well, at any rate,” I continued, as the train ran into Valoro station, "we’ve brought the thing to its destination, and we’re all safe and sound, so there is something to be thankful for.” At Valoro things were “all right,” as my man Brooks put it; news of the attack on the train, in which was the British Minister, had reached the capital, and a troop of cavalry await-

ed to escort him to his Legation. “As I understand you have something of importance to deliver in Valoro,” said Sir Rupert Prampton to me as we left the train, “I think you had better come in my carriage. .1 am taking Mrs Darbyshire and the Senorita with me, too. They both want reassuring, and the morale of the escort will do that. I shall take them right home.”

“Thank you very much,” I answered, “that will suit me down to the ground. My mission is to deliver a packet to Don Juan d’Alta himself.” “Then come along,” added Sir Rupert, “for, of course, the ladies are going there, too.” In a few minutes we were driving out of the station yard in a fine carriage, surrounded by soldiers. It was the first time I had ever ridden with an escort, and I liked it. We left the immense terminus, which would not have disgraced the finest city in Europe, and turned up i a great boulevard leading to the higher part of the city, where amid trees we saw many fine white houses. “That is our house!” cried Dolores, as we left the houses behind, and r came out into the country. “Look, aunt! Look, William!” I did look, and saw on the crest of the hill we were approaching, far away to the left, a long range of white buildings, relieved with towers, which looked like a castle. It filled me with apprehension, for it was a sign of the great ‘wealth of her father—the wealth which I feared would be a bar to our union. I think she was surprised at the glum look on my face for the rest of the little journey. “Are you sorry to go and see my | father?” she asked plaintively, with a sweet look in her blue eyes. “I am sure he will be very pleased to see you and to thank you for saving me. j He is a very kind man is my father,” I she added solemnly, "very kind to me and very kind to his reptiles.”

Before them all—Mrs Darbyshire was now quite resigned—l took her hand and pressed it. ' “It is a very easy thing to be kind to you, Dolores,” I said. . “I should find the’ difficulty in being kind to the reptiles.” “But you will humour my father, won’t you?” she asked, and then dropped her voice, “for both our sakes?” The amount of interest dear old Sir Rupert Prampton took in distant scenery during this drive, and the many objects of interest he pointed out to Mrs Darbyshire to divert her attention from us, made me his willing slave for life. For, indeed, I was agitated at the prospect of the inter-' view which was to come in a few minutes with old Don Juan d’Alta, not only for our sakes, but for the sake of the dear old lady at Bath, who I doubted not was now dead, and the packet she had confided to my care. (To be continued daily.)