The Storyteller. HIS HIGHNESS'S PLAYTHINGS.

Waikato Argus, Volume II, Issue 109, 20 March 1897, Page 1 (Supplement)

The Storyteller. HIS HIGHNESS'S PLAYTHINGS.

CHAPTER, I. {continued). ' Thrive I am not agreeing with you then,' replied the Maharajah rudely. ' I think it same like this. Burton not be liking to have people s.iy he kill his child through own fault, so he smash up old bolt-screw and throw him in the bush himself where he find. Then he get duplicate bol t from workshop, and put in apparatus, so people say some one tamper with sigual and not his fault.' Angus Morrison shifted uneasily in his chair, Tho dastardly suggestion irritated him. Colonel Sadleir said : * I don't think that is at all likely. Though Your Highness was working the signals, they were just as much under Burton's charge as the engine itself. It was his duty to see that they were in working order before the railway was used, and the fabrication of such a story would only saddle him with a different kind of blame. I incline to the opinion that the signals were tampered with —but not by Burton.' 'Well, I not rightly see how it happen then,' responded the Maharajah sullenly, and there followed a silence which was becoming awkward, when Morrison raised hi mself in his seat and pointed to the sky over the city, «The doctor was right,' he said. •Thero is going to be a thunderstorm.' The city of Jettore was built upon a flat plain, skirted upon one side by a ridge of rising ground upon which stood the residency and the bungalows of Colonel Sadleir's staff. The new palace, built during the reign of the Inst Maharajah, was upon the other side of the ridge, and was thorefore invisible from the city, and vice versa, though from the residency a clear view was obtainable of the palace on one side and the city on the other. The verandah where they were siting was on the city side, and it was in this direction that the storm was gnthering. Even as Morrison spoke the great cloud canopy that bad attracted his attention was split with a streak of forked lightning, and the thunder crashed. In a minute as happens in the East, lightning-flash and thunder-peal had become incessant, and rain fell in torrents. For a short time they sat watching the storm, and then suddenly the young prince clutched Morrison's arm. ' See ! Oh see !' he exclaimed. • Isn't that what—you —coll fun 1 There will be an explosion '? The powder-house is on fire!' A quarter of a mile away the nearest building on the city side was the magazine and cartridge factory from which the state troops were supplied with ammunition — mostly blank, nowadays, for pageants and reviews. It cousisted of a range of white chunam buildings, terming a square, and approached by a central archway on the side facing the residency. Immediately over that portion of the block where the powder was stored a tall flag-staff rose with a lightningconductor attached, and it was to this that the Maharajah was excitedly,' pointing. The lightning was playing round the copper spilo\ of the conductor in little tongues of flame, like fiery serpents. Morrison shrank instinctively from the touch of the flabby fingers ; but professionalism asserted itself, and he began to improve the occasion. He explained how the electric fluid was diverted and carried off by the conductor to spend itself harmlessly in the earth, and that instead of threatening an explosion, tho conductor was at that moment protecting the magazine and the workmen on the premises from any such risk. ' And I do not understand what you mean, Maharajah Sahib, when you speak of an explosion which would kill or maim a score of people as fun,' he added coldly. But his pupil was now far too deeply interested in the scientific details of controlling the electric fluid to notice his rebuke. Question and answer followed in quick succession, and by the time the Maharajah had mastered the whole subject of ' earth connections,' ' copper points,' and the other technicalities of lightning conduction the storm had spent itself. Colonel SaJleir had long ago stolen away to go to his wife, who was nervous in thunder-storms, and the Maharajah rose to return to the palace. Morrison went with him. • Morrison Sahib, you're a very clever scientific,' he said. ' If I knew all curious things, same like you, I should have heaps of fun—every day.' The gaunt tutor and the squat, waddling hobbledehoy bad gone but a short distance along the veranda when a little face, pale with wrath, peered after them round the tatty of the room near which they had been sitting. ' You wretch !' muttered Bessie, shaking her fist at the retreating tigures. M CHAPTER 11. That same night, after dinner, Colonel Sadleir took Bessie to task —rather irildly, it is true —respecting her persistent incivility towards the Maharajah. 'lt is quite possible to dislike

people very much without being downright rudo to them,' lie said, stroking his (laughter's brown hair. .Bessie looked at him quizzically, ' You evidently speak from experience, father dear,' she said, ' I believe you have been trying it—on the same subject.' And then somewhat to his surprise she proceeded to ugree with him quite eagerly. ' You shan't have occasion to complain again—not for a while at least,' she added. ' I mean to be extra nice to His sweet Highness and tike an interest in all his doings. I have sent my ayah over to the palace to say that I should like a trip on the private railway to-morrow.' This was hardly what the Colonel wanted, for doubt was thick upon him, but he said nothing—only took precautions. During the next few days Bessie had several trips on the miniature railway ; she inspected the electric light installation that was being fitted in the gaudy, gimcrack furnished palace : and she was taken to see a new elephant-house that was in course of construction. Sometimes the Maharajah was present to do the honours himself, and sometimes not; but on every occasion when she met him Bessie was exceedingly gracious, and Morrison —always at hand when the tours were personally conducted—was amused and a little puzzled by her efforts to draw the young prince out. One day, about a week after the thunderstorm, Bessie was talking to the Maharajah's engine-driver in the residency garden. Burton was a thick-set, open-faced Yorkshireman, who had been tempted by the high pay offered him to throw up his billet on the G. I. P R, and enter private service at the palace of Jettore. He was an especial favourite and protege of the Political Agent's little daughter, who, coming out shortly after the fatal accident to his child, had paid many consoling visits to the sorrowing parents in their small bungalow outside the palace gates. She had- been asking him if he had made any fresh discovery in the matter of the broken bolt-screw and had received a negative reply. ' I wish you would tell me, Burton, what was your own private opinion of the accident—it first, I mean, and before you found the belt under the prickly pear,' said Bessie, The engine-driver glanced about him before replying, but there was no one nearer than an ancient mahli watering the flowers a hundred yards away. 'Well, Miss,' he said, 'I don't mind telling you, though I wouldn't mention it to another living soul. I believe His Highness wasn't exactly truthful. You see I was positive that the signal, being at safety, told me to come on round the curve. 'Tisn't as if I wasn't an experienced man; I've been driving engines and watching signals this twenty years, and never a fault before. What I thought was as he muffed it and didn't pull the lever till after I'd passed, and then, seeing what had happened, lied, so as to shift the blame. I didn't say anything, because it's our daily bread not to offetid him, and whichever it was it was an accident. I am glad I didn't own, and I'm sorry I misjudged His Highness. But if I can lay my hand on the man that meddled with the bolt, it will be bad for him.' ' Don't you suspect any one V ' No one in particular,' replied Burton. ' There's a hundred niggers about the place, each of 'em as curious as a pack of monkeys. The wisest of them would pull the inside out of a barrel-organ to see what makes the noise.' • Yes,' said Bessie, ' it may be difficult to find out about the pulling to pieces, but how about the putting together again 1 That ought not to be so hard. It must have been done almost immediately after the accident, and whoever put the new bolt in must have pulled the old one out.' Burton tried hard to read the flushed and eager young face. ' You mean His Highness, I think, Miss,' he said at length, with a shake of his head. ' That crossed my mind, too, when I found the bolt; but it wouldn't wash, so to speak. You see if' it had been him he would have had to go to the workshop for the new bolt immediately, and I'm pretty certain he didn't leave the ground before we all examined the apparatus.' ' Well, but, supposing the tampering took place then and caused the accident, some one must have put in the new bolt between the passing of the tram and the examination of the signal,' said Bessie, adding slowly : ' What if some one ' —with emphasis—' had the new bolt ready with him, and slipped it in the moment the train had gono by.' The engine-driver looked at her with a dawning horror which showed that he understood her drift at last, ' Good heavens ! Miss, but do you know what you are charging him with V he exclaimed hoarsely. ' To have acted like that, hemusthave deliberately planned the whole thing and took out the old bolt on purpose. And him so fond of my Willie, and liking to have him about ! Why, it was him who used to encourage the boy to go and play there while he amused himself witli the signals, and' ' Exactly,' interrupted the girl, carried away now by the force of the conviction which had tilled her ever since she had overhead the conversation—or part of it—in the veranda, ' exactly; but that all

points the same way, Burton, don't you see ?' ' By heavens ! If I could prove it, Prince or no Prince shouldn't save him. The black heart that could plan such mischk'.f to an innocent child ' ' Hush !' said Bessie, laying a soothing hand on his coat-sleeve. ... i ' You cannot prove it; it is too long ago, and there is no real evidence. Let the past alone and look to the future. Watch closely, Burton, and let me know anything curious that you can't account for. 1 am watching too, though they don't tell me. I have an idea that there may be mischief with the dynamos ; he is so keen on them just now. You see, if we can find out anything fresh, we could not only prevent it, but the exposure would go far to prove and bring punishment for that other horror. Instead of intrusting him with the State when he comes of age, the supreme government would have to shut him up as a lunatic—at least.' So it was that another pair of eyes were set to work—tho sharpest and of just cause the most tireless, of those which at that time were focused on the palace at Jettore. In the afternoon of the following day the Political Agent and the Maharajah's tutor were again sitting in the veranda of the residency, chatting, as men will when not sure of their ground, on every subject except the one uppermost in their minds. By a sort of tacit understanding that had not been again referred to, though the shadow of it lay upon them like some hideous nightmare. It was with them day and night, and the strain of it was that they were powerless to act. Public policy, the exigencies of officialism, fairness to the suspect—everything precluded action on mere surmise. Colonel Sadleir knew, and Morrison knew, that even a confidential report to Simla on such slender grounds as they could urge would go into a pigeon-hole or, more probably, the waste-basket. Presently they were joined by Mrs Sadleir and Bessie, and shortly afterward Doctor Snelgar looked in on his way home from a ride. The medical officer attached to the Political Agency was a garrulous, cheery little man, with an unceasing flow of gossip, and never at a loss for a topic. The last person in the world to whom the Colonel and Morrison would have confided the doubts that assailed them, he began, by some strange^chance and with the airiness of evident unsuspicion, to trench upon the dangerous ground, ' Wonderful chap, the Maharajah,' said the doctor. ' You ought to be proud of him, Morrison ; the way you've brought him on is a credit all round. Unlucky though, in his amusements, to other people sometimes. I hope his latest excursion into the realms of practical knowledge won't make me busy.' ' 1 have seen Smith, the London foreman in charge of the electric installation, and he tells me that there is no possibility of accident yet, and won't be till a current is gonerated. At present they are only fixing the arcs and laying the circuit wires,' remarked Colonel Sadleir. ' Ah, but I wasn't talking about electricity, Colonel,' replied Snelgar, pouncing on the chance to impart information first hand. ' How about gunpowder as a medium for amateur experiments'!' he added with an air of mystery. ' What are you driving at, doctor V said Morrison, struggling to hide his eagerness. ' I thought I was pretty well aware of all the Maharajah's pursuits. He hasn't taken me into his confidence on any new departure in that line.' 'Not about the magazine?' returned the doctor. ' I thought you would be sure to know; but this shows that the unfortunate medico who has to be out all hours scores occasionally by picking up a bit of fresh news. I was called u-p at five yesterday morning to Mrs Bell, the padre's wife, and while dressing I saw His Highness coming out of the main gate of the magazine. It is in full view of my bungalow—just as it is from here, by the way—and I made him out quite plainly. Later on I was passing the' gate, and I asked the watchman what had brought him such a distinguished visitor so early. The man said that the Maharajah wanted to take a look round while the workpeople were absent, so as to see if the place was left with a due regard to safety. " But Doctor Sahib," the watchman added, " I beseech you to keep a closed lip about this matter. The Maharajah desired secrecy, and enjoined it upon me at my peril." The rogue had evidently had a tip to close his mouth, but as I hadn't one—why, there you are.' Bessie, who had been drinking in the doctor's words, saw a glance of consternation pass between her father and Morrison. The tutor was silent, and the Colonel only said : ' What do you imagine this outbreak of royal energy portends, Snelgar V The doctor laughed. ' A good rousing firework display somewhere in the palace grounds,' he replied. ' I expect His Highness was after stealing a pound or two of Ins own powder. Boys will be boys, you know,' But Morrison shook his head. ' It could hardly have been that,' he

was beginning ; 'there is plenty of sporting powder at the palace avai!able for such a purpose ' —And there he checked himself on the vurgo of the dangerous topb, and cast about, for a quick change of subject. Before be found one, the sullen boom of distant thunder came to his rescue. ' Another storm !' exclaimed Mrs Sadleir nervously. ' I will go into the house, I think,' and she disappeared through the adjacent window. Bessie ran to tho end of the veranda to report on the aspect of the weather, for in front of them, over the city, the sky was as yet clear. • It is as black as ink away to the left, and spreading this way,' she cried. 'Ah ! there's another flash.' She had hardly returned to the group and resumed her seat when the rain began to fall, and a minute later the storm broke in its full fury half a mile off along the ridge. From the increasing loudness of each successive peal, it was evident that the disturbance was advancing sideways, and would pass across the city from left to right in a direction parallel with the residency. Already the sky above was densely overcist, and the highly charged ailhung heavy on the lungs. The only timid one of the party having retired, the rest reoiained in the ample shelter of the broad veranda to wach the progress of the storm. The white walls and minarets of the city glowed every ten seconds in the steel-blue glint of the lightning, as though played upon by a man-of-war search-light, and the thunder boomed incessantly. Suddenly they were surprised to hear amid the din a skrielc of wild laughter, and a moment later the Maharajah rushed into the veranda, unannounced, and in a state of gleeful excitement. He was drenched to the skin and panting for breath. ' I run over from palace to see big storm,' he explained, flinging himself into a chair. ' You not mind, Colonel Sahib, eh? Better view from here, you know.' There was something uncanny in his appearance—something weird in the eager, gloating merriment of tho heady eyes, and in the twitching of the flabby face that made them shudder—but it was necessary to extend a welcome. Colonel Sadleir qualified it, however, by adding : ' Your Highness has submitted yourself to rather a needless soaking. Y T ou could have seen the storm very well from the palace,' 'Ah, yes—the storm,' was the chuckling answer : ' but not the whatyou-call lightning-conductor on roof of magazine. Tlyit beastly hill cover him up from palace so I not see. And it funny—real tumasha —when flames dance round polo like zigzag. That why I come.' A slight movement from his side caused the Colonel to turn, Ho was just in time to catch a glimpse of Bessie disappearing into the house —to go to her mother, he supposed ; for in her more friendly relations with the Maharajah he failed to connect her flight with the latter's arrival. His Highness himself clearly did not claim to be the cause of the girl's departure, since he remarked complacently: ' Miss Bessie frightened of storm 1 Pity she no wait for grand tumasha. So glad I reach here in time.' But half a minute later it was brought clearly home to him that whatever had moved Bessie to leave them, it was not fear of the weather. The residency, as has been said, stood half-way between the palace and the city, that portion of the road leading citywards being in full view of the veranda. For the first two hundred yards it descended a gentle hill, and for three hundred more ran across the flat as straight as a ruler to the gate of the magazine, thence onwards into the heart of Jettore. Along this road, and as yet but a hundred yards away, Bessie was speeding as though for dear life, her white muslin dress already drenched to a clinging wisp, and her bounding figure showing up elf-like in the lightning flashes. The others did not realise at first that it was in truth Bessie whom they saw ; but the Maharajah recognised her at once, and the effect upon him was as swift as inexplicable Uttering a strange cry—partly a screech of terror, partly a howl of baffled rage—he rose and rushed away ; and the three men, risen now to their feet in wondering concern, heard him dash through the house towards the entrance facing the road. They were still looking at each other in blank dismay when he appeared on the road, running his hardest after the first figure, but a good three hundred yards behind. ' Surely that can't be Bessie ahead of him !' exclaimed the Colonel, ami he rushed into the nearest room for a field-glass. When he returned the girl had disappeared through the archway of the magazine, and the Maharajah was still labouring along, sorely hampered by his flowing raiment, in the same direction. The doctur, in his ignorance, was beginning to derive amusement from the episode ; but Sadleir and Morrison we.ro trembling like men on the verge of an unseen precipice, dreading they kne»v not what. ALoved by a common impulse to follow, tbey were turning away, when a shout from Snelgar arrested them, and turned their attention once more to the long vista of road. ' By Jove ! if that is Miss i'essie, she bus been playing a game on the

magazine wallahs,' exclaimed the doctor, ' Sec ! there's a regular stampede.' It wa-, true enough. Out of the magazine gate came a cluster of natives, jostling an i tumbling over each other in frantic haste, and behind then), no less eager to clear the archway, followed the drenched little figure whom Sadleir's glass now told him was indeed his daughter. The native work-people scattered in all directions—mostly fleeing towards the city with cries of alarm that were heard between the thunder-peals—but Bessie came straight back on her track for the re.idency, ruuning like a fawn. Fifty yards from the magazine gate she met the Maharajah, who to theL spectators on the verandah seomajfr to shout to her as he passed, but without stopping, for he kept right on to the magazine. The last they saw of the hereditary ruler of Jettore was a stumpy, white-swathed form, lit up by a lurid lightningflash, as he vanished through the archway of the deserted building, 'No need to go after her now,' said the Colonel. ' She will be back in a minute at that pace. But what can have come over the child ? What is he doing V ' Gone to play with the lightningconductor. I expect,' suggested the irresponsible doctor. 'lf so, he is in for a lively time ; the storm will be right over him directly. But here comes Miss Bessie with her explanation of the conundrum.' She stumbled into the veranda, to sink dripping wet and well-nigh exhausted, into a chair, To their anxious questions her sole answer was a gesture towards the gate of the- magazine, and the gasping cry, ' Has he come out yet V They told her no—that the road was clear right up to the gate —and then fell to questioning again. But it was not from the draggled child in the chair that they got their answer —then. A blue, forked bolt shot from the sky, and flickered for the tenth of a second lovingly round the conductor on the magazine; the walls of the building seemed to bulge and crumble ;and with a roar that drowned the thunder, a burst, of dame that dimmed the lightning His Highness the Maharajah's tumasha came off. The state of Jettore had lost its stock of powder, and—what was* under the circumstances more to the purpose —had also lost the occupant of its throne. That night, when the turmoil had passed, Bessie explained how her instinctive dislike had grown into active .suspicion under what she had chanced to overhear, and how she and the bereaved engine-driver had been on the lookout for eccentricities. «It was Burton, father, who heard that he had procured a roll of copper wire from the electric-light foreman,' she said. 'We thought ho was going to attempt some mischief with the installation ; but when he came on to the veranda, with that horrible gloating look on his face, to watch the lightningconductor in the storm, I thought of what the doctor had just been saying about his secret visit to the magazine. He must have gone there to attach the wire to the conductor and divert it into the powder-room, intending to come here in the next storm to see the explosion. That was the only thing I could think of ; so I ran down to warn the workpeople.' '■ And what did he say when you passed him on the road V 'He merely shouted : ' You too much cunning, Miss Bessie. I make it all right—then people think you lie.' 'He must have been doubly a lunatic,' said the Political Agent. ' The fact of his rushing off—l sup pose to dismantle his infernal contrivance—would have been enough to condemn him. As things arc, it had better be kept dark and go to the world as another " accident," but none the less are those in the secret proud of you, Bessie, for saving all those poor fellows, at the risk of your life, from a dreadful end.' 'And the state of Jettore from the rule of a homicidal maniac' said Morrison gravely. I The End.]

Visiting cards printer!, equal to copper plate, at The Akuos office. Nickel bits repaired, also new rings fitted, by H. H. Howden, jeweller, etc , Hamilton. On November 14 the Auto-motor Act came into force in Great Britain, permitting motor cars and carriages upon the public roads. Out of 50,000 men who tried to ontor the English army last year 15,000 were rejected, chiefly on account of bad sight, bad teeth, or flat feet. All the local bodies in the Woipa, Waikato, Vitiko and Raglan Counties advertise in Tine Waikato Akgus. This in itself, proves that the Anous is the best advertising medium. The rare distinction of serving a single congregation during a period of 50 years belongs to the Rev. ])i. R. 8. Stor.-s, of Brooklyn, New Fork. The {completion of this half century will be commemorated in the present month. It is not too much to say, asserts a statistician, that in (float Britain a million of money might be saved annually on funeral and marriage ceremonies, with no disrespect to the dead and ao increase of comfort to the living. Mr J. Oakley Brown, formerly of the Evening l'ost staff, and now secretary of the Amalgamated Association at Coolgardie, has sent a cablegram to that journal from the goldiielcls stating that thousands of miners and others are unemployed there owing to the exemptions presumably the exemptions from the manning of claims under the mining laws of Westralia—and asking us to waru men who intended going thither in quest of employment.