"HIS ISLAND PRINCESS."

Thames Star, Volume LXV, Issue 18236, 9 July 1931, Page 4

"HIS ISLAND PRINCESS."

OUR SERIAL STORY

BY W. CLARK RUSSELL.

CHAPTER Vl—Continued.

LOOBOO. After begging me to sit and fall to, Captain Seott, as I shall hereafter call him, seated himself under the hung-up prow of the canoe. But Eulalie waited upon me. She gave me fish, and helped me from the other dishes, all the while watching me with child-like artless scrutiny, with nothing rompish in it, as though I was something new in the animal kingdom, which she would like to touch and explore after the manner of the savage damsels of the South Sea Islands when a white man lands. Being very sharp-set, I ate with a will, often looking at the girl and giving thanks with smiles. "D'ye know, Lily," says Captain Scott, "that Mr de la Touche's father was a colonel in the French Army!" She did not seem to be moved. I not think she understood him. "Pray, sir," says he, "how old might you be?" "I was born in March, 1763." He calculated and said, "Twentyfour. You cannot have lon- followed the sea?" "My story," sa id I. "j s . easily told. My father married an English Jady, Helen Vincent, daughter of Sii Roger Vincent, a baronet, whom he met ,n Paris. He left the French army, and settled with his wife in a village near Hull, where -living was cheap, and where he had some relations. My parents died, one soon after the other. I had very few relations, and they all looked coldlv on me. I was about fourteen years of age. At my own request I was apprenticed to the sea by the Rev John Wilson, my father's brother-in-law who, with the proceeds of the colonel's estate, equipped me, and handed me a sum of about two hundred pounds."

Eulalie followed me with close attention, but whenever I met her soft dark eyes I saw she was puzzled bv some of mv words, which therefore rendered little of my story intelligible to her. t " And P r ay," says Captain Scott come you in the dreadful situation in which we found you? T observe," he says, "by the name in your boat that you belonged to ar American ship." "Oh dear, no," I. cried, feeling myself colour; "I will explain how I came into that ship." And thereupon I told my story, beginning with the sailing of the fleet from Spithead, and ending at that part in the boat when I fainted after beholding, as I supposed, the apparition of the beautiful con vie. girl swimming towards me. I rambled somewhat in my discourse, for I had much to say. I spared them no incidents of my adventures, except that I did not tell them I took the diamonds from the snow. Captain Scott sat qdietly and calmly watching me, and listening with a lofty and courteous attention which never suffered him to interrupt me once, unless by an occasional interjection. Eulalie had planted herself on a chair close beside me, and leaned her cheek upon her hand, resting her elbow on the table. Her arm you would have said was faultless in form; the skin through exposure a little darker than the flesh of the throat; her hands were extremely small and choice in fingertip and shape of nail. She followed my narrative with a passionate earnestness, she never moved her eyes from my face. I believe 1 should have felt embarrassed by the way she fastened her shining eyes upon me had it not been that I foum something in her so entirely simple artless, and natural that her gaze did no more perplex me than had she been a child. "You have seen much and suffered much," said the captain, when I had made an end. "I have, sir," says I; and, looking at Eulalie, I said, putting my hand in my pocket, "will you do me the honour to accept this little bag of diamonds as a very small token of my gratitude for your goodness, and of my admiration of your amazing courage and skill?" and I handed her the little sack which I had taken from the snow. "Hold!" cried Captain Scott, rising swiftly and looking with excitement, though speaking with an air of command. "I am sensible of the goodness of heart which prompts the gift, but it is the custom, certainly at the Court of Britain, to request permission before presenting a gift to a princess of the royal blood." He towered somewhat in his mien and I did then very clearly perceive that I was in the presence of a man upon whose mind had fastened a gangrene delusion. I glanced at Eulalie to' observe how she took her father. But if it was clear to me now that he was crazy, that is, under one head, it was equally clear to me that, his daughter did not know it, that having been brought up to believe him king of England, and nobody living with them to disbuse her, if, indeed anybody chose to be so cruel, she had no doubt that, being his daughter, she was a princess. (To be continued). 1