The Case for the Crown by Fred M. White — Read

A bell rang somewhere in the distance, and, with a word or two of apology, Gunter hurried off. Chim Fang turned at the same time, and Archenfield followed him, feeling that there was nothing more to be done for the moment. So, side by side, they made their way back again to the carpeted seats which were dignified by the name of stalls, and then, for the best part of an hour, watched the performance. It was, on the whole, a depressing show, and Archenfield would have turned his back upon it at an early stage of the proceedings had he not been convinced that Chim Fang had brought him here for some very definite purpose.

Then, at length, the ring was cleared, and the attendants in their gaudy uniforms busied themselves with the erection of a net that covered the whole of the space in the centre of the tent. Other assistants, with the aid of ropes and pulleys, raised what appeared to be a small wooden house fronted by a balcony, and fixed it more or less securely to the roof of the tent. Presently in this wooden structure a girl appeared. She was dressed in white, her hair hung all down her back, and she was evidently intended to be the heroine of the romantic drama. Her hands and feet were fettered, and she had something white in her mouth, obviously a gag. On the programme the episode was described as "Mary of the Lonely Tower." The audience understood from the programme that here was a persecuted young woman who was kept, gagged and bound, in confinement by some desperate villain who had imprisoned her there away from her friends until such time, presumably, as she consented either to marry him or to disclose the hiding-place of a hidden treasure. So far the plot of the story was clear enough, and it became clearer still when presently, some twenty-five feet away in the roof of the tent, a canvas structure was hauled up, and intended to represent the top of a rocky precipice from which the rescuers could view the unfortunate lady in her bower separated from them by a huge gulf that loomed between them. The mimic rock was an overhanging one, some twenty feet or so above the bower in which suffering beauty was confined, and presently the two Chinamen appeared on the summit of the rock. To them the gagged young woman made frantic signs that they should come and release her. And so, for a time, the drama went on, with perplexity on one side and imploring gestures on the other.