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The Magic City by Edith Nesbit Chapter 11 The Night Attack

The Halma men were not naturally lazy. They were, in the days before the coming of the Great Sloth, a most energetic and industrious people. Now that the Sloth was obliged to work eight hours a day, the weight of its constant and catching sleepiness was taken away, and the people set to work in good earnest. (I did explain, didn't I, that the Great Sloth's sleepiness really was catching, like measles?)

So now the Halma men were as busy as ants. Some dug the channel for the new stream, some set to work to restore the buildings, while others weeded the overgrown gardens and ploughed the deserted fields. The head Halma man painted in large letters on a column in the market-place these words:

'This city is now called by its ancient name of Briskford. Any citizen found calling it Somnolentia will not be allowed to wash in water for a week.'

The head-man was full of schemes, the least of which was the lighting of the town by electricity, the power to be supplied by the Great Sloth.

'He can't go on pumping eight hours a day,' said the head-man; 'I can easily adjust the machine to all sorts of other uses.'

In the evening a banquet was (of course) given to the Deliverers. The banquet was all pine-apple and water, because there had been no time to make or get anything else. But the speeches were very flattering; and Philip and Lucy were very pleased, more so than Brenda, who did not like pine-apple and made but little effort to conceal her disappointment. Max accepted bits of pine-apple, out of politeness, and hid them among the feet of the guests so that nobody's feelings should be hurt.

'I don't know how we're to get back to the island,' said Philip next day, 'now we've lost the Lightning Loose.'

'I think we'd better go back by way of Polistopolis,' said Lucy, 'and find out who's been opening the books. If they go on they may let simply anything out. And if the worst comes to the worst, perhaps we could get some one to help us to open the Teal book again and get the Teal out to cross to the island in.'

'Lu,' said Philip with feeling, 'you're clever, really clever. No, I'm not kidding. I mean it. And I'm sorry I ever said you were only a girl. But how are we to get to Polistopolis?'

It was a difficult problem. The head-man could offer no suggestions. It was Brenda who suggested asking the advice of the Great Sloth.

'He is such a fine figure of an animal,' she said admiringly; 'so handsome and distinguished-looking. I am sure he must have a really great mind. I always think good looks go with really great minds, don't you, dear Lucy?'

'We might as well,' said Philip, 'if no one can think of anything else.'

No one could. So they decided to take Brenda's advice.

Now that the Sloth worked every day it was not nearly so disagreeable as it had been when it slept so much.

The children approached it at the dinner hour and it listened patiently if drowsily to their question. When it had quite done, it reflected--or seemed to reflect; perhaps it had fallen asleep--until the town clock struck one, the time for resuming work. Then it got up and slouched towards its machine.

'Cucumbers,' it said, and began to turn the handle of its wheel. They had to wait till tea-time to ask it what it meant, for in that town the rule about not speaking to the man at the wheel was strictly enforced.

'Cucumbers,' the Sloth repeated, and added a careful explanation. 'You sit on the end of any young cucumber which points in the desired direction, and when it has grown to its full length--say sixteen inches--why, then you are sixteen inches on your way.'

'But that's not much,' said Lucy.

'Every little helps,' said the Sloth; 'more haste less speed. Then you wait till the cucumber seeds, and, when the new plants grow, you select the earliest cucumber that points in the desired direction and take your seat on it. By the end of the cucumber season you will be another sixteen--or with luck seventeen--inches on your way. Thirty-two inches in all, almost a yard. And thus you progress towards your goal, slowly but surely, like in politics.'

'Thank you very much,' said Philip; 'we will think it over.'

But it did not need much thought.

'If we could get a motor car!' said Philip. 'If you can get machines by wishing for them. . . .'

'The very thing,' said Lucy, 'let's find the head-man. We mustn't wish for a motor or we should have to go on using it. But perhaps there's some one here who'd like to drive a motor--for his living, you know?'

There was. A Halma man, with an inborn taste for machinery, had long pined to leave the gathering of pine-apples to others. He was induced to wish for a motor and a B.S.A. sixty horse-power car snorted suddenly in the place where a moment before no car was.

'Oh, the luxury! This is indeed like home,' sighed Brenda, curling up on the air-cushions.

And the children certainly felt a gloriously restful sensation. Nothing to be done; no need to think or bother. Just to sit quiet and be borne swiftly on through wonderful cities, all of which Philip vaguely remembered to have seen, small and near, and built by his own hands and Helen's.

And so, at last, they came close to Polistopolis. Philip never could tell how it was that he stopped the car outside the city. It must have been some quite unaccountable instinct, because naturally, you know, when you are not used to being driven in motors, you like to dash up to the house you are going to, and enjoy your friends' enjoyment of the grand way in which you have travelled. But Philip felt--in that quite certain and quite unexplainable way in which you do feel things sometimes--that it was best to stop the car among the suburban groves of southernwood, and to creep into the town in the disguise afforded by motor coats, motor veils and motor goggles. (For of course all these had come with the motor car when it was wished for, because no motor car is complete without them.)

They said good-bye warmly to the Halma motor man, and went quietly towards the town, Max and Brenda keeping to heel in the most praiseworthy way, and the parrot nestling inside Philip's jacket, for it was chilled by the long rush through the evening air.

And now the scattered houses and spacious gardens gave place to the streets of Polistopolis, the capital of the kingdom. And the streets were strangely deserted. The children both felt--in that quite certain and unexplainable way--that it would be unwise of them to go to the place where they had slept the last time they were in that city.

The whole party was very tired. Max walked with drooping tail, and Brenda was whining softly to herself from sheer weariness and weak-mindedness. The parrot alone was happy--or at least contented. Because it was asleep.

At the corner of a little square planted with southernwood-trees in tubs, Philip called a halt.

'Where shall we go?' he said; 'let us put it to the vote.'

And even as he spoke, he saw a dark form creeping along in the shadow of the houses.

'Who goes there?' Philip cried with proper spirit, and the answer surprised him, all the more that it was given with a kind of desperate bravado.

'I go here; I, Plumbeus, Captain of the old Guard of Polistopolis.'

'Oh, it's you!' cried Philip; 'I am glad. You can advise us. Where can we go to sleep? Somehow or other I don't care to go to the house where we stayed before.'

The captain made no answer. He simply caught at the hands of Lucy and Philip, dragged them through a low arched doorway and, as soon as the long lengths of Brenda and Max had slipped through, closed the door.

'Safe,' he said in a breathless way, which made Philip feel that safety was the last thing one could count on at that moment.

'Now, speak low, who knows what spies may be listening? I am a plain man. I speak as I think. You came out of the unknown. You may be the Deliverer or the Destroyer. But I am a judge of faces--always was from a boy--and I cannot believe that this countenance of apple-cheeked innocence is that of a Destroyer.'

Philip was angry and Lucy was furious. So he said nothing. And she said:

'Apple-cheeked yourself!' which was very rude.

'I see that you are annoyed,' said the captain in the dark, where, of course, he could see nothing; 'but in calling your friend apple-cheeked I was merely offering the highest compliment in my power. The absence of fruit in this city is, I suppose, the reason why our compliments are like that. I believe poets say "sweet as a rose"--we say "sweet as an orange." May I be allowed unreservedly to apologise?'

'Oh, that's all right,' said Philip awkwardly.

'And to ask whether you are the Deliverer?'

'I hope so,' said Philip modestly.

'Of course he is,' said the parrot, putting its head out from the front of Philip's jacket; 'and he has done six deeds out of the seven already.'

'It is time that deeds were done here,' said the captain. 'I'll make a light and get you some supper. I'm in hiding here; but the walls are thick and all the shutters are shut.'

He bolted a door and opened the slide of a dark lantern.

'Some of us have taken refuge in the old prison,' he said; 'it's never used, you know, so her spies don't infest it as they do every other part of the city.'

'Whose spies?'

'The Destroyer's,' said the captain, getting bread and milk out of a cupboard; 'at least, if you're the Deliverer she must be that. But she says she's the Deliverer.'

He lighted candles and set them on the table as Lucy asked eagerly:

'What Destroyer? Is it a horrid woman in a motor veil?'

'You've guessed it,' said the captain gloomily.

'It's that Pretenderette,' said Philip. 'Does Mr. Noah know? What has she been doing?'

'Everything you can think of,' said the captain; 'she says she's Queen, and that she's done the seven deeds. And Mr. Noah doesn't know, because she's set a guard round the city, and no message can get out or in.'

'The Hippogriff?' said Lucy.

'Yes, of course I thought of that,' said the captain. 'And so did she. She's locked it up and thrown the key into one of the municipal wells.'

'But why do the guards obey her?' Philip asked.

'They're not our guards, of course,' the captain answered. 'They're strange soldiers that she got out of a book. She got the people to pull down the Hall of Justice by pretending there was fruit in the gigantic books it's built with. And when the book was opened these soldiers came marching out. The Sequani and the Aedui they call themselves. And when you've finished supper we ought to hold a council. There are a lot of us here. All sorts. Distinctions of rank are forgotten in times of public peril.'

Some twenty or thirty people presently gathered in that round room from whose windows Philip and Lucy had looked out when they were first imprisoned. There were indeed all sorts, match-servants, domino-men, soldiers, china-men, Mr. Noah's three sons and his wife, a pirate and a couple of sailors.

'What book,' Philip asked Lucy in an undertone, 'did she get these soldiers out of?'

'Caesar, I think,' said Lucy. 'And I'm afraid it was my fault. I remember telling her about the barbarians and the legions and things after father had told me--when she was my nurse, you know. She's very clever at thinking of horrid things to do, isn't she?'

The council talked for two hours, and nobody said anything worth mentioning. When every one was quite tired out, every one went to bed.

It was Philip who woke in the night in the grasp of a sudden idea.

'What is it?' asked Max, rousing himself from his warm bed at Philip's feet.

'I've thought of something,' said Philip in a low excited voice. 'I'm going to have a night attack.'

'Shall I wake the others?' asked Max, ever ready to oblige.

Philip thought a moment. Then:

'No,' he said, 'it's rather dangerous; and besides I want to do it all by myself. Lucy's done more than her share already. Look out, Max; I'm going to get up and go out.'

He got up and he went out. There was a faint greyness of dawn now which showed him the great square of the city on which he and Lucy had looked from the prison window, a very long time ago as it seemed. He found without difficulty the ruins of the Hall of Justice.

And among the vast blocks scattered on the ground was one that seemed of grey marble, and bore on its back in gigantic letters of gold the words De Bello Gallico.

Philip stole back to the prison and roused the captain.

'I want twenty picked men,' he said, 'without boots--and at once.'

He got them, and he led them to the ruins of the Justice Hall.

'Now,' he said, 'raise the cover of this book; only the cover, not any of the pages.'

The men set their shoulders to the marble slab that was the book's cover and heaved it up. And as it rose on their shoulders Philip spoke softly, urgently.

'Caesar,' he said, 'Caesar!'

And a voice answered from under the marble slab.

'Who calls?' it said. 'Who calls upon Julius Caesar?'

And from the space below the slab, as it were from a marble tomb, a thin figure stepped out, clothed in toga and cloak and wearing on its head a crown of bays.

'I called,' said Philip in a voice that trembled a little. 'There's no one but you who can help. The barbarians of Gaul hold this city. I call on great Caesar to drive them away. No one else can help us.'

Caesar stood for a moment silent in the grey twilight. Then he spoke.

'I will do it,' he said; 'you have often tried to master Caesar and always failed. Now you shall be no more ashamed of that failure, for you shall see Caesar's power. Bid your slaves raise the leaves of my book to the number of fifteen.'

It was done, and Caesar turned towards the enormous open book.

'Come forth!' he said. 'Come forth, my legions!'

Then something in the book moved suddenly, and out of it, as out of an open marble tomb, came long lines of silent armed men, ranged themselves in ranks, and, passing Caesar, saluted. And still more came, and more and more, each with the round shield and the shining helmet and the javelins and the terrible short sword. And on their backs were the packages they used to carry with them into war.

'The Barbarians of Gaul are loose in this city,' said the voice of the great commander; 'drive them before you once more as you drove them of old.'

'Whither, O Caesar?' asked one of the Roman generals.

'Drive them, O Titus Labienus,' said Caesar, 'back into that book wherein I set them more than nineteen hundred years ago, and from which they have dared to escape. Who is their leader?' he asked of Philip.

'The Pretenderette,' said Philip; 'a woman in a motor veil.'

'Caesar does not war with women,' said the man in the laurel crown; 'let her be taken prisoner and brought before me.'

Low-voiced, the generals of Caesar's army gave their commands, and with incredible quietness the army moved away, spreading itself out in all directions.

'She has caged the Hippogriff,' said Philip; 'the winged horse, and we want to send him with a message.'

'See that the beast is freed,' said Caesar, and turned to Plumbeus the captain. 'We be soldiers together,' he said. 'Lead me to the main gate. It is there that the fight will be fiercest.' He laid a hand on the captain's shoulder, and at the head of the last legion, Caesar and the captain of the soldiers marched to the main gate.

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The Magic City by Edith Nesbit Chapter 9 On the 'Lightning Loose'

'But how did you get here?' said Philip in Helen's arms on the island.

'I just walked out at the other side of a dream,' she said; 'how could I not come, when the door was open and you wanted me so?'

And Philip just said, 'Oh, Helen!' He could not find any other words, but Helen understood. She always did.

'Come,' she said, 'shall we go to your Palace or mine? I want my supper, and we'll have our own little blue-and-white tea-set. Yes, I know you've had your supper, but it'll be fun getting mine, and perhaps you'll be hungry again before we've got it.'

They went to the thatched cottage that was Helen's palace, because Philip had had almost as much of large buildings as he wanted for a little while. The cottage had a wide chimney and an open hearth; and they sat on the hearth and made toast, and Philip almost forgot that he had ever had any adventures and that the toast was being made on a hearth whose blue wood-smoke curled up among the enchanting tree-tops of a magic island.

And before they went to bed he had told her all about everything.

'Oh, I am so glad you came!' he said over and over again; 'it is so easy to tell you here, with all the magic going on. I don't think I ever could have told you at the Grange with the servants all about, and the--I mean Mr. Graham, and all the things as not magic as they could possibly be. Oh, Helen! where is Mr. Graham; won't he hate your coming away from him?'

'He's gone through a dream door too,' she said, 'to see Lucy. Only he doesn't know he's really gone. He'll think it's a dream, and he'll tell me about it when we both wake up.'

'When did you go to sleep?' said Philip.

'At Brussels. That telegram hasn't come yet.'

'I don't understand about time,' said Philip firmly, 'and I never shall. I say, Helen, I was just looking for the Lightning Loose, to go off in her on a voyage of discovery and find Lucy.'

'I don't think you need,' she said; 'I met a parrot on the island just before I met you and it was saying poetry to itself.'

'It would be,' said Philip, 'if it was alive. I'm glad it is alive, though. What was it saying?'

'It was something like this,' she said, putting a log of wood on the fire:

'Philip and Helen Have the island to dwell in, Hooray. They said of the island, "It's your land and my land!" Hooray. Hooray. Hooray.

'And till the ark Comes out of the dark There those two may stay For a happy while, and Enjoy their island Until the Giving Day. Hooray.

'And then they will hear the giving voice, They will hear and obey, And when people come Who need a home, They'll give the island away. Hooray.

'The island with flower And fruit and bower, Forest and river and bay, Their very own island They'll sigh and smile and They'll give their island away.'

'What nonsense!' said Philip, 'I never will.'

'All right, my Pipkin,' said Helen cheerfully; 'I only told you just to show that you're expected to stay here. "Philip and Helen have the island to dwell in." And now, what about bed?'

They spent a whole week on the island. It was exactly all that they could wish an island to be; because, of course, they had made it themselves, and of course they knew exactly what they wanted. I can't describe that week. I only know that Philip will never forget it. Just think of all the things you could do on a magic island if you were there with your dearest dear, and you'll know how Philip spent his time.

He enjoyed every minute of every hour of every day, and, best thing of all, that week made him understand, as nothing else could have done, that Helen still belonged to him, and that her marriage to Mr. Graham had not made her any the less Philip's very own Helen.

And then came a day when Philip, swinging in a magnolia tree, looked out to sea and cried out, 'A sail! a sail! Oh, Helen, here's the ark! Now it's all over. Let's have Lucy to stay with us, and send the other people away,' he added, sliding down the tree-trunk with his face very serious.

'But we can't, dear,' Helen reminded him. 'The island's ours, you know; and as long as it's ours no one else can land on it. We made it like that, you know.'

'Then they can't land?'

'No,' said Helen.

'Can't we change the rule and let them land?'

'No,' said Helen.

'Oh, it is a pity,' Philip said; 'because the island is the place for islanders, isn't it?'

'Yes,' said Helen, 'and there's no fear of the sea here; you remember we made it like that when we made the island?'

'Yes,' said Philip. 'Oh, Helen, I don't want to.'

'Then don't,' said Helen.

'Ah, but I do want to, too.'

'Then do,' said she.

'But don't you see, when you want to and don't want to at the same time, what are you to do? There are so many things to think of.'

'When it's like that, there's one thing you mustn't think of,' she said.

'What?' Philip asked.

'Yourself,' she said softly.

There was a silence, and then Philip suddenly hugged his sister and she hugged him.

'I'll give it to them,' he said; 'it's no use. I know I ought to. I shall only be uncomfortable if I don't.'

Helen laughed. 'My boy of boys!' she said. And then she looked sad. 'Boy of my heart,' she said, 'you know it's not only giving up our island. If we give it away I must go. It's the only place that there's a door into out of my dreams.'

'I can't let you go,' he said.

'But you've got your deeds to do,' she said, 'and I can't help you in those. Lucy can help you, but I can't. You like Lucy now, don't you?'

'Oh, I don't mind her,' said Philip; 'but it's you I want, Helen.'

'Don't think about that,' she urged. 'Think what the islanders want. Think what it'll be to them to have the island, to live here always, safe from the fear!'

'There are three more deeds,' said Philip dismally; 'I don't think I shall ever want any more adventures as long as I live.'

'You'll always want them,' she said, laughing at him gently, 'always. And now let's do the thing handsomely and give them a splendid welcome. Give me a kiss and then we'll gather heaps of roses.'

So they kissed each other. But Philip was very unhappy indeed, though he felt that he was being rather noble and that Helen thought so too, which was naturally a great comfort.

There had been a good deal more of this talk than I have set down. Philip and Helen had hardly had time to hang garlands of pink roses along the quayside where the Lightning Loose, that perfect yacht, lay at anchor, before the blunt prow of the ark bumped heavily against the quayside--and the two, dropping the rest of the roses, waved and smiled to the group on the ark's terrace.

The first person to speak was Mr. Perrin, who shouted, 'Here we are again!' like a clown.

Then Lucy said, 'We know we can't land, but the oracle said come and we came.' She leaned over the bulwark to whisper, 'Who's that perfect duck you've got with you?'

Philip answered aloud:

'This is my sister Helen--Helen this is Lucy.'

The two looked at each other, and then Helen held out her hands and she and Lucy kissed each other.

'I knew I should like you,' Lucy whispered, 'but I didn't know I should like you quite so much.'

Mr. Noah and Mr. Perrin were both bowing to Helen, a little stiffly but very cordially all the same, and quite surprisingly without surprise. And the Lord High Islander was looking at her with his own friendly jolly schoolboy grin.

'If you will embark,' said Mr. Noah politely, 'we can return to the mainland, and I will explain to you your remaining deeds.'

'Tell them, Pip,' said Helen.

'We don't want to embark--at present,' said Philip shyly. 'We want you to land.'

'No one may land on the island save two,' said Mr. Noah. 'I am glad you are the two. I feared one of the two might be the Pretenderette.'

'Not much,' said Philip. 'It's Helen's and mine. We made it. And we want to give it to the islanders to keep. For their very own,' he added, feeling that it would be difficult for any one to believe that such a glorious present was really being made just like that, without speeches, as if it had been a little present of a pencil sharpener or a peg-top.

He was right.

'To keep?' said the Lord High Islander; 'for our very own? Always?'

'Yes,' said Philip. 'And there's no fear here. You'll really be "happy troops" now.'

For a moment nobody said anything, though all the faces were expressive. Then the Lord High Islander spoke.

'Well,' he said, 'of all the brickish bricks----' and could say no more.

'There are lots of houses,' said Philip, 'and room for all the animals, and the island is thirty miles round, so there's lots of room for the animals and everything.' He felt happier than he had ever done in his life. Giving presents is always enjoyable, and this was such a big and beautiful present, and he loved it so.

'I always did say Master Pip was a gentleman, and I always shall,' Mr. Perrin remarked.

'I congratulate you,' said Mr. Noah, 'and I am happy to announce that your fifth deed is now accomplished. You remember our empty silver fruit-dishes? Your fifth deed was to be the supplying of Polistarchia with fruit. This island is the only place in the kingdom where fruit grows. The ark will serve to convey the fruit to the mainland, and the performance of this deed raises you to the rank of Duke.'

'Philip, you're a dear,' said Lucy in a whisper.

'Shut up,' said Philip fiercely.

'Three cheers,' said a familiar voice, 'for the Duke of Donors.'

'Three cheers,' repeated the Lord High Islander, 'for the Duke of Donors.'

What a cheer! All the islanders cheered and the M.A.'s and Lucy and Mr. Perrin and Mr. Noah, and from the inside of the ark came enthusiastic barkings and gruntings and roarings and squeakings--as the animals of course joined in as well as they could. Thousands of gulls, circling on white wings in the sun above, added their screams to the general chorus. And when the sound of the last cheer died away, a little near familiar voice said:

'Well done, Philip! I'm proud of you.'

It was the parrot who, perched on the rigging of the Lightning Loose, had started the cheering.

'So that's all right,' it said, fluttered on to Philip's shoulder and added, 'I've heard you calling for me on the island all the week. But I felt I needed a rest. I've been talking too much. And that Pretenderette. And that cage. I assure you I needed a little time to get over my adventures.'

'We have all had our adventures,' said Mr. Noah gently. And Helen said:

'Won't you land and take possession of the island? I'm sure we are longing to hear each other's adventures.'

'You first,' said Mr. Noah to the Lord High Islander, who stepped ashore very gravely.

When Helen saw him come forward, she suddenly kissed Philip, and as the Lord High Islander's foot touched the shore of that enchanted island, she simply and suddenly vanished.

'Oh!' cried Philip, 'I wish I hadn't.' And his mouth trembled as girls' mouths do if they are going to cry.

'The more a present costs you, the more it's worth,' said Mr. Noah. 'This has cost you so much, it's the most splendid present in the world.'

'I know,' said Philip; 'make yourselves at home, won't you?' he just managed to say. And then he found he could not say any more. He just turned and went into the forest. And when he was alone in a green glade, he flung himself down on his face and lay a long time without moving. It had been such a happy week. And he was so tired of adventures.

When at last he sniffed with an air of finality and raised his head, the first thing he saw was Lucy, sitting quite still with her back to him.

'Hullo!' he said rather crossly, 'what are you doing here?'

'Saying the multiplication table,' said Lucy promptly and turned her head, 'so as not even to think about you. And I haven't even once turned round. I knew you wanted to be alone. But I wanted to be here when you'd done being alone. See? I've got something to say to you.'

'Fire ahead,' said Philip, still grumpy.

'I think you're perfectly splendid,' said Lucy very seriously, 'and I want it to be real pax for ever. And I'll help you in the rest of the adventures. And if you're cross, I'll try not to mind. Napoleon was cross sometimes, I believe,' she added pensively, 'and Julius Caesar.'

'Oh, that's all right,' said Philip very awkwardly.

'Then we're going to be real chums?'

'Oh yes, if you like. Only--I don't mind just this once; and it was decent of you to come and sit there with your back to me--only I hate gas.'

'Yes,' said Lucy obediently, 'I know. Only sometimes you feel you must gas a little or burst of admiration. And I've got your proper clothes in a bundle. I've been carrying them about ever since the islanders' castle was washed away. Here they are.'

She produced the bundle. And this time Philip was really touched.

'Now I do call that something like,' he said. 'The seaweed dress is all right here, but you never know what you may have to go through when you're doing adventures. There might be thorns or snakes or anything. I'm jolly glad to get my boots back too. I say, come on. Let's go to Helen's palace and get a banquet ready. I know there'll have to be a banquet. There always is, here. I know a first-rate bun-tree quite near here.'

'The cocoa-nut-ice plants looked beautiful as I came along,' said Lucy. 'What a lovely island it is. And you made it!'

'No gas,' said Philip warningly. 'Helen and I made it.'

'She's the dearest darling,' said Lucy.

'Oh, well,' said Philip with resignation, 'if you must gas, gas about her.'

The banquet was all that you can imagine of interesting and magnificent. And Philip was, of course, the hero of the hour. And when the banquet was finished and the last guest had departed to its own house--for the houses on the island were of course all ready to be occupied, furnished to the last point of comfort, with pin-cushions full of pins in every room, Mr. Noah and Lucy and Philip sat down on the terrace steps among the pink roses for a last little talk.

'Because,' said Philip, 'we shall start the first thing in the morning. So please will you tell me now what the next deed is that I have to do?'

'Will you go by ark?' Mr. Noah asked, rolling up his yellow mat to make an elbow rest and leaning on it; 'I shall be delighted.'

'I thought,' said Philip, 'we might go in the Lightning Loose. I've never sailed her yet, you know. Do you think I could?'

'Of course you can,' said Mr. Noah; 'and if not, Lucy can show you. Your charming yacht is steered on precisely the same principle as the ark. And in this land all the winds are favourable. You will find the yacht suitably provisioned. And I may add that you can go most of the way to your next deed by water--first the sea and then the river.'

'And what,' asked Philip, 'is the next deed?'

'In the extreme north of Polistarchia,' said Mr. Noah instructively, 'lies a town called Somnolentia. It used to be called Briskford in happier days. A river then ran through the town, a rapid river that brought much gold from the mountains. The people used to work very hard to keep the channel clear of the lumps of gold which continually threatened to choke it. Their fields were then well-watered and fruitful, and the inhabitants were cheerful and happy. But when the Hippogriff was let out of the book, a Great Sloth got out too. Evading all efforts to secure him, the Great Sloth journeyed northward. He is a very large and striking animal, and by some means, either fear or admiration, he obtained a complete ascendancy over the inhabitants of Briskford. He induced them to build him a temple of solid gold, and while they were doing this the river bed became choked up and the stream was diverted into another channel far from the town. Since then the place is fallen into decay. The fields are parched and untilled. Such water as the people need for drinking is drawn by great labour from a well. Washing has become shockingly infrequent.'

'Are we to teach the dirty chaps to wash?' asked Philip in disgust.

'Do not interrupt,' said Mr. Noah. 'You destroy the thread of my narrative. Where was I?'

'Washing infrequent,' said Lucy; 'but if the fields are dried up, what do they live on?'

'Pine-apples,' replied Mr. Noah, 'which grow freely and do not need much water. Gathering these is the sole industry of this degraded people. Pine-apples are not considered a fruit but a vegetable,' he added hastily, seeing another question trembling on Philip's lips. 'Whatever of their waking time can be spared from the gathering and eating of the pine-apples is spent in singing choric songs in honour of the Great Sloth. And even this time is short, for such is his influence on the Somnolentians that when he sleeps they sleep too, and,' added Mr. Noah impressively, 'he sleeps almost all the time. Your deed is to devise some means of keeping the Great Sloth awake and busy. And I think you've got your work cut out. When you've disposed of the Great Sloth you can report yourself to me here. I shall remain here for some little time. I need a holiday. The parrot will accompany you. It knows its way about as well as any bird in the land. Good-night. And good luck! You will excuse my not being down to breakfast.'

And the next morning, dewy-early, Philip and Lucy and the parrot went aboard the yacht and loosed her from her moorings, and Lucy showed Philip how to steer, and the parrot sat on the mast and called out instructions.

They made for the mouth of a river. ('I never built a river,' said Philip. 'No,' said the parrot, 'it came out of the poetry book.') And when they were hungry they let down the anchor and went into the cabin for breakfast. And two people sprang to meet them, almost knocking Lucy down with the violence of their welcome. The two people were Max and Brenda.

'Oh, you dear dogs,' Lucy cried, and Philip patted them, one with each hand, 'how did you get here?'

'It was a little surprise of Mr. Noah's,' said the parrot.

Max and Brenda whined and barked and gushed.

'I wish we could understand what they're saying,' said Lucy.

'If you only knew the magic word that the Hippogriff obeys,' said the parrot, 'you could say it, and then you'd understand all animal talk. Only, of course, I mustn't tell it you. It's one of the eleven mysteries.'

'But I know it,' said Philip, and at once breathed the word in the tiny silky ear of Brenda and then in the longer silkier ear of Max, and instantly--

'Oh, my dears!' they heard Brenda say in a softly shrill excited voice; 'oh, my dearie dears! We are so pleased to see you. I'm only a poor little faithful doggy; I'm not clever, you know, but my affectionate nature makes me almost mad with joy to see my dear master and mistress again.'

'Very glad to see you, sir,' said Max with heavy politeness. 'I hope you'll be comfortable here. There's no comfort for a dog like being with his master.'

And with that he sat down and went to sleep, and the others had breakfast. It is rather fun cooking in yachts. And there was something new and charming in Brenda's delicate way of sitting up and begging and saying at the same time, 'I do hate to bother my darling master and mistress, but if you could spare another tiny bit of bacon--Oh, thank you, how good and generous you are!'

They sailed the yacht successfully into the river which presently ran into the shadow of a tropical forest. Also out of a book.

'You might go on during the night,' said the parrot, 'if the dogs would steer under my directions. You could tie one end of a rope to their collars and another to the helm. It's easier than turning spits.'

'Delighted!' said Max; 'only, of course, it's understood that we sleep through the day?'

'Of course,' said everybody. So that was settled. And the children went to bed.

It was in the middle of the night that the parrot roused Philip with his usual gentle beak-touch. Then--

'Wake up,' it said; 'this is not the right river. It's not the right direction. Nothing's right. The ship's all wrong. I'm very much afraid some one has been opening a book and this river has got out.'

Philip hurried out on deck, and by the light of the lamps from the cabin, gazed out at the banks of the river. At least he looked for them. But there weren't any banks. Instead, steep and rugged cliffs rose on each side, and overhead, instead of a starry sky, was a great arched roof of a cavern glistening with moisture and dark as a raven's feathers.

'We must turn back,' said Philip. 'I don't like this at all.'

'Unfortunately,' said the parrot, 'there is no room to turn back, and the Lightning Loose is not constructed for going backwards.'

'Oh, dear,' whispered Brenda, 'I wish we hadn't come. Dear little dogs ought to be taken comfortable care of and not be sent out on nasty ships that can't turn back when it's dangerous.'

'My dear,' said Max with slow firmness, 'dear little dogs can't help themselves now. So they had better look out for chances of helping their masters.'

'But what can we do, then?' said Philip impatiently.

'I fear,' said the parrot, 'that we can do nothing but go straight on. If this river is in a book it will come out somewhere. No river in a book ever runs underground and stays there.'

'I shan't wake Lucy,' said Philip; 'she might be frightened.'

'You needn't,' said Lucy, 'she's awake, and she's no more frightened than you are.'

('You hear that,' said Max to Brenda; 'you take example by her, my dear!')

'But if we are going the wrong way, we shan't reach the Great Sloth,' Lucy went on.

'Sooner or later, one way or another, we shall come to him,' said the parrot; 'and time is of no importance to a Great Sloth.'

It was now very cold, and our travellers were glad to wrap themselves in the flags of all nations with which the yacht was handsomely provided. Philip made a sort of tabard of the Union Jack and the old Royal Arms of England, with the lilies and leopards; and Lucy wore the Japanese flag as a shawl. She said the picture of the sun on it made her feel warm. But Philip shivered under his complicated crosses and lions, as the Lightning Loose swept on over the dark tide between the dark walls and under the dark roof of the cavern.

'Cheer up,' said the parrot. 'Think what a lot of adventures you're having that no one else has ever had: think what a lot of things you'll have to tell the other boys when you go to school.'

'The other boys wouldn't believe a word of it,' said Philip in gloom. 'I wouldn't unless I knew it was true.'

'What I think is,' said Lucy, watching the yellow light from the lamps rushing ahead along the roof, 'that we shan't want to tell people. It'll be just enough to know it ourselves and talk about it, just Philip and me together.'

'Well, as to that----' the parrot was beginning doubtfully, when he broke off to exclaim:

'Do my claws deceive me or is there a curious vibration, and noticeable acceleration of velocity?'

'Eh?' said Philip, which is not manners, and he knew it.

'He means,' said Max stolidly, 'aren't we going rather fast and rather wobbly?'

We certainly were. The Lightning Loose was going faster and faster along that subterranean channel, and every now and then gave a lurch and a shiver.

'Oh!' whined Brenda; 'this is a dreadful place for dear little dogs!'

'Philip!' said Lucy in a low voice, 'I know something is going to happen. Something dreadful. We are friends, aren't we?'

'Yes,' said Philip firmly.

'Then I wish you'd kiss me.'

'I can like you just as much without that,' said Philip uneasily. 'Kissing people--it's silly, don't you think?'

'Nobody's kissed me since daddy went away,' she said, 'except Helen. And you don't mind kissing Helen. She said you were going to adopt me for your sister.'

'Oh! all right,' said Philip, and put his arm round her and kissed her. She felt so little and helpless and bony in his arm that he suddenly felt sorry for her, kissed her again more kindly and then, withdrawing his arm, thumped her hearteningly on the back.

'Be a man,' he said in tones of comradeship and encouragement. 'I'm perfectly certain nothing's going to happen. We're just going through a tunnel, and presently we shall just come out into the open air again, with the sky and the stars going on as usual.'

He spoke this standing on the prow beside Lucy, and as he spoke she clutched his arm.

'Oh, look,' she breathed, 'oh, listen!'

He listened. And he heard a dull echoing roar that got louder and louder. And he looked. The light of the lamps shone ahead on the dark gleaming water, and then quite suddenly it did not shine on the water because there was no longer any water for it to shine on. Only great empty black darkness. A great hole, ahead, into which the stream poured itself. And now they were at the edge of the gulf. The Lightning Loose gave a shudder and a bound and hung for what seemed a long moment on the edge of the precipice down which the underground river was pouring itself in a smooth sleek stream, rather like poured treacle, over what felt like the edge of everything solid.

The moment ended, and the little yacht, with Philip and Lucy and the parrot and the two dogs, plunged headlong over the edge into the dark unknown abyss below.

'It's all right, Lu,' said Philip in that moment. 'I'll take care of you.'

And then there was silence in the cavern--only the rushing sound of the great waterfall echoed in the rocky arch.

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The Magic City by Edith Nesbit Chapter 10 The Great Sloth

You have heard of Indians shooting rapids in their birch-bark canoes? And perhaps you have yourself sailed a toy boat on a stream, and made a dam of clay, and waited with more or less patience till the water rose nearly to the top, and then broken a bit of your dam out and made a waterfall and let your boat drift over the edge of it. You know how it goes slowly at first, then hesitates and sweeps on more and more quickly. Sometimes it upsets; and sometimes it shudders and strains and trembles and sways to one side and to the other, and at last rights itself and makes up its mind, and rushes on down the stream, usually to be entangled in the clump of rushes at the stream's next turn. This is what happened to that good yacht, the Lightning Loose. She shot over the edge of that dark smooth subterranean waterfall, hung a long breathless moment between still air and falling water, slid down like a flash, dashed into the stream below, shuddered, reeled, righted herself and sped on. You have perhaps been down the water chute at Earl's Court? It was rather like that.

'It's--it's all right,' said Philip, in a rather shaky whisper. 'She's going on all right.'

'Yes,' said Lucy, holding his arm very tight; 'yes, I'm sure she's going on all right.'

'Are we drowned?' said a trembling squeak. 'Oh, Max, are we really drowned?'

'I don't think so,' Max replied with caution. 'And if we are, my dear, we cannot undrown ourselves by screams.'

'Far from it,' said the parrot, who had for the moment been rendered quite speechless by the shock. And you know a parrot is not made speechless just by any little thing. 'So we may just as well try to behave,' it said.

The lamps had certainly behaved, and behaved beautifully; through the wild air of the fall, the wild splash as the Lightning Loose struck the stream below, the lamps had shone on, seemingly undisturbed.

'An example to us all,' said the parrot.

'Yes, but,' said Lucy, 'what are we to do?'

'When adventures take a turn one is far from expecting, one does what one can,' said the parrot.

'And what's that?'

'Nothing,' said the parrot. 'Philip has relieved Max at the helm and is steering a straight course between the banks--if you can call them banks. There is nothing else to be done.'

There plainly wasn't. The Lightning Loose rushed on through the darkness. Lucy reflected for a moment and then made cocoa. This was real heroism. It cheered every one up, including the cocoa-maker herself. It was impossible to believe that anything dreadful was going to happen when you were making that soft, sweet, ordinary drink.

'I say,' Philip remarked when she carried a cup to him at the wheel, 'I've been thinking. All this is out of a book. Some one must have let it out. I know what book it's out of too. And if the whole story got out of the book we're all right. Only we shall go on for ages and climb out at last, three days' journey from Trieste.'

'I see,' said Lucy, and added that she hated geography. 'Drink your cocoa while it's hot,' she said in motherly accents, and 'what book is it?'

'It's The Last Cruise of the Teal,' he said. 'Helen gave it me just before she went away. It's a ripping book, and I used it for the roof of the outer court of the Hall of Justice. I remember it perfectly. The chaps on the Teal made torches of paper soaked in paraffin.'

'We haven't any,' said Lucy; 'besides our lamps light everything up all right. Oh! there's Brenda crying again. She hasn't a shadow of pluck.'

She went quickly to the cabin where Max was trying to cheer Brenda by remarks full of solid good sense, to which Brenda paid no attention whatever.

'I knew how it would be,' she kept saying in a whining voice; 'I told you so from the beginning. I wish we hadn't come. I want to go home. Oh! what a dreadful thing to happen to dear little dogs.'

'Brenda,' said Lucy firmly, 'if you don't stop whining you shan't have any cocoa.'

Brenda stopped at once and wagged her tail appealingly.

'Cocoa?' she said, 'did any one say cocoa? My nerves are so delicate. I know I'm a trial, dear Max, it's no use your pretending I'm not, but there is nothing like cocoa for the nerves. Plenty of sugar, please, dear Lucy. Thank you so much! Yes, it's just as I like it.'

'There will be other things to eat by and by,' said Lucy. 'People who whine won't get any.'

'I'm sure nobody would dream of whining,' said Brenda. 'I know I'm too sensitive; but you can do anything with dear little dogs by kindness. And as for whining--do you know it's a thing I've never been subject to, from a child, never. Max will tell you the same.'

Max said nothing, but only fixed his beautiful eyes hopefully on the cocoa jug.

And all the time the yacht was speeding along the underground stream, beneath the vast arch of the underground cavern.

'The worst of it is we may be going ever so far away from where we want to get to,' said Philip, when Max had undertaken the steering again.

'All roads,' remarked the parrot, 'lead to Somnolentia. And besides the ship is travelling due north--at least so the ship's compass states, and I have no reason as yet for doubting its word.'

'Hullo!' cried more than one voice, and the ship shot out of the dark cavern into a sheet of water that lay spread under a white dome. The stream that had brought them there seemed to run across one side of this pool. Max, directed by the parrot, steered the ship into smooth water, where she lay at rest at last in the very middle of this great underground lake.

'This isn't out of The Cruise of the Teal,' said Philip. 'They must have shut that book.'

'I think it's out of a book about Mexico or Peru or Ingots or some geographical place,' said Lucy; 'it had a green-and-gold binding. I think you used it for the other end of the outer justice court. And if you did, this dome's solid silver, and there's a hole in it, and under this dome there's untold treasure in gold incas.'

'What's incas?'

'Gold bars, I believe,' said Lucy; 'and Mexicans come down through the hole in the roof and get it, and when enemies come they flood it with water. It's flooded now,' she added unnecessarily.

'I wish adventures had never been invented,' said Brenda. 'No, dear Lucy, I am not whining. Far from it. But if a dear little dog might suggest it, we should all be better in a home, should we not?'

All eyes now perceived a dark hole in the roof, a round hole exactly in the middle of the shining dome. And as they gazed the dark hole became light. And they saw above them a white shining disk like a very large and very bright moon. It was the light of day.

'Some one has opened the trap-door,' said Lucy. 'The Ingots always closed their treasure-vaults with trap-doors.'

The bright disk was obscured; confused shapes broke its shining roundness. Then another disk, small and very black appeared in the middle of it; the black disk grew larger and larger and larger. It was coming down to them. Slowly and steadily it came; now it reached the level of the dome, now it hung below it; down, down, down it came, past the level of their eager eyes and splashed in the water close by the ship. It was a large empty bucket. The rope which held it was jerked from above; the bucket dipped and filled and was drawn up again slowly and steadily till it disappeared in the hole in the roof.

'Quick,' said the parrot, 'get the ship exactly under the hole, and next time the bucket comes down you can go up in it.'

'This is out of the Arabian Nights, I think,' said Lucy, when the yacht was directly under the hole in the roof. 'But who is it that keeps on opening the books? Somebody must be pulling Polistopolis down.'

'The Pretenderette, I shouldn't wonder,' said Philip gloomily. 'She isn't the Deliverer, so she must be the Destroyer. Nobody else can get into Polistarchia, you know.'

'There's me.'

'Oh, you're Deliverer too.'

'Thank you,' said Lucy gratefully. 'But there's Helen.'

'She was only on the Island, you know; she couldn't come to Polistarchia. Look out!'

The bucket was descending again, and instead of splashing in the water it bumped on the deck.

'You go first,' said Philip to Lucy.

'And you,' said Max to Brenda.

'Oh, I'll go first if you like,' said Philip.

'Yes,' said Max, 'I'll go first if you like, Brenda.'

You see Philip felt that he ought to give Lucy the first chance of escaping from the poor Lightning Loose. Yet he could not be at all sure what it was that she would be escaping to. And if there was danger overhead, of course he ought to be the one to go first to face it. And the worthy Max felt the same about Brenda.

And Lucy felt just the same as they did. I don't know what Brenda felt. She whined a little. Then for one moment Lucy and Philip stood on the deck each grasping the handle of the bucket and looking at each other, and the dogs looked at them, and the parrot looked at every one in turn. An impatient jerk and shake of the rope from above reminded them that there was no time to lose.

Lucy decided that it was more dangerous to go than to stay, just at the same moment when Philip decided that it was more dangerous to stay than to go, so when Lucy stepped into the bucket Philip helped her eagerly. Max thought the same as Philip, and I am afraid Brenda agreed with them. At any rate she leaped into Lucy's lap and curled her long length round just as the rope tightened and the bucket began to go up. Brenda screamed faintly, but her scream was stifled at once.

'I'll send the bucket down again the moment I get up,' Lucy called out; and a moment later, 'it feels awfully jolly, like a swing.'

And so saying she was drawn up into the hole in the roof of the dome. Then a sound of voices came down the shaft, a confused sound; the anxious little party on the Lightning Loose could not make out any distinct words. They all stood staring up, expecting, waiting for the bucket to come down again.

'I hate leaving the ship,' said Philip.

'You shall be the last to leave her,' said the parrot consolingly; 'that is if we can manage about Max without your having to sit on him in the bucket if he gets in first.'

'But how about you?' said Philip.

A little arrogantly the parrot unfolded half a bright wing.

'Oh!' said Philip enlightened and reminded. 'Of course! And you might have flown away at any time. And yet you stuck to us. I say, you know, that was jolly decent of you.'

'Not at all,' said the parrot with conscious modesty.

'But it was,' Philip insisted. 'You might have---- hullo!' cried Philip. The bucket came down again with a horrible rush. They held their breaths and looked to see the form of Lucy hurtling through the air. But no, the bucket swung loose a moment in mid-air, then it was hastily drawn up, and a hollow metallic clang echoed through the cavern.

'Brenda!' the cry was wrung from the heart of the sober self-contained Max.

'My wings and claws!' exclaimed the parrot.

'Oh, bother!' said Philip.

There was some excuse for these expressions of emotion. The white disk overhead had suddenly disappeared. Some one up above had banged the lid down. And all the manly hearts were below in the cave, and brave Lucy and helpless Brenda were above in a strange place, whose dangers those below could only imagine.

'I wish I'd gone,' said Philip. 'Oh, I wish I'd gone.'

'Yes, indeed,' said Max, with a deep sigh.

'I feel a little faint,' said the parrot; 'if some one would make a cup of cocoa.'

Thus did the excellent bird seek to occupy their minds in that first moment of disaster. And it was well that the captain and crew were thus saved from despair. For before the kettle boiled, the lid of the shaft opened about a foot and something largeish, roundish and lumpish fell heavily and bounced upon the deck of the Lightning Loose.

It was a pine-apple, fresh, ripe and juicy. On its side was carved in large letters of uncertain shape the one word 'WAIT.'

It was good advice and they took it. Really I do not see what else they could have done in any case. And they ate the pine-apple. And presently every one felt extremely sleepy.

'Waiting is one of those things that you can do as well asleep as awake, or even better,' said the parrot. 'Forty winks will do us all the good in the world.' He put his head under his wing where he sat on the binnacle.

'May I turn in alongside you, sir?' Max asked. 'I shan't feel the dreadful loneliness so much then.'

So Philip and Max curled up together on the deck, warmly covered with the spare flags of all nations, and the forty winks lasted for the space of a good night's rest--about ten hours, in fact. So ten hours' waiting was got through quite easily. But there was more waiting to do after they woke up, and that was not so easy.

* * * * * * *

When Lucy, sitting in the bucket with Brenda in her lap, felt the bucket lifted from the deck and swung loose in the air, it was as much as she could do to refrain from screaming. Brenda did scream, as you know, but Lucy stifled the sound in the folds of her frock.

Lucy bit her lips, made a great effort and called out that remark about the bucket-swing, just as though she were quite comfortable. It was very brave of her and helped her to go on being brave.

The bucket drew slowly up and up and up and passed from the silver dome into the dark shaft above. Lucy looked up. Yes, it was daylight that showed at the top of the shaft, and the rope was drawing her up towards it. Suppose the rope broke? Brenda was quite quiet now. She said afterwards that she must have fainted. And now the light was nearer and nearer. Now Lucy was in it, for the bucket had been drawn right up, and hands were reached out to draw it over the side of what seemed like a well. At that moment Lucy saw in a flash what might happen if the owners of the hands, in their surprise, let go the bucket and the windlass. She caught Brenda in her hands and threw the dog out on to the dry ground, and threw herself across the well parapet. Just in time, for a shout of surprise went up and the bucket went down, clanging against the well sides. The hands had let go.

Lucy clambered over the well side slowly, and when her feet stood on firm ground she saw that the hands were winding up the bucket again, and that it came very easily.

'Oh, don't!' she said. 'Let it go right down! There are some more people down there.'

'Sorry, but it's against the rules. The bucket only goes down this well forty times a day. And that was the fortieth time.'

They pulled the bucket in and banged down the lid of the well. Some one padlocked it and put the key in his pocket. And Lucy and he stood facing each other. He was a little round-headed man in a curious stiff red tunic, and there was something about the general shape of him and his tunic which reminded Lucy of something, only she could not remember what. Behind him stood two others, also red-tunicked and round-headed.

Brenda crouched at Lucy's feet and whined softly, and Lucy waited for the strangers to speak.

'You shouldn't do that,' said the red-tunicked man at last, 'it was a great shock to us, your bobbing up as you did. It will keep us awake at night, just remembering it.'

'I'm sorry,' said Lucy.

'You should always come into strange towns by the front gate,' said the man; 'try to remember that, will you? Good-night.'

'But you're not going off like this,' said Lucy. 'Let me write a note and drop it down to the others. Have you a bit of pencil, and paper?'

'No,' said the strange people, staring at her.

'Haven't you anything I can write on?' Lucy asked them.

'There's nothing here but pine-apples,' said one of them at last.

So she cut a pine-apple from among the hundreds that grew among the rocks near by, and carved 'WAIT' on it with her penknife.

'Now,' she said, 'open that well lid.'

'It's as much as our lives are worth,' said the leader.

'No it isn't,' said Lucy; 'there's no law against dropping pine-apples into the well. You know there isn't. It isn't like drawing water. And if you don't I shall set my little dog at you. She is very fierce.'

Brenda was so flattered that she showed her teeth and growled.

'Oh, very well,' said the stranger; 'anything to avoid fuss.'

When the well lid was padlocked down again, Lucy said:

'What country is this?' though she was almost sure, because of the pine-apples, that it was Somnolentia. And when they had said that word she said:

'Now I'll tell you something. The Deliverer is coming up that well next time you draw water. He is coming to deliver you from the bondage of the Great Sloth.'

'It is true,' said the red round-headed leader, 'that we are in bondage. And the Great Sloth wearies us with the singing of choric songs when we long to be asleep. But none can deliver us. There is no hope. There is nothing good but sleep. And of that we have never enough.'

'Oh, dear,' said Lucy despairingly, 'aren't there any women here? They always have more sense than men.'

'What you say is rude as well as untrue,' said the red leader; 'but to avoid fuss we will lead you and your fierce dog to the huts of the women. And then perhaps you will allow us to go to sleep.'

The huts were poor and mean, little fenced-in corners in the ruins of what had once been a great and beautiful city, with gardens and streams; but now the streams were dry and nothing grew in the gardens but weeds and pine-apples.

But the women--who all wore green tunics of the same stiff shape as the men's--were not quite so sleepy as their husbands. They brought Lucy fresh pine-apples to eat, and were dreamily interested in the cut of her clothes and the begging accomplishments of Brenda. And from the women she learned several things about the Somnolentians. They all wore the same shaped tunics, only the colours differed. The women's were green, the drawers of water wore red, the attendants of the Great Sloth wore black, and the pine-apple gatherers wore yellow.

And as Lucy sat at the door of the hut and watched the people in these four colours going lazily about among the ruins she suddenly knew what they were, and she exclaimed:

'I know what you are; you're Halma men.'

Instantly every man within earshot made haste to get away, and the women whispered, 'Hush! It is death to breathe that name.'

'But why?' Lucy asked.

'Halma was the great captain of our race,' said the woman, 'and the Great Sloth fears that if we hear his name it will rouse us and we shall break from bondage and become once more a free people.'

Lucy determined that they should hear that name pretty often; but before she could speak it again the woman sighed, and remarking 'The Great Sloth sleeps,' fell asleep then and there over the pine-apple she was peeling. A vast silence settled on the city, and next moment Lucy also slept. She slept for hours.

* * * * * * *

It took her some time to find the keeper of the padlock key, and when she had found him he refused to use it. Nothing would move him, not even the threat of the fierceness of Brenda.

At last, almost in despair, Lucy suddenly remembered a word of power.

'I command you to open the well and let down the bucket,' she said. 'I command you by the great name of Halma.'

'It is death to speak that name,' said the keeper of the key, looking over his shoulder anxiously.

'It is life to speak that name,' said Lucy. 'Halma! Halma! Halma! If you don't open that well I'll carve the name on a pine-apple and send it in on the golden tray with the Great Sloth's dinner.'

'It would have the lives of hundreds for that,' said the keeper in horror.

'Open the well then,' said Lucy.

* * * * * * *

They all held a council as soon as Philip and Max had been safely drawn up in the bucket, and Lucy told them all she knew.

'I think whatever we do we ought to be quick,' said Lucy; 'that Great Sloth is dangerous. I'm sure it is. It's sent already to say I am to be brought to its presence to sing songs to it while it goes to sleep. It doesn't mind me because it knows I'm not the Deliverer. And if you'll let me, I believe I can work everything all right. But if it knows you're here, it'll be much harder.'

The degraded Halma men were watching them from a distance, in whispering groups.

'I shall go and sing to the Great Sloth,' she said, 'and you must go about and say the name of power to every one you meet, and tell them you're the Deliverer. Then if my idea doesn't come off, we must overpower the Great Sloth by numbers and . . . . You just go about saying "Halma!"--see?'

'While you do the dangerous part? Likely!' said Philip.

'It's not dangerous. It never hurts the people who sing--never,' said Lucy. 'Now I'm going.'

And she went before Philip could stop her.

'Let her go,' said the parrot; 'she is a wise child.'

The temple of the Great Sloth was built of solid gold. It had beautiful pillars and doorways and windows and courts, one inside the other, each paved with gold flagstones. And in the very middle of everything was a large room which was entirely feather-bed. There the Great Sloth passed its useless life in eating, sleeping and listening to music.

Outside the moorish arch that led to this inner room Lucy stopped and began to sing. She had a clear little voice and she sang 'Jockey to the Fair,' and 'Early one morning,' and then she stopped.

And a great sleepy slobbery voice came out from the room and said:

'Your songs are in very bad taste. Do you know no sleepy songs?'

'Your people sing you sleepy songs,' said Lucy. 'What a pity they can't sing to you all the time.'

'You have a sympathetic nature,' said the Great Sloth, and it came out and leaned on the pillar of its door and looked at her with sleepy interest. It was enormous, as big as a young elephant, and it walked on its hind legs like a gorilla. It was very black indeed.

'It is a pity,' it said; 'but they say they cannot live without drinking, so they waste their time in drawing water from the wells.'

'Wouldn't it be nice,' said Lucy, 'if you had a machine for drawing water. Then they could sing to you all day--if they chose.'

'If I chose,' said the Great Sloth, yawning like a hippopotamus. 'I am sleepy. Go!'

'No,' said Lucy, and it was so long since the Great Sloth had heard that word that the shock of the sound almost killed its sleepiness.

'What did you say?' it asked, as if it could not believe its large ears.

'I said "No,"' said Lucy. 'I mean that you are so great and grand you have only to wish for anything and you get it.'

'Is that so?' said the Great Sloth dreamily and like an American.

'Yes,' said Lucy with firmness. 'You just say, "I wish I had a machine to draw up water for eight hours a day." That's the proper length for a working day. Father says so.'

'Say it all again, and slower,' said the creature. 'I didn't quite catch what you said.'

Lucy repeated the words.

'If that's all. . . .' said the Great Sloth; 'now say it again, very slowly indeed.'

Lucy did so and the Great Sloth repeated after her:

'I wish I had a machine to draw up water for eight hours a day.'

'Don't,' it said angrily, looking back over its shoulder into the feather-bedded room, 'don't, I say. Where are you shoving to? Who are you? What are you doing in my room? Come out of it.'

Something did come out of the room, pushing the Great Sloth away from the door. And what came out was the vast feather-bed in enormous rolls and swellings and bulges. It was being pushed out by something so big and strong that it was stronger that the Great Sloth itself, and pushed that mountain of lazy sloth-flesh half across its own inner courtyard. Lucy retreated before its advancing bulk and its extreme rage.

'Push me out of my own feather-bedroom, would it?' said the Sloth, now hardly sleepy at all. 'You wait till I get hold of it, whatever it is.'

The whole of the feather-bed was out in the courtyard now, and the Great Sloth climbed slowly back over it into its room to find out who had dared to outrage its Slothful Majesty.

Lucy waited, breathless with hope and fear, as the Great Sloth blundered back into the inner room of its temple. It did not come out again. There was a silence, and then a creaking sound and the voice of the Great Sloth saying:

'No, no, no, I won't. Let go, I tell you.' Then more sounds of creaking and the sound of metal on metal.

She crept to the arch and peeped round it.

The room that had been full of feather-bed was now full of wheels and cogs and bands and screws and bars. It was full, in fact, of a large and complicated machine. And the handle of that machine was being turned by the Great Sloth itself.

'Let me go,' said the Great Sloth, gnashing its great teeth. 'I won't work!'

'You must,' said a purring voice from the heart of the machinery. 'You wished for me, and now you have to work me eight hours a day. It is the law'; it was the machine itself which spoke.

'I'll break you,' said the Sloth.

'I am unbreakable,' said the machine with gentle pride.

'This is your doing,' said the Sloth, turning its furious eyes on Lucy in the doorway. 'You wait till I catch you!' And all the while it had to go on turning that handle.

'Thank you,' said Lucy politely; 'I think I will not wait. And I shall have eight hours' start,' she added.

Even as she spoke a stream of clear water began to run from the pumping machine. It slid down the gold steps and across the golden court. Lucy ran out into the ruined square of the city shouting:

'Halma! Halma! Halma! To me, Halma's men!'

And the men, already excited by Philip, who had gone about saying that name of power without a moment's pause all the time Lucy had been in the golden temple, gathered round her in a crowd.

'Quick!' she said; 'the Great Sloth is pumping water up for you. He will pump for eight hours a day. Quick! dig a channel for the water to run in. The Deliverer,' she pointed to Philip, 'has given you back your river.'

Some ran to look out old rusty half-forgotten spades and picks. But others hesitated and said:

'The Great Sloth will work for eight hours, and then it will be free to work vengeance on us.'

'I will go back,' said Lucy, 'and explain to it that if it does not behave nicely you will all wish for machine guns, and it knows now that if people wish for machinery they have to use it. It will be awake now for eight hours and if you all work for eight hours a day you'll soon have your city as fine as ever. And there's one new law. Every time the clock strikes you must all say "Halma!" aloud, every one of you, to remind yourselves of your great destiny, and that you are no longer slaves of the Great Sloth.'

She went back and explained machine guns very carefully to the now hard-working Sloth. When she came back all the men were at work digging a channel for the new river.

The women and children crowded round Lucy and Philip.

'Ah!' said the oldest woman of all, 'now we shall be able to wash in water. I've heard my grandmother say water was very pleasant to wash in. I never thought I should live to wash in water myself.'

'Why?' Lucy asked. 'What do you wash in?'

'Pine-apple juice,' said a dozen voices, 'when we do wash!'

'But that must be very sticky,' said Lucy.

'It is,' said the oldest woman of all; 'very!'

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The Magic City by Edith Nesbit Chapter 8 Ups and Downs

We left Lucy in tears and Philip in the grasp of the hateful Pretenderette, who, seated on the Hippogriff, was bearing him away across the smooth blueness of the wide sea.

'Oh, Mr. Noah,' said Lucy, between sniffs and sobs, 'how can she! You did say the Hippogriff could only carry one!'

'One ordinary human being,' said Mr. Noah gently; 'you forget that dear Philip is now an earl.'

'But do you really think he's safe?' Lucy asked.

'Yes,' said Mr. Noah. 'And now, dear Lucy, no more questions. Since your arrival on our shores I have been gradually growing more accustomed to being questioned, but I still find it unpleasant and fatiguing. Desist, I entreat.'

So Lucy desisted and every one went to bed, and, for crying is very tiring, to sleep. But not for long.

Lucy was awakened in her bed of soft dry seaweed by the sound of the castle alarm bell, and by the blaring of trumpets and the shouting of many voices. A bright light shone in at the window of her room. She jumped up and ran to the window and leaned out. Below lay the great courtyard of the castle, a moving sea of people on which hundreds of torches seemed to float, and the sound of shouting rose in the air as foam rises in the wind.

'The Fear! The Fear!' people were shouting. 'To the ark! to the ark!' And the black night that pressed round the castle was loud with the wild roar of waves and the shriek of a tumultuous wind.

Lucy ran to the door of her room. But suddenly she stopped.

'My clothes,' she said. And dressed herself hastily. For she perceived that her own petticoats and shoes were likely to have better wearing qualities than seaweed could possess, and if they were all going to take refuge in the ark, she felt she would rather have her own clothes on.

'Mr. Noah is sure to come for me,' she most sensibly told herself. 'And I'll get as many clothes on as I can.' Her own dress, of course, had been left at Polistopolis, but the ballet dress would be better than the seaweed tunic. When she was dressed she ran into Philip's room and rolled his clothes into a little bundle and carried it under her arm as she ran down the stairs. Half-way down she met Mr. Noah coming up.

'Ah! you're ready,' he said; 'it is well. Do not be alarmed, my Lucy. The tide is rising but slowly. There will be time for every one to escape. All is in train, and the embarkation of the animals is even now in progress. There has been a little delay in sorting the beasts into pairs. But we are getting on. The Lord High Islander is showing remarkable qualities. All the big animals are on board; the pigs were being coaxed on as I came up. And the ant-eaters are having a late supper. Do not be alarmed.'

'I can't help being alarmed,' said Lucy, slipping her free hand into Mr. Noah's, 'but I won't cry or be silly. Oh, I do wish Philip was here.'

'Most unreasonable of girl children,' said Mr. Noah; 'we are in danger and you wish him to be here to share it?'

'Oh, we are in danger, are we?' said Lucy quickly. 'I thought you said I wasn't to be alarmed.'

'No more you are,' said Mr. Noah shortly; 'of course you're in danger. But there's me. And there's the ark. What more do you want?'

'Nothing,' Lucy answered in a very small voice, and the two made their way to a raised platform overlooking the long inclined road which led up to the tower on which the ark had been built. A long procession toiled slowly up it of animals in pairs, urged and goaded by the M.A.'s under the orders of the Lord High Islander.

The wild wind blew the flames of the torches out like golden streamers, and the sound of the waves was like thunder on the shore.

Down below other M.A.'s were busy carrying bales tied up in seaweed. Seen from above the busy figures looked like ants when you kick into an ant-hill and the little ant people run this way and that way and every way about their little ant businesses.

The Lord High Islander came in pale and serious, with all the calm competence of Napoleon at a crisis.

'Sorry to have to worry you, sir,' he said to Mr. Noah, 'but of course your experience is invaluable just now. I can't remember what bears eat. Is it hay or meat?'

'It's buns,' said Lucy. 'I beg your pardon, Mr. Noah. Of course I ought to have waited for you to say.'

'In my ark,' said Mr. Noah, 'buns were unknown and bears were fed entirely on honey, the providing of which kept our pair of bees fully employed. But if you are sure bears like buns we must always be humane, dear Lucy, and study the natural taste of the animals in our charge.'

'They love them,' said Lucy.

'Buns and honey,' said the Lord Islander; 'and what about bats?'

'I don't know what bats eat,' said Mr. Noah; 'I believe it was settled after some discussion that they don't eat cats. But what they do eat is one of the eleven mysteries. You had better let the bats fast.'

'They are, sir,' said the Lord High Islander.

'And is all going well? Shall I come down and lend a personal eye?'

'I think I'm managing all right, sir,' said the Lord High Islander modestly. 'You see it's a great honour for me. The M.A.'s are carrying in the provisions, the boys are stowing them and also herding the beasts. They are very good workers, sir.'

'Are you frightened?' Lucy whispered, as he turned to go back to his overseeing.

'Not I,' said the Lord High Islander. 'Don't you understand that I've been promoted to be Lord Vice-Noah of Polistarchia? And of course the hearts of all Vice-Noahs are strangers to fear. But just think what a difficult thing Fear would have been to be a stranger to if you and Philip hadn't got us the ark!'

'It was Philip's doing,' said Lucy; 'oh, do you think he's all right?'

'I think his heart is a stranger to fear, naturally,' said the Lord High Islander, 'so he's certain to be all right.'

When the last of the animals had sniffed and snivelled its way into the ark--it was a porcupine with a cold in its head--the islanders, the M.A.'s, Lucy and Mr. Noah followed. And when every one was in, the door of the ark was shut from inside by an ingenious mechanical contrivance worked by a more than usually intelligent M.A.

You must not suppose that the inside of the ark was anything like the inside of your own Noah's ark, where all the animals are put in anyhow, all mixed together and wrong way up as likely as not. That, with live animals and live people, would, as you will readily imagine, be quite uncomfortable. The inside of the ark which had been built under the direction of Mr. Noah and Mr. Perrin was not at all like that. It was more like the inside of a big Atlantic liner than anything else I can think of. All the animals were stowed away in suitable stalls, and there were delightful cabins for all those for whom cabins were suitable. The islanders and the M.A.'s retired to their cabins in perfect order, and Lucy and Mr. Noah, Mr. Perrin and the Lord High Islander gathered in the saloon, which was large and had walls and doors of inlaid mother-of-pearl and pink coral. It was lighted by glass globes filled with phosphorus collected by an ingenious process invented by another of the M.A.'s.

'And now,' said Mr. Noah, 'I beg that anxiety may be dismissed from every mind. If the waters subside, they leave us safe. If they rise, as I confidently expect them to do, our ark will float, and we still are safe. In the morning I will take soundings and begin to steer a course. We will select a suitable spot on the shore, land and proceed to the Hidden Places, where we will consult the oracle. A little refreshment before we retire for what is left of the night? A captain's biscuit would perhaps not be inappropriate?' He took a tin from a locker and handed it round.

'That's A1, sir,' said the Lord High Islander, munching. 'What a head you have for the right thing.'

'All practice,' said Mr. Noah modestly.

'Thank you,' said Lucy, taking a biscuit; 'I wish. . . .'

The sentence was never finished. With a sickening suddenness the floor of the saloon heaved up under their feet, a roaring surging battering sound broke round them; the saloon tipped over on one side and the whole party was thrown on the pink silk cushions of the long settee. A shudder seemed to run through the ark from end to end, and 'What is it? Oh! what is it?' cried Lucy as the ark heeled over the other way and the unfortunate occupants were thrown on to the opposite set of cushions. (It really was, now, rather like what you imagine the inside of your Noah's ark must be when you put in Mr. Noah and his family and a few hastily chosen animals and shake them all up together.)

'It's the sea,' cried the Lord High Islander; 'it's the great Fear come upon us! And I'm not afraid!' He drew himself up as well as he could in his cramped position, with Mr. Noah's elbow pinning his shoulder down and Mr. Perrin's boot on his ear.

With a shake and a shiver the ark righted itself, and the floor of the saloon got flat again.

'It's all right,' said Mr. Perrin, resuming control of his boot; 'good workmanship, it do tell. She ain't shipped a drop, Mr. Noah, sir.'

'It's all right,' said Mr. Noah, taking his elbow to himself and standing up rather shakily on his yellow mat.

'We're afloat, we're afloat On the dark rolling tide; The ark's water-tight And the crew are inside.

'Up, up with the flag Let it wave o'er the sea; We're afloat, we're afloat-- And what else should we be?'

'I don't know,' said Lucy; 'but there isn't any flag, is there?'

'The principle's the same,' said Mr. Noah; 'but I'm afraid we didn't think of a flag.'

'I did,' said Mr. Perrin; 'it's only a Jubilee hankey'--he drew it slowly from his breast-pocket, a cotton Union Jack it was--'but it shall wave all right. But not till daylight, I think, sir. Discretion's the better part of--don't you think, Mr. Noah, sir? Wouldn't do to open the ark out of hours, so to speak!'

'Just so,' said Mr. Noah. 'One, two, three! Bed!'

The ark swayed easily on a sea not too rough. The saloon passengers staggered to their cabins. And silence reigned in the ark.

* * * * * * *

I am sorry to say that the Pretenderette dropped the wicker cage containing the parrot into the sea--an unpardonable piece of cruelty and revenge; unpardonable, that is, unless you consider that she did not really know any better. The Hippogriff's white wings swept on; Philip, now laid across the knees of the Pretenderette (a most undignified attitude for any boy, and I hope none of you may be placed in such a position), screamed as the cage struck the water, and, 'Oh, Polly!' he cried.

'All right,' the parrot answered; 'keep your pecker up!'

'What did it say?' the Pretenderette asked.

'Something about peck,' said Philip upside down.

'Ah!' said the Pretenderette with satisfaction, 'he won't do any more pecking for some time to come.' And the wide Hippogriff wings swept on over the wide sea.

Polly's cage fell and floated. And it floated alone till the dawn, when, with wheelings and waftings and cries, the gulls came from far and near to see what this new strange thing might be that bobbed up and down in their waters in the light of the new-born day.

'Hullo!' said Polly in bird-talk, clinging upside down to the top bars of the cage.

'Hullo, yourself,' replied the eldest gull; 'what's up? And who are you? And what are you doing in that unnatural lobster pot?'

'I conjure you,' said the parrot earnestly, 'I conjure you by our common birdhood to help me in my misfortune.'

'No gull who is a gull can resist that appeal,' said the master of the sea birds; 'what can we do, brother-bird?'

'The matter is urgent,' said Polly, but quite calmly. 'I am getting very wet and I dislike salt water. It is bad for my plumage. May I give an order to your followers, bird-brother?'

'Give,' said the master gull, with a graceful wheel and whirl of his splendid wings.

'Let four of my brothers raise this detested trap high above the waves,' said the parrot, 'and let others of you, with your brave strong beaks, break through the bars and set me free.'

'Delighted,' said the master gull; 'any little thing, you know,' and his own high-bred beak was the first to take hold of the cage, which presently the gulls lifted in the air and broke through, setting the parrot free.

'Thank you, brother-birds,' the parrot said, shaking wet wings and spreading them; 'one good turn deserves another. The beach yonder was white with cockles but yesterday.'

'Thank you, brother-bird,' they all said, and flew fleetly cocklewards.

And that was how the parrot got free from the cage and went back to the shore to have that little talk with the blugraiwee which I told you about in the last chapter.

* * * * * * *

The ark was really very pleasant by daylight with the sun shining in at its windows. The sun shone outside as well, of course, and the Union Jack waved cheerfully in the wind. Breakfast was served on the terrace at the end of the ark--you know--that terrace where the boat part turns up. It was a very nice breakfast, and the sea was quite smooth--a quite perfect sea. This was rather fortunate, for there was nothing else. Sea on every side of the ark. No land at all.

'However shall we find the way,' Lucy asked the Lord High Islander, 'with nothing but sea?'

'Oh,' he answered, 'that's all the better, really. Mr. Noah steers much better when there's no land in sight. It's all practice, you know.'

'And when we come in sight of land, will he steer badly then?'

'Oh, anybody can steer then,' said Billy; 'you if you like.' So it was Lucy who steered the ark into harbour, under Mr. Noah's directions. Arks are very easy to steer if you only know the way. Of course arks are not like other vessels; they require neither sails nor steam engines, nor oars to make them move. The very arkishness of the ark makes it move just as the steersman wishes. He only has to say 'Port,' 'Starboard,' 'Right ahead,' 'Slow' and so on, and the ark (unlike many people I know) immediately does as it is told. So steering was easy and pleasant; one just had to keep the ark's nose towards the distant domes and pinnacles of a town that shone and glittered on the shore a few miles away. And the town grew nearer and nearer, and the black streak that was the people of the town began to show white dots that were the people's faces. And then the ark was moored against a quay side, and a friendly populace cheered as Mr. Noah stepped on to firm land, to be welcomed by the governor of the town and a choice selection of eminent citizens.

'It's quite an event for them,' said Mr. Perrin. 'They don't have much happening here. A very lazy lot they be, almost as bad as Somnolentia.'

'What makes them lazy?' Lucy asked.

'It's owing to the onions and potatoes growing wild in these parts, I believe,' said the Lord High Islander. 'They get enough to eat without working. And the onions make them sleepy.'

They talked apart while Mr. Noah was arranging things with the Governor of the town, who had come down to the harbour in a hurry and a flurry and a furry gown.

'I've arranged everything,' said Mr. Noah at last. 'The islanders and the M.A.'s and the animals are to be allowed to camp in the public park till we've consulted the oracle and decided what's to be done with them. They must live somewhere, I suppose. Life has become much too eventful for me lately. However there are only three more deeds for the Earl of Ark to do, and then perhaps we shall have a little peace and quietness.'

'The Earl of Ark?' Lucy repeated.

'Philip, you know. I do wish you'd try to remember that he's an earl now. Now you and I must take camel and be off.'

And now came seven long days of camel travelling, through desert and forest and over hill and through valley, till at last Lucy and Mr. Noah came to the Hidden Place where the oracle is, and where that is I may not tell you--because it's one of the eleven mysteries. And I must not tell you what the oracle is because that is another of the mysteries. But I may tell you that if you want to consult the oracle you have to go a long way between rows of round pillars, rather like those in Egyptian tombs. And as you go it gets darker and darker, and when it is quite dark you see a little, little light a very long way off, and you hear very far away, a beautiful music, and you smell the scent of flowers that do not grow in any wood or field or garden of this earth. Mixed with this scent is the scent of incense and of old tapestried rooms, where no one has lived for a very long time. And you remember all the sad and beautiful things you have ever seen or heard, and you fall down on the ground and hide your face in your hands and call on the oracle, and if you are the right sort of person the oracle answers you.

Lucy and Mr. Noah waited in the dark for the voice of the oracle, and at last it spoke. Lucy heard no words, only the most beautiful voice in the world speaking softly, and so sweetly and finely and bravely that at once she felt herself brave enough to dare any danger, and strong enough to do any deed that might be needed to get Philip out of the clutches of the base Pretenderette. All the tiredness of her long journey faded away, and but for the thought that Philip needed her, she would have been content to listen for ever to that golden voice. Everything else in the world faded away and grew to seem worthless and unmeaning. Only the soft golden voice remained and the grey hard voice that said, 'You've got to look after Philip, you know!' And the two voices together made a harmony more beautiful than you will find in any of Beethoven's sonatas. Because Lucy knew that she should follow the grey voice, and remember the golden voice as long as she lived.

But something was tiresomely pulling at her sleeve, dragging her away from the wonderful golden voice. Mr. Noah was pulling her sleeve and saying, 'Come away,' and they turned their backs on the little light and the music and the enchanting perfumes, and instantly the voice stopped and they were walking between dusky pillars towards a far grey speck of sunlight.

It was not till they were once more under the bare sky that Lucy said:

'What did it say?'

'You must have heard,' said Mr. Noah.

'I only heard the voice and what it meant. I didn't understand the words. But the voice was like dreams and everything beautiful I've ever thought of.'

'I thought it a wonderfully straight-forward business-like oracle,' said Mr. Noah briskly; 'and the voice was quite distinct and I remember every word it said.'

(Which just shows how differently the same thing may strike two people.)

'What did it say?' Lucy asked, trotting along beside him, still clutching Philip's bundle, which through all these days she had never let go.

And Mr. Noah gravely recited the following lines. I agree with him that, for an oracle, they were extremely straightforward.

'You had better embark Once again in the Ark, And sailing from dryland Make straight for the Island.'

'Did it really say that?' Lucy asked.

'Of course it did,' said Mr. Noah; 'that's a special instruction to me, but I daresay you heard something quite different. The oracle doesn't say the same thing to every one, of course. Didn't you get any special instruction?'

'Only to try to be brave and good,' said Lucy shyly.

'Well, then,' said Mr. Noah, 'you carry out your instructions and I'll carry out mine.'

'But what's the use of going to the island if you can't land when you get there?' Lucy insisted. 'You know only two people can land there, and we're not them, are we?'

'Oh, if you begin asking what's the use, we shan't get anywhere,' said Mr. Noah. 'And more than half the things you say are questions.'

* * * * * * *

I'm sorry this chapter is cut up into bits with lines of stars, but stars are difficult to avoid when you have to tell about a lot of different things happening all at once. That is why it is much better always to keep your party together if you can. And I have allowed mine to get separated so that Philip, the parrot and the rest of the company are going through three sets of adventures all at the same time. This is most trying for me, and fully accounts for the stars. Which I hope you'll excuse. However.

We now come back by way of the stars to Philip wrong way up in the clutches of the Pretenderette. She had breathed the magic word in the Hippogriff's ear, but she had not added any special order. So the Hippogriff was entirely its own master as far as the choice of where it was to go was concerned. It tossed its white mane after circling three times between air and sky, made straight for the Island-where-you-mayn't-go. The Pretenderette didn't know that it was the Island-where-you-mayn't-go, and as they got nearer and she could see plainly its rainbow-coloured sands, its palms and its waterfalls, its cool green thickets and many tinted flowers and glowing fruits, it seemed to her that she might do worse than land there and rest for a little while. For even the most disagreeable people get tired sometimes, and the Pretenderette had had a hard day of it. So she made no attempt to check the Hippogriff or alter its course. And when the Hippogriff was hovering but a few inches from the grass of the most beautiful of the island glades, she jerked Philip roughly off her knee and he fell all in a heap on the ground. With great presence of mind our hero--if he isn't a hero by now he never will be--picked himself up and bolted into the bushes. No rabbit could have bolted more instantly and fleetly.

'I'll teach you,' said the furious Pretenderette, preparing to alight. She looked down to find a soft place to jump on. And then she saw that every blade of grass was a tiny spear of steel, and every spear was pointed at her. She made the Hippogriff take her to another glade--more little steel spears. To the rainbow sands--but on looking at them she saw that they were quivering quicksands. Wherever green grass had grown the spears now grew; and wherever the sand was it was a terrible trap of quicksand. She tried to dismount in a little pool, but fortunately for her she noticed in time that what shone in it so silvery was not water but white-hot molten metal.

'What a nasty place,' said the Pretenderette; 'I don't know that I could have chosen a nastier place to leave that naughty child in. He'll know who's master by the time I send to fetch him back to prison. Here, you, get back to Polistopolis as fast as you can. See? Please, I mean,' she added, and then she spoke the magic word.

Philip was peeping through the bushes close by, and he heard that magic word (I dare not tell you what it is) and he saw for the first time the face of the Pretenderette. And he trembled and shivered in his bushy lurking-place. For the Pretenderette was the only really unpleasant person Philip had ever met in the world. It was Lucy's nurse, the nurse with the grey dress and the big fat feet, who had been so cross to him and had pulled down his city.

'How on earth,' Philip wondered to himself, 'did she get here? And how on earth shall I get away from her?' He had not seen the spears and the quicksands and the molten metal, and he was waiting unhappily for her to alight, and for a game of hide and seek to begin, which he was not at all anxious to play.

Even as he wondered, the Hippogriff spread wings and flew away. And Philip was left alone on the island. But what did that matter? It was much better to be alone than with that Pretenderette. And for Philip there were no white-hot metal and spears and snares of quicksand, only dewy grass and sweet flowers and trees and safety and delight.

'If only Lucy were here,' he said.

When he was quite sure that the Pretenderette was really gone, he came out and explored the island. It had on it every kind of flower and fruit that you can think of, all growing together. There were gold oranges and white orange flowers, pink apple-blossom and red apples, cherries and cherry-blossom, strawberry flowers and strawberries, all growing together, wild and sweet.

At the back of his mind Philip remembered that he had, at some time or other, heard of an island where fruit and blossoms grew together at the same time, but that was all he could remember. He passed through the lovely orchards and came to a lake. It was frozen. And he remembered that, in the island he had heard of, there was a lake ready for skating even when the flowers and fruit were on the trees. Then he came to a little summer-house built all of porcupine quills like Helen's pen-box.

And then he knew. All these wonders were on the island that he and Helen had invented long ago--the island that she used to draw maps of.

'It's our very own island,' he said, and a glorious feeling of being at home glowed through him, warm and delightful. 'We said no one else might come here! That's why the Pretenderette couldn't land. And why they call it the Island-where-you-mayn't-go. I'll find the bun tree and have something to eat, and then I'll go to the boat-house and get out the Lightning Loose and go back for Lucy. I do wish I could bring her here. But of course I can't without asking Helen.'

The Lightning Loose was the magic yacht Helen had invented for the island.

He soon found a bush whose fruit was buns, and a jam-tart tree grew near it. You have no idea how nice jam tarts can taste till you have gathered them yourself, fresh and sticky, from the tree. They are as sticky as horse-chestnut buds, and much nicer to eat.

As he went towards the boat-house he grew happier and happier, recognising, one after the other, all the places he and Helen had planned and marked on the map. He passed by the marble and gold house with King's Palace painted on the door. He longed to explore it: but the thought of Lucy drove him on. As he went down a narrow leafy woodland path towards the boat-house, he passed the door of the dear little thatched cottage (labelled Queen's Palace) which was the house Helen had insisted that she liked best for her very own.

'How pretty it is; I wish Helen was here,' he said; 'she helped to make it. I should never have thought of it without her. She ought to be here,' he said. With that he felt very lonely, all of a sudden, and very sad. And as he went on, wondering whether in all this magic world there might not somehow be some magic strong enough to bring Helen there to see the island that was their very own, and to give her consent to his bringing Lucy to it, he turned a corner in the woodland path, and walked straight into the arms of--Helen.

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