"HIS ISLAND PRINCESS."

Thames Star, Volume LXV, Issue 18238, 11 July 1931, Page 4

"HIS ISLAND PRINCESS."

OUR SERIAL STORY

BY W. CLARK RUSSELL.

CHAPTER Vl—Continued.

LOOBOO. "Arc ypu alone in this island, sir?" I asked. "I and my daughter," he answered. "You two only!" I exclaimed, startled by surprise into an indiscreet exhibition of it. • "We are three," says he. with a look at his wife's grave, for we stood in conversation in the garden. I turned my eyes round about the land, scarce crediting that these two should be the only occupants of it. No form of life save the birds moved. "What is the name of this island, sir?" asked I. "I have named.it Looboo," he answered. "Let us sit in this shade." We seated ourselves upon a little natural grassy rise in the garden, and over us towered the boughs of some spacious trees, casting an agreeable shade upon a wide" area. The morning breeze hummed among the leaves and brought the incense of the flowers to our nostrils, and the sea lay trembling in the glory of early sunshine. Eulalie sat close beside me. She seemed to offer that, having rescued me from death, she viewed me as her own and meant to make me so. Her father glanced at me with a slight smile as though he would conjecture the thoughts and feelings such artless and beautiful simplicity would raise in a young man whose temperament was ardent, to whom female beauty in the form in which it spoke in the, person and smiles and soft dark eyes of Eulalie must prove an appeal of irresistible eloquence. "Is the island ever visited?" I inquired. "By European ships, do you mean, or by islanders?" - "By either or both." "I have been here ten years," he said, "and four ships only have passed in that time, two of them hull down j and the only native that ever visited us from any other island was a dead man in a canoe which came ashore, and there she is," said he, pointing to the creek. "Ten years 1" I cried. "Is it possible that you have lived here alone with your daughter ten years?" "Ay," he answered. "We were wrecked on December the third, 1778, -and here," he exclaimed, drawing himself up with that look of dignity he had put on when he called himself the king of Great Britain, "we chose to remain, and shall continue to remain." My eyes met the girl's, but I found nothing in the expression of them to betoken the dejection or even terror which his words, one might have thought, would have filled her with. Alone, with her father for ten years, and she was to be alone with him until he died, and then what was to become of her?

But I was in no temper to with shrewdness then. Indeed, I had not gathered material enough to base opinion upon. One thing I clearly perceived—not merely because he called himself king of England, • and not merely because he was living alone with his daughter on an island, evidently without taking thought of her future or considering that he was allowing her to grow up but little better than a savage—and that was that he was a madman. I had address enough, however, to forbear any further demonstrations of astonishment, and composed myself to talk as though the extraordinary situation in which I found these people placed was the most proper and natural in, the world. "Since no ships visit the island," said I, "I cannot conceive, sir, how you are in possession of so many European conveniences which I observe in your house." "That is easily explained" he answered. "I was the owner of a schooner called the Eulalie, that traded chiefly from Lima, in South America, but from other ports in that part of the globe also, with the islanders in these seas. The goods I carried for trucking were axes, scissors, knives, looking-glasses, old shirts, nails, combs, cast-iron pots, razors, blankets, hammers, gimlets, and scores of articles of this description." I preserved my gravity whilst he ran through this catalogue of shop contents with the air of regal dignity. "In exchange for these goods I received pearls, seines, feathered breastplates, sandal-wood, cloth, inlaid clubs, shell armlets, and many other objects which are esteemed curiosities, and which fetch a good price. But I sought chiefly for pearls, and did extremely well for several voyages until that fatal one, when, in an evil moment, I made up my mind to head for some r ' the southern unexplored islands —" He stopped, his head sank, he sighed deeply, his eyes were rooted in the grave, and in that posture he remained as though he had fallen into a trance. I durst not break the silence. Presently Eulalie, growing * impatient as a child would, says — ' "Fjither, tell Mr de la Touche the story." He broke from his dream or reverie, and, directing his eyes at the girl, he cried, "Ah, Lily, thou knowest I would rather be without the crown of England than thy mother." and he continued his story.

(To be continued)