Kingdom Lost Read Free

the sea. And then he brought the cocoanuts. Wasn’t it a mercy they grew ?”
    Austin stared. Was it possible?
    â€œI thought you said the ship was wrecked.”
    â€œYes, it was—it struck on the rocks.” She pointed away to the right. “It’s all straight cliff now, but there were rocks then, and a sort of beach. The ship stuck there for two years, so Edward had plenty of time to get things away. I don’t remember about it—I don’t remember anything before I was three. The big storm was when I was two and a half. The ship went then. Edward thought the island was going too, and when the storm was over, it had sunk twenty feet, and the beach was gone, and you couldn’t see the rocks. If you’ve got a ship, you’d better be careful.”
    â€œHe brought things away from the ship?” said Austin. “Papers—and things like that? You mean you can prove all this?”
    She looked at him rather reprovingly.
    â€œOf course. Didn’t you believe what I was saying?”
    â€œYou can prove it?”
    â€œI’ve got all my mother’s papers. Edward said I must keep them very carefully.”
    Austin got up.
    â€œWhere are they?”
    Valentine swung her foot and looked down into the water.
    â€œWhere are they?” he repeated.
    He saw a little colour come into her face. Then her eyes lifted in a searching blue gaze. He was aware of being weighed in Edward’s balance. He met the gaze half angrily.
    Valentine unclasped her hands and sprang up.
    â€œI want to see your ship! Take me first of all to see your ship!” she cried.

CHAPTER II
    Valentine, scrambling with him over the rough ground towards the edge of the cliff, became imperceptibly less guarded and on the alert. Scrambling is perhaps the wrong word; she was extraordinarily sure and light on her bare brown feet. She had breath enough to talk with too, and she talked more and more freely.
    Austin found himself believing every word of the strange, naïve tale. Twenty years ago, in the early spring of 1908, Edward Bowden, Fellow of Trinity, author of England and the Renaissance, England and the Feudal System , and half a dozen other standard works, had been taking a prolonged and rambling holiday necessitated by overwork. He had found himself ultimately on the Avronia , bound from New Zealand to San Francisco.
    On the same boat was Mrs. Ryven, a young widow with a child six months old. She had lost her husband in New Zealand and was returning to England by way of America because her only brother had settled in California and she wished to spend some weeks with him. The ship encountered a terrific hurricane and was carried out of her course. At a moment when she appeared to be sinking the passengers took to the boats.
    â€œEdward said he thought he would drown peacefully with the ship, so he didn’t get into a boat though they wanted him to. And the boats all upset and everyone was drowned—only someone had asked him to hold me whilst they got my mother into a boat—he said she had fainted—so he did. And a great wave came and broke the boat to bits; and he doesn’t know why he wasn’t carried away—but he wasn’t. And he crawled inside the companion and waited for us both to be drowned—and we weren’t. Edward said when he found there was no one else left on the ship, but only him and me, he was very sorry we hadn’t been drowned too. He said he didn’t think we could be saved and it seemed to be taking such a long time. He said the wind kept carrying the ship along and banging it about, and he thought every minute it was going to go down—only it didn’t. Everything was broken and flung down, and he had to crawl about and find something to feed me with, because I was hungry and screamed all the time. Edward hadn’t ever had anything to do with a baby before. It was dreadful for him—wasn’t it?”
    Austin