Sergeant Verity and the Blood Royal by Francis Selwyn

The instinctive fright of his reaction would be enough to make him dislodge the hairbreadth equilibrium of the little wooden conveyance. At first he kept his eyes closed, feeling only that they were going down and down, as the incline of the slack rope drew them to tin- centre of the rapids, from time to time he felt Blondin pause, legs weaving to retain his balance and the barrow heeling over sickeningly. Once, in his secret terror, Verity knew that the angle of the wooden side was such that another inch or two would throw him helplessly to his death. He turned his weight the other way, sweating with fear, and felt the man behind him pull urgently against this.
    'Keep still!' breathed the voice of his invisible companion. 'Quite still, or we shall both be overset!'
    There was no panic in the words but a vast and controlled confidence. Verity crouched motionless and slowly opened his eyes. They were far out from the cliff now, still descending the slack cord toward the centre. Below him the blue waters dimpled and gurgled in their menacing vortex, at what seemed an enormous distance. A wider ring of angry froth swirled the trapped logs and branches into the suction of the liquid green chasm. From the direction of the falls a rising wave, spreading dark and terrible from cliff to cliff, roared down upon the gorge in a headlong tumble of spray. Swallowing a rising sob of fear, Verity raised his head to train his eyes upon the safety of the American shore. As he did so, a gust of wind, following the direction of the stream, lifted his tall stove-pipe hat from his head and carried it gently away. He watched, sick with dismay, as the dark high-crowned hat circled easily as a bird, down to the waiting river beneath him. At the first touch, the waves smashed it over and over, into the churning rim of the whirlpool. The beaten and shapeless remains flew faster and faster round the successive circles until they reached the spiralling centre where they paused inexplicably for an instant, before being thrust down from the sight of the onlookers.
    Verity's cheeks still quivered uncontrollably with alarm. He and Blondin were level with the royal party on the bridge and he heard a half-admiring and half-derisive cheer. But his eyes were on the American shore now. For the first time, he began to believe that he would not, after all, die in the horror of the whirlpool below. And he had been braver than any of them, except the Prince. Now that it was almost done, he assured himself, he would do it again any time he was asked.
    Confidence was swelling in his breast when he saw the tall stranger on the American bank. The man was scanning the royal party through a pair of field-glasses. His other hand lay against his belt. The cloth of his coat, at that point, betrayed the outline of a holster whose size and shape suggested one of the new Colt revolvers. Then, as Blondin wheeled him closer, he could see clearly that the tall young man was Miss Jolly's escort on her tour of the Broadway jewellers' shops. The pattern of villainy changed in Verity's mind. Miss Jolly, as an agent of death and assassination, might gull the American police authorities. Her accomplice, the marksman of a hundred organizations who hated England's royal blood, would somehow be placed where he could fire without missing his target. And all this through the girl's double-dealing. The sum paid for the death of the Queen's heir would be an ample reward.
    At any moment, Verity feared to hear the twing-g-g-g of shots overhead, which a man might mistake for the sound of large stinging insects unless he knew better. When he had been in camp with the 23rd Regiment of Foot before Sebastopol, the sounds had been followed by half a dozen of his comrades falling back with blood pumping from their shattered breasts or the ghastly sockets of their eyes.
'Dear God!' he said softly. ' 'is Royal Highness!'
    At the centre of the dainty suspension-bridge, the young Prince stood, eager and