Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 276, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 November 1910 — RAJAH SINGHA’S CROWN JEWEL [ARTICLE]

RAJAH SINGHA’S CROWN JEWEL

By Charles Edward Barnes.

A tale of complications, great surprises, and many a slip between the cup and the Up.

Copyright, The Frank A. Munsey Co. Gazing forward, i saw three or four frightened-looking Arabs yowling and oapcing like mad over the slippery deck, pointing to something on the port side toward which the man with the hose was directing a mercile-;s stream.

Then with a more piercing shriek I saw the men drop their honey-stone and take to the rigging like apes, uttering strange cries which brought half a score of their comrades from below. These latter likewise took to the shrouds with amazing agility. I hurried forward, and there beheld the cause of their confusion—five feet of the maddest, liveliest, deadliest length of serpent that ever human eyes beheld, darting hither and thither over the glistening deck, hissing and striking right and left, jaws extended and eyes flashing tiy? fires of challenge and rage; with but one man standing against him—the man with the hose. Slowly this swarthy antagonist was driving the beast to starboard. My heart leaped. My first impulse was a make a rush upon the cobra, even as I had done before, securing him prispner and chancing the consequences.

But a better sense stayed me. Men fjf sane mind do not hunt cobras barefooted in the open, clad only in pajamas; A score of plans suggested themselves in as many quarter seconds. Then suddenly my heart went aown as suddenly as it had risen on the tidsN wave of hope.. Half drowned and utterly routed by the streamyfrom the hose, the cobra slunk hissingand writhing to trie starboard rail. Instantly he disappeared down the starboard scupper, as neatly as he might have slipped into any huge ant-hill in the sands of his native hill country. I leaned over the vessel’s side and caught a glimpse of the writhing shape just as it struck the glassy sea, and before it sank and'was seen no more. "By all the ministering devils of the Pali scriptures!” I groaned, cursing myself for my blundering obtuseness. “So that infamous beast was aboard ship all this time without my knowing it. "Of all the miracles of the incomprehensible East! And now I have lost him, and through my negligence, the world has lost one of the most glorious gems of all time!” It was maddening. Slowly, ragefully I crossed the deck among the chattering coolie-hands, straight toward that offending port scupper. " Then I saw how the miracle was performed, for that conduit was full of water, that came up from below. Down on my knees I dropped, rolling back my sleeve and thrusting my hand arm’s length, through the narrow tube down to the obstruction. There my finger-tips touched something. I seized it with bounding heart, and snatched it forth to the light of day. I seemed instinctively to realize what it was—nothing less than the Crown sapphire of Rajah Singha! Having found the precious meal most indigestible, the cobra had disgorged it, after the manner of his kind, and there it lay, snatched from the deep, right in tfie palm of my hand, blazing back the raysr of early morning with a million cerulean beams that seemed to warm the very world about me. Lest some one of the deckcoolies perceive my amazement, and inquire too particularly into the cause of it, I hurried away and slipped below to hide myself like a criminal who has stumbled upon the ransom of a kingdom.

Soon, however, that overpowering elation which. I experienced upon making the great discovery gave way to a deep sense of my responsibility and a serious query as to how I was ever to reach England unapprehended and deliver the gem to the one to whom I had sworn to bear it in safety, and who, I believed in my heart, was the only one who should deliver it to His Majesty and receive the reward that was due.

I was beset by many fears, most of all by the dread that the* two baffled Australians, being my enemies, might, in order to harass me, cause my arrest on arrival at the first port, and institute a search which would not only mean the defeat of my enterprise in the woman's behalf, but would also cause my own detention in some accursed limbo of an oriental jail. But all my sleep-killing terrors were groundless. After an otherwise uneventful voyage I reached Egypt in safety; hurried On to Algeria without once being' intercepted, or suspected

of possessing a treasure on my person that could have paid the national debt of a principality; and stoie thence by a circuitous route up through the continent, across the Channel into England, making my way guardedly to the estate of his lordship of Kent. I found the object of my search very much the sort of person I had imaginedvher, and amid the imposing surroundings referred to in the letter. She was a mere slip of a woman, attired in deep black, and as I had announced myself as "a messenger to her from Ceylon,” she was naturally deeply agitated. It was in a little summer-house on the magnificent estate that she received me. Her imperious employer had permitted her to do so. Though a woman born for better things, she was now serving the baron in a very humble capacity.* As I saw that the interview would be more or less agitating to her impressionable mind, I spoke coldly and dispassionately, leading by degrees up to the point where I should place in her hands the Crown gem of t|ie island kingdom, and advise her just' how to proceed in restoring it to the nation's custody through the person of His Majesty alone. Naturally the poor girl was overwhelmed with surprise and delight both because of the discovery of the innocence of any crime on the part of her late beloved, and also because the possession of the gem meant her freedom from a galling dependence for the rest of her days.

After a and tearful feast of the eyes upon the grand jewel, she gave' it back into my care, begging me to be its custodian till such a time as we might together secure the audience with the king. Three days later we entered Buckingham Palace together. Into the sympathetic ears of the gracious sovereign himself we poured the story; showed our strange credentials from the dead; and then put in the hands of that astonished ruler the prize for which the detectives of many lands were searching in vain. Receiving a promise that the reward would be sure and ample, we then took our departure in high spirits. We' parted at Charing Cross, she to return thence to her old home, and I to set sail for America to ponder upon my amazing experiences. Two years later, almost to a day, Lady Alice (must I confess this secret?) became my wife. My little fortune and the twenty thousand pounds sterling with which the King rewarded her (in which ramson 1 felt indeed that I had earned a share) made us easy( in our circumstances, and we settled down on a ranch in Montana, where the carved image of a coiled cobra over the mantelpiece of our new home was not the least precious of our household THE END.