“HIS ISLAND PRINCESS.”

Thames Star, Volume LXV, Issue 18240, 14 July 1931, Page 4

“HIS ISLAND PRINCESS .”

OUR SERIAL STORY

BY W. CLARK RUSSELL.

CHAPTER Vl.—Continued. LOOBOO. “And pray, sir, what became of your crew?” “They fell idle and grew weary of this island, which is one of the uninhabited. So they asked me permission to build themselves a canoe. They built a very large canoe and thoroughly equipped her for a voyage, and I gave them a little compass and told them where to steer to, and six months after our shipwreck, Lily and I were alone.” “Do you know where they steered to, sir?” “I gave them the best course I could for the Tonga Islands. But they would certainly come across some islands between this and that group.” He suddenly stood up in one of those passages of nerves or sudden disturbances of mind which would occasionally break in upon the lordly dignity 'of his repose. I stood up likewise. “Can you swim?” asked Eulalie. “Hot so well as you," I answered. “But I can swim.” “She can light a shark, so nimble is she in the sea,” says Captain Scott. “How do you light sharks?” I inquired. “I never swim without a knife,” she replied. “But there are very few sharks. I have only fought two since we have been here. Others I have seen did not trouble me.” “There are very few sharks, as Lily says,” said Captain Scott. “If there were many, if there were even a few, the sport of swimming would be too dangerous for my child. I believe there is something in the water that is disagreeable to them and keeps them oft'. This is a volcanic island. Fire has been twice belched by that mountain during our residence, and you can see the steam from the hot springs rising near the crater.” The steam rose from a lake of about one acre in a basin. Hear the edge of the lake the gas bubbled up; no vegetation was round about. I directed my eyes from the mountain to the house. It was about sixty feet in the ridge tree and thirty in breadth, oblong and rounded at the ends. From the tops of the pillars planks were let down which ran round the whole house; these bore the weight of large poles, which were set up and bound round with fine matting. On this the thatch of palm leaves, beautifully worked, had been laid by Kanakas, and, as I might suppose, it had been kept in repair by the occupants of the building. It made a very cool, sweet and soothing picture to the eye, fronted as it was by the pleasant garden I have described, richly shaded by the giant towering trees which flourish in those lands of the sun, and backed as it was by a swelling, thickly wooded slope which, whilst giving the structure outline, seemed to enfold it in tender shadow too.

These natural sights and glories combined with the cold, blue, bright embrace of the ocean, and the ruble, lofty, frothing fall of cascade which foamed into the river that ran into the creek, these things I say, together with the colour and perfume of the flowers, the flight of birds, the Avhole scene, transformed me with delight. Captain Scott seemed to witness the pleasure in my face, and says gravely: “You will not wonder, since my heart is there” —and he points to the grave —“that my home should he here.” I looked at Eulalie. He followed the glance of my eyes, but instead of interpreting it as I should have wished, he said, “I am going to take Mr do la Touche to the creek.” “What for?” she cried, opening her eyes with an expression that glowed with alarm. “To show him his boat,” said lie in a soothing, sweet voice. “He will want to leave us.” “Will you?” she cried, looking at me. “No,” says I; “and certainly I would not leave in that boat. The> very thought of it makes my blood run cold. Only consider, sir, what I have suffered in her!” “We will view her, nevertheless,” says he. “Your stores are in her. We can bring them away, and you, Lily, will see to our noonday meal.” “There is plenty of time for that,” says she, pouting. “I will go with you”; nad I fancy I perceived by the tremor in her lip that, though she had a spirit equal to the killing of a shark, and the towing of a boat with a dying man in it, she was a maiden to whom tears were not difficult. Without another word Captain Scott set out for the creek, and Eulalie and I followed him. ' Eulalie lagged in her paces. She did not want to overtake Captain Scott, who stepped ahead. She asked me if I remembered her getting into the boat, and she told me she had seen the boat in the morning on leaving the house; she called her father, who pointed his spyglass at it, and said that there was the body of a man hanging over the bows. The boat was without sail and swayed idly on the tide. Thinking that the man in the boat might be alive, she put on her swimming dress. “But I was afraid,” she says, looking very archly and sweetly at me, “that you would be dead before we reached the shore, though I swam hard.”

(To be continued)