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Xiie < jL cJeuiio XjaAfc.
A royal princess of Grodnia
and a stalwart American news
paper correspondent whose
middle name is “ Luck " —these
are two of the people you will
meet in Jack Lait’s thrilling
new serial, “ The Red Shawl."
“ The king is dead; long
wave the red flag,” shout the
rebels, and the Princess Sabina,
dressed in her maid’s peasant
costume, flees for her life. All
the exciting incidents of her
escape, of her meeting with
Bob Hallam, the American,
make absorbing reading.
ft’s a close up of rebellion in
high places, of thrones over
turned, of fleeing dukes and
duchesses, of the mad mobs of
Grodnia. A story you cannot
possibly afford to misst
g,, FIKST INSTALLMENT.
THE PRINCESS PASSES.
/Q a u KKVOIK, mademoiselle; bon voy
age." nalil he, In the language of
all Europe.
•‘Good-by, sir. 1 thank you again,” she
answered, m the language of all the world.
Her little white hand was gently, almost
reluctantly, withdrawn from the graap of hla
tanned, sinewy one. and I’rlncess Sabina of
Grodnia gave her hand—the other one—lnto
the keeping of Father Pokoff. They walked
forth, farther and further, until the fragllo
form of the girl and the aged frame of tho
priest grew hazy and Indistinct against the
distant horizon to the eyes of Hob Hallam,
the eyes that he shaded with the hand that
had held hers, so that he might see the more
keenly—and the longer—us he stood where
they had parted.
• •.*••• •
The world storm had reached Orodnia and
hud broken over It. Huln and riot, murder
and destruction, panic and pandemonium
were Its early fruits. The mobs were seeth
ing, drunk with a passion for freedom, ma
niacal with tho sight of weltering blood and
consuming, leveling tire through the sheets
of the once orderly capital of the ancient
Slavonic kingdom.
Institutions once, so recently, too sacred
and fearsome for even the trembling touch
of the commoner hod been wrecked and
pulverized In the onslaught of a people
flamed with the fever of the terrestrial epi
demic that manifested Itself In a lust for
liberty, a thirst for equality, a hunger for
the power of the people.
“The king Is dead; long wave the red
flag! ” they ravod.
The king was dead He who had ruled, a*
hud his fathers, by that right claimed to be
divine, with royal scepter held In hand gaunt
leted with steel, had been shot and beaten
and kicked to death, his once holy body
mauled by the hobnailed heels of tho prole
tariat who had. us had their fathers, woe
ahlped him and Ills line, given him their sons
and the meeds of their sweating bron-s and
breaking backs, besought their Clod for his
salvation and his strength while he bruko
them on the wheel of overtaxation and mon
archies! peonage.
Only In this generation could this have
transpired. Kingly vanity and (Tod playing
hud overreached themselves. The Herman
czar had decimated nations, flooded the
sewers and trenches of whole countries with
the blood of humans to slake his Infamous,
lnssue whim for world domination. The
weakling ruler of all the Russia* had been
tom from that regal height which had once -
been beyond man's scaling Principalities
were In chaos. Umpires were under the
torch. Europe was cleaning house with the
cleansing tire of driven humans' Indignation.
Where was the kaiser? A sniveling fugi
tive. unwelcome In a poor land where he had
•lolmed sanctuary, a land upon which he
hsd spat In his mighty days. Where was the
csai? Dead, they said, shot against the
wall like the meanest of his exiled thieves
In Siberia, by the muskets of the bolshevik!
In their hour of hectic reign Where were
crown princes und crown princesses, queens
and grand duktv chancellors and lords of
these and oilier monarchies? Scattered, flee
ing. broken, cut down to earth with the
Other creatures of earth stripped and flayed
Ot their i untcrfolt ermine. 1, ggtng f,.i bresd
and salt and the shelter of their betters, the
all high low!} It was each for himself, with
no false handicap’: of birth and assumption
of super -statue.
Of thoee was the Princess Sabina.
Just past IH. she had made her debut Into
tbs royal realms of Euiopean courts but a
few months before the mad onslaught of
anarchy had engulfed her country. She had
been bom to a throne, r a red under tuition
and chaperonage of the paid snobs and syco
phants whose function It was to elevate HVr
beyond the vulgar air breathed by the filthy
awlne whom she should honor by conde
scending to call them “my people.” In that
Indulgent Insolence which none but royalty
may And tho egotism to exercise. Servants
and counters, with foreheads scraping the
floor at her feet, had kowtowed and bowed
and mouthed titles at her with every word of
noble humility and servile slobbering. The
doddering king, her tsther, a martinet on all
points of teaching the herd to know its mas
ter. had licked his Ups with pride to see hla
only daughter grow Into a beautiful aristo
crat. effete brfore maturity, esoteric to a de
gree that distinguished her among the
daughters of emperors, cold and queenly
da baiii the bluest blood of Europe, which
lay In fine veins through the alabaster of
her white, transparent, gentle skin.
He had taught her at his knee the gospel
of his creed —the sword for Qrodnla's ene
mies and the lash for Grodnla's children.
And now?
In the great music room of the great pal
ace his soiled remains lay lifeless where the
maddened herd had come In Its frothing
stampede. In vain had he thundered at them
commands in his own voice. Futile had been
tho threats und the Interdictions. For a
broken moment only hud the leaders hesi
tated, for It Is hard in- one breath to brush
aside the traditions, the religions, the philos
ophies, the axioms, the inborn superstitions
of the ages. Hut those
behind, who could not
sec that figure which
they had been suckled
to accept as pre
destined potentiality,
pressed on. TJic lead
er was thrust to with
in reach of that fig
ure. With his foro
most hand he seized
the beard of the king,
and In an instant tho
two were rolling on
the thick carpets
which the worshipful
Ungers of praying
peasants had woven
for the soles of their
drivers. Home one
struck with Ills heel,
and the blood of the
king flowed from a
gash upon his pallid
forehead. And, lo!
that blood was red,
plebeian red, as car
mine as the blood of
his scurviest vassals
that had been poured
in maintenance of his
spurious superiority.
»The mob went wild
with the sight of It.
Home stabbed; some
shot; some battered
with fists and clawed
with dirty finger nails.
Tho king begged; hs
screamed; he howled.
The hoarse assassins
drowned his feeble
voice. Boon It was
over. The work was
done. Clrodnla hud no
king, nnd the man
who had been king
was a disfigured
corpse.
With the hated blood
of royalty dripping
from Its hands, those
hands which were
feeling for the first
time that most Intoxi
cating of all thrills,
power, tho mob
swarmed on. Through
room after room It
burst, tearing tapes
tries from the walla
and rending them
Into rugs, shattering
furniture and works
of art, venting blind
wrath upon men.
women, and Inani
mate things—so lilto
the manner In which
kings hart done when
It pleased them to
punish.
Not entirely without
objective was this fur
ther rush. The prin
cess still lived. Hho
must be dealt with as
had her farther, for
the people must not
bo trustful while one
of the royal line sur
vived. Hy that ven
erable but now unten-
able claim of lineal rule the Princess Sabina
»•*» the queen of Grodnia. Orodnia
eould have no queen. Hablna must bs
butchered, and with her the laat branch of
that hewn down tree would die.
"The princess! Kill the princess!” bayed
the pack.
Into the aiwrtmeuts of rrtneess Sabina the
murderous revolutionists poured. Little had
they dreamed that once they should stand
within the walls of that mystic, almost
mythical Inner chamber of aVomatlc romance
and grandmothers' fables, the boudoir of the
princess. Hut even that was no longer
sacred. Her bed was torn and splintered;
every door was hammered open and every
Innermost recess explored. Itut the princess
was not found.
The approach of the anarchists upon the
palace had not been silent. The Inmates of*
the royal domain had heard the swelling cry
for miles during the advance. The handful
of loyal guards had surrounded the walls nnd
manned the gatea, and tho battles at the
armed entrances had waged forAnany min
utes before the conquering rebels had carved
and shot ways Into the inner tnclusures.
The king had frantically commanded tho
defense Princess Hablna had been sent to
her apartments. Most of the aervanta had
deserted In fright, some of them to Join the
attack. With the princes* had fled only
Nastia, her moujtk maid.
Nastia had been born almost on the eamo
day as her royal highness. Princess SsblruL
The queen, a delicate hypochondriac, had
conscripted the stout peasant wife, mother
of Nastia, as wet nurse to the newborn heir
to the nation’s throne. The mother had been
privileged to bring her own daughter Into
the palace, and she had given the sustenance
of her sound body both to her child and her
princess. Thus the two girls had been to
gether from earliest Infancy. In childhood
there Is little of caste; children arc perfect
democrats. And Princess Sabina had drafted
Nastia to be her nursery playmate. For this
she hud later chosen her as her personal
servitor when the demarkatlon between their
positions had come and broadened.
Nastia loved her princess with all the un
asklng, all-taking worship which only an
Jr MA \ Vo -
LsssmJ . a \ v ' *
w -
unawakened peasant or a dog can give Its
master.
Huddled together behind doors which Naa
tla had shrewdly locked. In that pitiful In
stinct of piling every weak barrier against
Irresistible attack, the two girls, princess and
peasant, watched with blanched cheeks the
deadly warfare at the outposts of the puluce,
held their breaths as they saw the last rem
nants of the faithful fall back, and ran from
the window—as though to fly—when they
saw the vanguard of the rabble pour Into the
courtyard. To Nastia the- were her people.
To Hablna these had been, in another method
of reasoning, her people. To both they now
were one common peril— danger to Hablna.
Nastia had no thought* o fear* for herself.
Raised In the very air of the palace, she had
never breathed the new. etherised ozone of
revolt. Her mistress was endangered. Sho
must be saved.
” lit* majesty—my fat!-ep—” gasped the
prince -a.
•’God help him! We can not,” panted the
maid, ".Itut your hlght > -*—there may yet
be time—ls your highrn will permit me to
auggest to one so noble- —”
" What? Speak.”
”If your highness wl! put on one of my
dresses and a shawl over your highness’
head and fare your hlg! t eas may make her
way through a rear exit down into the court
yard through the servants' doorway and go
through the crowd unre ognlsed. If 1 may be
•o bold as to suggest to your highness to—"
“Go Go where?” #
• That 1 cannot answer. Out go, 1 U&plar*
you, before they reach here. Listen! They
have penetrated Into the building. There
Isn’t a. moment to spare. Quick, your high
ness."
The girl tore from her shoulders the brold
ered blouse, stripped It down her arms, and
held It with spasmodic clutch before the
princess. Dazed, Hablna took It. With deft
fingers Nastia disrobed Sabina of her outer
clothing and dressed her In her own, even to
the shoes, for there must be no distinctive
touch of the aristocrat In the garb of the
disguised crown heir. Then she threw over
the haughty head the red shawl typical and
symbolic of Slavonic feminine peasantry,
and she who had been born to reign and
should not stood garbed In the livery of ono
who was born to serve and would not.
” There—your highness can go by In free
dom," sobbed Nastia.
" Freedom!” echoed the shorn princess.
“ That I should by a cowardly deception
steal freedom from those whose souls and
bodies belong to me!”
” Please, your highness, please! Hear the
turmoil below. There Is yet time. And may
tho good God take your highness by the
hand and lead her to safety!”
Nastia tore open a door which led down a
corridor to a rear stairway. The transformed
Hablna hesitated for an Instant. Her arro
gant head raised Itself; her patrician nostrils
were distended.
A bellow of bloody triumph from below
rocked the palace walls.
It was the answer. Self preservation, that
primitive and elemental motive, possessed
her. She ran in undignified haste to the
threshold, where the quivering maid held
open the door.
•' Farewell' God keep your wept Nastia.
•' You—you are a good girl. You may kiss
my hand.” said Hablna.
The ,iale servant touched her Ups upon the
dainty hand shaped to hold a people In Its
clutch.
Then down ths passageway glided the
royal fugitive with thumping heart, fleeing
for her Ilfs, fleeing from her lofty estate,
from her hereditary everything—to what?
Whither?
On the stair* aba overtook Father Pokoft,
He had been her confessor, the priest who
had given her communion, her tutor and the
guardian of her spirit from Infancy. He, too,
had gathered the skirts of his calling and
Was in flight. She called to him. Excited as
he was, he stopped at the ring of her voice,
stared Into the features under the common
place red scarf, recognized with a spasm of
terror, yet relief, who she was. Without a
word he took her hand and they scurried on.
down, Into the open, where the scores were
piling in with torch and bludgeon to burn
and batter out the roots of monarchy.
Molded Into the animated picture by her
costume, further protected by the shield of
the clergy which she carried, she Jostled her
way through the
flowing currents of
aroused humanity,
and few stopped to
give her a second
pointed look.
Not all the gath
ered horde was par
ticipating In the ac
tual work of slaying
and smashing. On the
outer fringes were
curious observers,
flocks of noisy chil
dren, hoodlums, and
that rag-tag byprod
uct of mob excite
ment always to be
found pressing on the
rear, out of danger,
helping no one, be
coming drunk with
the second hand
echoes of anything
thrilling. To these the
event was a sublimat
ed picnic. They
surged forward with
the onrush and fell
back as the scuffling
at the vortex was re
pelled momentarily.
They gibbered and
'croaked, split the air
with salvos to liberty;
that breed of mongrels
always shrieks for lib
erty, seldom fights for
It, never appreciates
It
Youths who had
dropped the Imple
ments of their trades
and tasks were there,
throwing their hands
aloft, boisterously
rooting for the cause
which the few ear
nest, desperate pio
neers were carrying
forward against bayo
net points ahead.
Girls Jammed In
among them young
females who, In tne
abandon of a great
hour, had discarded
abruptly most of the
laws of behavior and
demeanor that had
been laid upon them
through the years of
home, school, and
church. Bedlam was
rampant.
Through these
massed vulgarians the
priest and the princess
were elbowing toward
the gates. They had
nearly reached tho
g r<oih 11 e uprights,
from which the high
steel gratings had
been torn by the Im
promptu army of re
bellion, when a husky,
grimy mechanic, who
had drained a bottle
of brute courage,
caught with his wan
dering eye the pass
ing vision of Sabina.
Her white cheeks were burning with red spots
from feverish exertion and vibrant emotion.
There was that In the contour of her face
which. In spite of her proletarian garb, made
the princess strikingly fascinating. The tipsy
workman thought so, too. Disengaging him
self from the knot of his fellows among
whom he had been gyrating In maudlin
effusiveness, he strode across the path of the
fugitives, bent down, and leered insinuatingly
Into the eyes of Hablna. She sprang back
and sought to pass him. But he Jumped in
her way and held out his long arms.
Father Pokoff stepped before her, lifted his
hand, and ordered the lout to let them pass.
"Ha! Ha!” blurbed the Intruder. "That’s
all gone and done away with. Who are you?
We’re all equal now. Liberty forever! Lib
erty to pay no atentlon to you—and to have
the pretty girls: that's what liberty's for.
Btep aside or I’ll break you In half, you "
And he made a lunge at the old priest.
Hablna threw herself between the men.
The assailant, In the same motion, encircled
her neck with his arm, drew her to him, and
attempted to kiss her. The frail girl was no
physical adversary to give him long resist
ance. Father Pokoff, clawing weakly at the
back of the man. helped little. The few
others who were not preoccupied In shouting
and attempting to see the main fighting
looked on and held their sides with merri
ment.
The r..an was forcing Sabina's head up,
up—when suddenly he let go, staggered, and
pitched forward on hla fact. Over him stood
Oa athletic VOUD* man whnae lnf»i-m»! IrHaVt
clothes and whose chin distinguished him
from the Slavs. He had knocked down the
fellow with a neat clip to the jaw, American
fashion.
Only Anglo-Saxons know how to light with
their flats. Huns and Slovaks and Greeks
and Turks and Mongolians and Latins have
never learned to make weapons of their
knuckles. These other races are strong. In
rough and tumble rows they are dangerous.
But, somehow, they cannot stand before tho
” swing from the hip,” which is the Ameri
can’s way of assault.
And Bob Hallam proved that, for the fallen
rowdy's friends rushed at him, surrounded
him, gesticulated and yelped, and tried to get
him in a hold to throw him. But the light
footed Yank stepped back a pace and struck
out with either hand. And every time his
fist landed a man keeled over or danced back
unsteadily.
“Run,” he panted to Sabina. “11l hold
back these bums.’’
With a wan smile of gratitude the princess
took Father Fokoff again by the arm and
they hurried to the gate, through it, out of
the grounds, out of the turmoil, and out of
Immediate danger, as the whole town had
crowded into the capacious acreage of tho
once royal preserves.
Hallam might have found the Job he had
cut out for himself beyond even his deft
punches, for the little mSl6e had attracted
others and reinforcements were edging to
ward this obvious foreigner with the wicked
wallop. But just then a mighty shout from
the heart of the more momentous conflict
at the palace rose, as the first official news
flew from one to the next that the king was
dead. All else was forgotten in the freezing
fire that pulsed through the arteries of tha
populace at the dread, historic, monumental,
bewildering, exhilarating intelligence. Tho
vital blow had been struck. They were out
laws now, outlaws who had violated the con
stituted authorities and who had now to
fight with their backs to the wall or be
hanged as felons to perpetuate the lesson
of vested majesty.
To Hallam the news was of no petty mo
ment, either. A citizen himself of the world’s
greatest republic, immune against the vicissi
tudes of the coarse catapulting for freedom
and the hopeless resistance for royalty, he
was possessed with the sizzling realization
that another of humanity’s manifestations,
in Its onpress toward Independence and f, eo
dom, had transpired; that another milestone
In the ambushed journey to democracy’s mil
lennium had been passed In a cloud of blood, t
that precious fluid which has been so prodi
gally spilled In man’s stubborn, unending
Crusade against men’s oppression. He cast
his eyes over the brandishing, bloodthirsty,
caterwauling mob. So this was the destined
Instrument of liberty, that keenest and finest
of all mortal Inspirations! With red and
dripping hands, these beasts were to be the
forefathers of children’s children yet unborn.
The wild hubbub grew denser. The living
symbol of the old order no longer lived. Lib
erty was king. License was his herald. In
the wrecked room within lay the limp, life
less, lacerated clay of what had been. On
the sward and the paved walks without
danced and screamed the power that was.
And Bob Hallam, whose work it was to
translate all this so that the world might
read and understand, thought of what was
to be.
He turned to gaze over the little city, be
yond it into the vegetated hills that glinted
sheen green In the sun. Nature was taking
no heed of the gigantic, puny affairs of tho
two legged Insects. Creatures in gold and
ermine might die, their vanities might van
ish, new assumptions and presumptions
might rise and flourish and, in their time,
in turn, be trampled to death. But the sun
would shine on, the little rivers would flow
along, the cataracts would foam and fume,
the vast oceans would thunder their majestic
anthems ever to inscrutable, all surviving
nature—-that which was created to endure.
He turned his glances further, down the
undulating road. Two lone figures moved
against the otherwise untorn panorama of
creation. The shuffling form of a man
whose long garment was flickering the dust
with its hem und the upright frame of a
young girl in peasant clothes, her head set
rigidly forward, held his scrutiny.
And, somehow, this stranger with a mis
sion. this eyewitness to the inner workings
of a potent paragraph in the most memorable
page of mankind's everlasting fight for
earthly salvation, found all else blurred and
the white light of the most compelling In
terest centered upon the logically Incon
sequential girl who was walking out of the
classic picture. Who was she? Who could
she be? A ” bohunk ” daughter of eotne
cowherd, most likely. Hut why was sbn
going? Why was she, of all these, her people,
hastening from this scene? Yes, she was
different. Hallam had seen her for only a
flash or two, but he felt that she was all
different, all different from the shiny nosed
damsels cavorting behind him—all different
from any girl he had ever seen In all his life.
Hallam wis an American. And he had seen
glorious girls at home and abroad. How
then, could this coarsely clad foreigner Im
press him? And at such a moment?
All through this life we do things which
ws cannot Justify, cannot explain until the
consequences guide us to analyze the causes.
Hallam was a reporter. At home the other
news men spoke of his as ” lucky.” Luck
was not to be thanked for his nearly perfect
score at the complicated game of bringing
home the principal facts in all sorts of as
signments among all sorts of circumstances.
Instinct would have been a truer and a
fairer word. Almost always, whan be wan
t Continued on following mmJ