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(not always taken) of our High down by sunstroke, and never Commissioner and numerous British officers in Nahraini service to the personal capacity of the Regent. In him a handsome and benign countenance and a magnificent physique were added to truly royal gifts of eloquence and dignity; at seventy-eight his qualities both of heart and head were still remarkable in a man never (in our sense) educated, never introduced to the realities of the modern world, rarely opposed or questioned; but this narrative would never have been written if he had not been also over-conservative, over-obstinate, over-suspicious. Our whole difficulty in this affair was, as will appear, that of finding means to overcome the Regent's mentality.

None of the general public, and very few of the senior British officials, knew or know of the claims and vicissitudes of that two-and-seventy hours, and I count it one of the strangest chances of my career that I played so large a part in them. I had been several years in Nahrain (had been, indeed, one of its few pre-war European residents), and for the last two had acted as chief secretary to the High Commissioner. Of the latter, Lord Cobham-high-minded, humorous, determined, but profoundly siyasi,-I prefer not to speak at length; every one remembers the fatal King's birthday morning when, bareheaded in the sun as he took the garrison march past, he was struck

recovered. I acted for him during his frequent absences from Nukhailah; and for this, as for all purposes requiring a central position and good lines of communication, my house at Turadah was most inconveniently placed. Turadah is three miles from the northern limit of Nukhailah city, and therefore four from the Residency, and fully six from the palace; the telephone system, moreover, thanks to the disastrous concession under which it ran, was slow and unreliable. But our imposing and comfortable, if somewhat jerry-built, riverside house more than rewarded my wife and myself for our remoteness. The sweeping views up and downstream, green rose-garden at the side, and cool acres of datetrees behind, gratified in Nancy her love of spaciousness, flowers, strange pets, and immunity from droppers-in. Our son had gone home to school some three months before, and she was to follow him a week after the day which, as it transpired, was in result to give her the most unexpected of travelling companions.

I had seen the King, and spoken to him for a moment, as he rode and adored his new Shetland pony-gift, I had been told, of some rich Nahraini abroad-in the shady but rapidly-heating palace gardens before I passed in to keep my appointment with the Regent. As I emerged, after a trying hour of dignified deadlock, I

since his arrival, with a most picturesque retinue of his central Kurdish tribesmen in Nukhailah, and had, I admit, felt the attraction, in spite of his lurid past, of his ugliness and charm. He had offered me a silver khanjar, and threatened to pay me a formal call.

So, reflective and hungryfor it was past one o'clock,—I sought my car and visualised a drink. A sentry clicked as

stood and patted the little animal, now riderless, and so unsuitably coated for a Nahraini June; then, nodding good-bye to the A.D.C. on duty, and hating the heat and glare, walked slowly down the shingled drive towards my car. His Highness had not referred to that chronic bone of contention, the King's education. He had shown (what I was well aware of) his displeasure at the High Commissioner's I approached; and Najib Beg, Kurdish tour only in a single a weedy officer of the bodysuave sentence. these guard, turned in and exchanged things, and other recent dis- a smile and salute as we passed. crepancies of view, had com- My car stood in a widening of bined to banish hope of agree- the drive facing the gate, as ment on the subject of to-day's I had left it. Immediately beaudience the treatment of hind it was another Buick, a Hamma Agha. I had laboured shabby black seven-seater inin vain, therefore, in urging distinguishable (save for the him to extend a less unguarded, number, and the details that less owner-drivers know) from my own. Without a glance or a thought, I stepped in behind the driving-wheel, started, and drove out on to the shadeless road. Home, a wash, and tiffin were the next objectives.

embarrassing favour to this one-eyed obese old reprobate of the Kurdish mountains -persistent Turkophile till now, many times a murderer, and as powerful a trouble-maker as he was undoubtedly a striking and virile personality. But the Regent had taken him to his heart, moved by I know not what flattery or contrariness, and perhaps by the instant but ill-assorted friendship which the Agha had struck up, in all apparent sincerity and friendliness, with the King. The Amir's endeavour was now to endear his Kurdish favourite equally to the High Commissioner, who had yet to be convinced that policy did not demand his removal across the frontier. I had once seen him

It takes twenty minutes to drive, even in the comparative afternoon emptiness of streets, from the palace to the farther end of Turadah. To-day nothing delayed me, except when, a few hundred yards from the palace, a herd of water-buffaloes, astride the road and seemingly unattended, blocked my progress for some minutes, for this animal is equally impervious to horn and invective.

I reached home, somewhat hotter, wetter, and thirstier than I had started, and drove

up the amateur drive which British we had made through the dategarden. To unlock the garage, run in, dismount, and leave it for a servant to shut and lock the doors was the work of a couple of minutes.

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It would contribute nothing to this story if I related full particulars of that much-needed luncheon, and the comfortable and partly somnolent afternoon that followed it. Nothing could have been more normal, unexciting the items of gossip recounted by Nancy, who had entertained two of her kind to mid-morning tea, and my account to her of various official calls and conversations. I had, indeed, been somewhat unusually affairé, since His Excellency encouraged the making of minor decisions in his absence, which in this case was to end to-morrow morning. Nancy picked up a thread of my own thoughts when she recalled a conversation she had had recently with Lord Cobham upon the manner and the place of the King's upbringing. With a backward mother (a good-hearted nice woman, but of the old school), and flanked by a number of dowdy, secluded, elder and younger sisters, the boy could have little chance, as far as home influences went, of becoming a modern-minded man. Now, constitutionally, for the future ruler of the country, it was important that he should, for the stocks of the old-type Eastern potentate in these days stand very low. The whole

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element, therefore, thought it important to get the child right away, give him the best of educations, keep him decent, and inculcate (if possible) wisdom and progressiveness on our lines. Here, unfortunately, tradition and perhaps religion and I hardly know what (besides sheer conservative obstinacy) stepped in in the person of the Regent. This patriarch utterly refused Eton, Oxford, or even a European governess, in favour of years of barren Mullah learning and seedy hyper-Islamic local professors. His Excellency had hinted, offered, deprecated; my wife and other senior khatuns -to whom, poor inferior creatures, the Regent was always charming-had struck suitable notes of appeal in both harim and diwan. Nothing availed, but we still clung to hope.

This subject we discussed at large over the salad and shandygaff, then parted for the afternoon, to meet again-silent, as becomes those who have slept and awakened-on the verandah for tea. And at this point

five hours since the really critical happening in this history-occurred the first indication of our part therein. Abdullah, the car-boy, requested to speak with me. Let him come: he came.

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to the car and to lock it in? I still was not greatly inAnd there was nobody. Now, terested. Abdullah, besides beit is still locked (and the key ing incredibly dirty and always in my hand), and there is hot, was Still, there sound of one within, calling was something not quite ordialoud. And I think the voice nary. I went down to see, reis the voice of a boy." minded by Nancy that we must "Did you ask him who he start for tennis in ten minutes.

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If it had been George V., I could not have been more surprised. In conventional phrase, true for once, I was deprived of speech and incredulous of my eyes. The little King! Locked in my garage at Turadah, naked save for an old coat of my own, which hung grotesquely on him, and changed indeed, quantum mutatus ab illo, from the eager bright-eyed child of some hours before. But mistake was impossible; I knew him as well as my own boy.

Obeying a first instinct, I stood between him and the door, and called out to my servant not to enter, but to bid the khatun come in haste. He smiled faintly as he recognised me, and again when he heard me summon my wife. I took his hand and looked at his sleepy dull eyes.

II.

"Sidi, how came you here? I asked.

"I don't know. I sat up from my sleep, and I saw myself to be here. The door was closed."

He shut his eyes. I noticed marks of his dusty bare feet on my mudguards; he had been trying to see out or to escape.

I said, "Who brought you here? When did you come ? Why did you not come to the house? Where are your clothes ?

He said, still with shut eyes, "I know nothing. They stripped me, and one held my hands, and I forget everything. Afterwards I was in a car, and I have knocked my knee "he showed a bruise-" and I have slept a long time, and I awoke here," pointing to the tonneau of the car. "And I think I am ill

At this moment Nancy ar

got up, for they were old and affectionate friends. She was, on the instant, so natural and motherly with him that it could not have been known that she was as much amazed as myself to see him. A minute later, slipping back to the house, she brought a big shawl in which the King wrapped himself, head and all, discarding my greasy jacket, for he was very self-conscious, and dreaded the eyes of servants. Arm in arm they walked to the house, where the child-more and more himself, but still heavy and puzzled -was washed, petted, attired in some clothes of Hugh's, which became him well, and regaled with cucumber sandwiches and tea.

rived. He smiled at her and ler confirmed this, the inarticulate Persian gardener wagged his head. It was established, then, that the garage (which had a stout English lock, with one key only) had been locked from 1.35 till tea-time. That meant that the King had either got in after I left the car, and before Abdullah had locked it (which was incredible), or he was there, concealed, before and after I put the car in (equally incredible, for there was absolutely no room or cover), or I myself brought him in in the back of the car. This was just possible, if I could really have failed to see him; and perhaps I could, tired and unsuspecting and stepping, as I had, straight into the driver's seat without a glance behind. On this theory, then, I must myself have conveyed the boy, drugged and lying in the car, perhaps with the floor-mat over him, from somewhere, presumably the palace, to my own house, a kidnapper malgré moi.

I followed them, having become aware of two things: the first, a faint smell of chloroform on the King, and the second, such footmarks on the inside of the rear door of my car as could only have been made by one lying down on the floor of it. The marks were his. Therefore he had been lying there, as he said himself. But since when, and by whom deposited ? At this point I questioned Abdullah as to the time at which he had locked up. A single minute after I had entered the house, seeking lunch, he stated. He appeared not to be lying, and appealed confidently to the other ser'vants. Did he not bring in the key and put it on the proper nail? Bilasim the but

Deep in thought I returned to the house, and telephoned to put off our tennis. I found Jasim greatly restored towards self-respect and good spirits as he sat with my wife on the verandah, chattering hard. Fright and the drug were already giving way to the adventure of being away from home and with English friends in their own intimate surroundings. As far as he knew anything, he confirmed my theory. No longer on his pony's back, he had been walking, alone for

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