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diff --git a/old/50361-0.txt b/old/50361-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 09d135d..0000000 --- a/old/50361-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,6686 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of Wet Magic, by E. Nesbit - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: Wet Magic - -Author: E. Nesbit - -Illustrator: H. R. Millar - -Release Date: November 1, 2015 [eBook #50361] -[Most recently updated: September 26, 2023] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -Produced by: Greg Weeks and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net -Revised by Richard Tonsing. - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WET MAGIC *** - - - - -_Wet Magic_ - -[Illustration] - - - - -[Illustration: _The sea came pouring in._] - - - - - _Wet Magic_ - - E. NESBIT - WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY H. R. MILLAR - - - - - _Copyright © 1913 by E Nesbit_ - _Illustrations copyright © 1913 by H. R. Millar_ - - - - - _To - Dr. E. N. da C. Andrade_, - - FROM - E. NESBIT - - [Illustration] - - WELL HALL, - KENT - - - - -_Contents_ - - - CHAPTER I - SABRINA FAIR 1 - - CHAPTER II - THE CAPTIVE 13 - - CHAPTER III - THE RESCUE 30 - - CHAPTER IV - GRATITUDE 51 - - CHAPTER V - CONSEQUENCES 61 - - CHAPTER VI - THE MERMAID’S HOME 69 - - CHAPTER VII - THE SKIES ARE FALLING 84 - - CHAPTER VIII - THE WATER-WAR 101 - - CHAPTER IX - THE BOOK PEOPLE 116 - - CHAPTER X - THE UNDER FOLK 135 - - CHAPTER XI - THE PEACEMAKER 154 - - - CHAPTER XII - THE END 167 - - - - -_Illustrations_ - - - _The sea came pouring in._ _Frontispiece_ - - “_We die in captivity._” _26_ - - “_‘Translucent wave,’ indeed!_” _42_ - - “_The police._” _54_ - - _And disappeared entirely._ _59_ - - _She caught Kathleen in her arms._ _79_ - - _The golden door._ _82_ - - _The Swordfish Brigade._ _103_ - - _The First Dipsys._ _110_ - - _Book Hatefuls._ _122_ - - _Book Heroines._ _130_ - - _In the net._ _137_ - - _The Hall of Public Archives._ _149_ - - _The chargers of the Horse Marines._ _152_ - - - - -CHAPTER ONE - -_Sabrina Fair_ - - -THAT GOING TO THE SEASIDE was the very beginning of everything—only it -seemed as though it were going to be a beginning without an end, like -the roads on the Sussex downs which look like roads and then look like -paths, and then turn into sheep tracks, and then are just grass and -furze bushes and tottergrass and harebells and rabbits and chalk. - -The children had been counting the days to The Day. Bernard indeed had -made a calendar on a piece of cardboard that had once been the bottom -of the box in which his new white sandshoes came home. He marked the -divisions of the weeks quite neatly in red ink, and the days were -numbered in blue ink, and every day he crossed off one of those numbers -with a piece of green chalk he happened to have left out of a penny -box. Mavis had washed and ironed all the dolls’ clothes at least a -fortnight before The Day. This was thoughtful and farsighted of her, of -course, but it was a little trying to Kathleen, who was much younger -and who would have preferred to go on playing with her dolls in their -dirtier and more familiar state. - -“Well, if you do,” said Mavis, a little hot and cross from the ironing -board, “I’ll never wash anything for you again, not even your face.” - -Kathleen somehow felt as if she could bear that. - -“But mayn’t I have just one of the dolls” was, however, all she said, -“just the teeniest, weeniest one? Let me have Lord Edward. His head’s -half gone as it is, and I could dress him in a clean hanky and pretend -it was kilts.” - -Mavis could not object to this, because, of course, whatever else she -washed she didn’t wash hankies. So Lord Edward had his pale kilts, and -the other dolls were put away in a row in Mavis’s corner drawer. It was -after that that Mavis and Francis had long secret consultations—and -when the younger ones asked questions they were told, “It’s secrets. -You’ll know in good time.” This, of course, excited everyone very -much indeed—and it was rather a comedown when the good time came, and -the secret proved to be nothing more interesting than a large empty -aquarium which the two elders had clubbed their money together to buy, -for eight-and ninepence in the Old Kent Road. They staggered up the -front garden path with it, very hot and tired. - -“But what are you going to do with it?” Kathleen asked, as they all -stood around the nursery table looking at it. - -“Fill it with seawater,” Francis explained, “to put sea anemones in.” - -“Oh yes,” said Kathleen with enthusiasm, “and the crabs and starfish -and prawns and the yellow periwinkles—and all the common objects of the -seashore.” - -“We’ll stand it in the window,” Mavis added: “it’ll make the lodgings -look so distinguished.” - -“And then perhaps some great scientific gentleman, like Darwin or -Faraday, will see it as he goes by, and it will be such a joyous -surprise to him to come face-to-face with our jellyfish; he’ll offer -to teach Francis all about science for nothing—I see,” said Kathleen -hopefully. - -“But how will you get it to the seaside?” Bernard asked, leaning his -hands on the schoolroom table and breathing heavily into the aquarium, -so that its shining sides became dim and misty. “It’s much too big to -go in the boxes, you know.” - -“Then I’ll carry it,” said Francis, “it won’t be in the way at all—I -carried it home today.” - -“We had to take the bus, you know,” said truthful Mavis, “and then I -had to help you.” - -“I don’t believe they’ll let you take it at all,” said Bernard—if you -know anything of grown-ups you will know that Bernard proved to be -quite right. - -“Take an aquarium to the seaside—nonsense!” they said. And “What for?” -not waiting for the answer. “They,” just at present, was Aunt Enid. - -Francis had always been passionately fond of water. Even when he was -a baby he always stopped crying the moment they put him in the bath. -And he was the little boy who, at the age of four, was lost for three -hours and then brought home by the police who had found him sitting in -a horse trough in front of the Willing Mind, wet to the topmost hair of -his head, and quite happy, entertaining a circle of carters with pots -of beer in their hands. There was very little water in the horse trough -and the most talkative of the carters explained that, the kid being -that wet at the first start off, him and his mates thought he was as -safe in the trough as anywhere—the weather being what it was and all -them nasty motors and trams about. - -To Francis, passionately attracted as he was by water in all forms, -from the simple mud puddle to the complicated machinery by which your -bath supply is enabled to get out of order, it was a real tragedy that -he had never seen the sea. Something had always happened to prevent -it. Holidays had been spent in green countries where there were rivers -and wells and ponds, and waters deep and wide—but the water had been -fresh water, and the green grass had been on each side of it. One great -charm of the sea, as he had heard of it, was that it had nothing on the -other side “so far as eye could see.” There was a lot about the sea in -poetry, and Francis, curiously enough, liked poetry. - -The buying of the aquarium had been an attempt to make sure that, -having found the sea, he should not lose it again. He imagined the -aquarium fitted with a real rock in the middle, to which radiant sea -anemones clung and limpets stuck. There were to be yellow periwinkles -too, and seaweeds, and gold and silver fish (which don’t live in the -sea by the way, only Francis didn’t know this), flitting about in -radiant scaly splendor, among the shadows of the growing water plants. -He had thought it all out—how a cover might be made, very light, with -rubber in between, like a screw-top bottle, to keep the water in while -it traveled home in the guard’s van to the admiration of passengers and -porters at both stations. And now—he was not to be allowed to take it. - -He told Mavis, and she agreed with him that it was a shame. - -“But I’ll tell you what,” she said, for she was not one of those -comforters who just say, “I’m sorry,” and don’t try to help. She -generally thought of something that would make things at any rate just -a little better. “Let’s fill it with fresh water, and get some goldfish -and sand and weeds; and I’ll make Eliza promise to put ants’ eggs -in—that’s what they eat—and it’ll be something to break the dreadful -shock when we have to leave the sea and come home again.” - -Francis admitted that there was something in this and consented to fill -the aquarium with water from the bath. When this was done the aquarium -was so heavy that the combined efforts of all four children could not -begin to move it. - -“Never mind,” said Mavis, the consoler; “let’s empty it out again and -take it back to the common room, and then fill it by secret jugfuls, -carried separately, you know.” - -This might have been successful, but Aunt Enid met the first secret -jugful—and forbade the second. - -“Messing about,” she called it. “No, of course I shan’t allow you -to waste your money on fish.” And Mother was already at the seaside -getting the lodgings ready for them. Her last words had been— - -“Be sure you do exactly what Aunt Enid says.” So, of course, they had -to. Also Mother had said, “Don’t argue,” so they had not even the -melancholy satisfaction of telling Aunt Enid that she was quite wrong, -and that they were not messing about at all. - -Aunt Enid was not a real aunt, but just an old friend of Grandmamma’s, -with an aunt’s name and privileges and rather more than an aunt’s -authority. She was much older than a real aunt and not half so nice. -She was what is called “firm” with children, and no one ever called her -auntie. Just Aunt Enid. That will tell you in a moment. - -So there the aquarium was, dishearteningly dry—for even the few drops -left in it from its first filling dried up almost at once. - -Even in its unwatery state, however, the aquarium was beautiful. It had -not any of that ugly ironwork with red lead showing between the iron -and the glass which you may sometimes have noticed in the aquariums of -your friends. No, it was one solid thick piece of clear glass, faintly -green, and when you stooped down and looked through you could almost -fancy that there really was water in it. - -“Let’s put flowers in it,” Kathleen suggested, “and pretend they’re -anemones. Do let’s, Francis.” - -“I don’t care what you do,” said Francis. “I’m going to read _The Water -Babies_.” - -“Then we’ll do it, and make it a lovely surprise for you,” said -Kathleen cheerily. - -Francis sat down squarely with _The Water Babies_ flat before him on -the table, where also his elbows were, and the others, respecting his -sorrow, stole quietly away. Mavis just stepped back to say, “I say, -France, you don’t mind their putting flowers? It’s to please you, you -know.” - -“I tell you I don’t mind _anything_,” said Francis savagely. - -When the three had finished with it, the aquarium really looked rather -nice, and, if you stooped down and looked sideways through the glass, -like a real aquarium. - -Kathleen took some clinkers from the back of the rockery—“where they -won’t show,” she said—and Mavis induced these to stand up like an -arch in the middle of the glassy square. Tufts of long grass, rather -sparingly arranged, looked not unlike waterweed. Bernard begged from -the cook some of the fine silver sand which she uses to scrub the -kitchen tables and dressers with, and Mavis cut the thread of the -Australian shell necklace that Uncle Robert sent her last Christmas, so -that there should be real, shimmery, silvery shells on the sand. (This -was rather self-sacrificing of her, because she knew she would have to -put them all back again on their string, and you know what a bother -shells are to thread.) They shone delightfully through the glass. But -the great triumph was the sea anemones—pink and red and yellow—clinging -to the rocky arch just as though they were growing there. - -“Oh, lovely, lovely,” Kathleen cried, as Mavis fixed the last delicate -flesh-tinted crown. “Come and look, France.” - -“Not yet,” said Mavis, in a great hurry, and she tied the thread of the -necklace round a tin goldfish (out of the box with the duck and the -boat and the mackerel and the lobster and the magnet that makes them -all move about—you know) and hung it from the middle of the arch. It -looked just as though it were swimming—you hardly noticed the thread at -all. - -“_Now_, France,” she called. And Francis came slowly with his thumb in -_The Water Babies_. It was nearly dark by now, but Mavis had lighted -the four dollhouse candles in the gilt candlesticks and set them on the -table around the aquarium. - -“Look through the side,” she said; “isn’t it ripping?” - -“Why,” said Francis slowly, “you’ve got water in it—and real anemones! -Where on earth...?” - -“Not real,” said Mavis. “I wish they were; they’re only dahlias. But it -does look pretty, doesn’t it?” - -“It’s like Fairyland,” said Kathleen, and Bernard added, “I _am_ glad -you bought it.” - -“It just shows what it will be like when we _do_ get the sea -creatures,” said Mavis. “Oh, Francis, you do like it, don’t you?” - -“Oh, I like it all right,” he answered, pressing his nose against the -thick glass, “but I wanted it to be waving weeds and mysterious wetness -like the Sabrina picture.” - -The other three glanced at the picture which hung over the -mantelpiece—Sabrina and the water nymphs, drifting along among the -waterweeds and water lilies. There were words under the picture, and -Francis dreamily began to say them: - - “‘_Sabrina fair, - Listen where thou art sitting, - Under the glassie, cool, translucent wave - In twisted braids of Lillies knitting - The loose train of thy amber-dropping hair...._’” - -“Hullo—what was that?” he said in quite a different voice, and jumped -up. - -“What was what?” the others naturally asked. - -“Did you put something alive in there?” Francis asked. - -“Of course not,” said Mavis. “Why?” - -“Well, I saw something move, that’s all.” - -They all crowded around and peered over the glass walls. Nothing, of -course, but the sand and the grass and the shells, the clinkers and the -dahlias and the little suspended tin goldfish. - -“I expect the goldfish swung a bit,” said Bernard. “That’s what it must -have been.” - -“It didn’t look like that,” Francis answered. “It looked more like—” - -“Like what?” - -“I don’t know—get out of the light. Let’s have another squint.” - -He stooped down and looked again through the glass. - -“It’s not the goldfish,” he said. “That’s as quiet as a trout asleep. -No—I suppose it was a shadow or something.” - -“You might tell us what it looked like,” said Kathleen. - -“Was it like a rat?” Bernard asked with interest. - -“Not a bit. It was more like—” - -“Well, like what?” asked three aggravated voices. - -“Like Sabrina—only very, very tiny.” - -“A sort of doll—Sabrina,” said Kathleen, “how awfully jolly!” - -“It wasn’t at all like a doll, and it wasn’t jolly,” said Francis -shortly—“only I wish it would come again.” - -It didn’t, however. - -“I say,” said Mavis, struck by a new idea, “perhaps it’s a magic -aquarium.” - -“Let’s play it is,” suggested Kathleen—“let’s play it’s a magic glass -and we can see what we like in it. I see a fairy palace with gleaming -spires of crystal and silver.” - -“I see a football match, and our chaps winning,” said Bernard heavily, -joining in the new game. - -“Shut up,” said Francis. “That isn’t play. There was something.” - -“Suppose it is magic,” said Mavis again. - -“We’ve played magic so often, and nothing’s ever happened—even when we -made the fire of sweet-scented woods and eastern gums, and all that,” -said Bernard; “it’s much better to pretend right away. We always have -to in the end. Magic just wastes time. There isn’t any magic really, is -there, Mavis?” - -“Shut up, I tell you,” was the only answer of Francis, his nose now -once more flattened against the smooth green glass. - -Here Aunt Enid’s voice was heard on the landing outside, saying, -“Little ones—bed,” in no uncertain tones. - -The two grunted as it were in whispers, but there was no appeal against -Aunt Enid, and they went, their grunts growing feebler as they crossed -the room, and dying away in a despairing silence as they and Aunt Enid -met abruptly at the top of the stairs. - -“Shut the door,” said Francis, in a strained sort of voice. And -Mavis obeyed, even though he hadn’t said “please.” She really was an -excellent sister. Francis, in moments of weakness, had gone so far as -to admit that she wasn’t half bad. - -“I say,” she said when the click of the latch assured her that they -were alone, “how could it be magic? We never said any spell.” - -“No more we did,” said Francis, “unless—And besides, it’s all nonsense, -of course, about magic. It’s just a game we play, isn’t it?” - -“Yes, of course,” Mavis said doubtfully; “but what did you mean by -‘unless’?” - -“We weren’t saying any spells, were we?” - -“No, of course we weren’t—we weren’t saying anything—” - -“As it happens _I_ was.” - -“Was what? When?” - -“When it happened.” - -“What happened?” - -Will it be believed that Aunt Enid chose this moment for opening the -door just wide enough to say, “Mavis—bed.” And Mavis had to go. But as -she went she said again: “What happened?” - -“_It_,” said Francis, “whatever it was. I was saying....” - -“MAVIS!” called Aunt Enid. - -“Yes, Aunt Enid—you were saying _what_?” - -“I was saying, ‘_Sabrina fair_,’” said Francis, “do you think—but, -of course, it couldn’t have been—and all dry like that, no water or -anything.” - -“Perhaps magic _has_ to be dry,” said Mavis. “Coming, Aunt Enid! It -seems to be mostly burning things, and, of course, that wouldn’t do in -the water. What _did_ you see?” - -“It looked like Sabrina,” said Francis—“only tiny, tiny. Not -doll-small, you know, but live-small, like through the wrong end of a -telescope. I do wish you’d seen it.” - -“Say, ‘Sabrina fair’ again quick while I look.” - - “‘_Sabrina fair, - Listen where thou art sitting, - Under the—_’” - -“Oh, Mavis, it is—it did. There’s something there truly. Look!” - -“Where?” said Mavis. “I can’t see—oh, let me look.” - -“MAVIS!” called Aunt Enid very loud indeed; and Mavis tore herself away. - -“I must go,” she said. “Never mind, we’ll look again tomorrow. Oh, -France, if it _should_ be—magic, I mean—I’ll tell you what—” - -But she never told him what, for Aunt Enid swept in and swept -out, bearing Mavis away, as it were, in a whirlwind of impatient -exasperation, and, without seeming to stop to do it, blowing out the -four candles as she came and went. - -At the door she turned to say, “Good night, Francis. Your bath’s turned -on ready. Be sure you wash well behind your ears. We shan’t have much -time in the morning.” - -“But Mavis always bathes first,” said he. “I’m the eldest.” - -“Don’t argue, child, for goodness’ sake,” said Aunt Enid. “Mavis is -having the flat bath in my bedroom to save time. Come—no nonsense,” she -paused at the door to say. “Let me see you go. Right about face—quick -march!” - -And he had to. - -“If she must pretend to give orders like drill, she might at least -learn to say ‘’Bout turn!’” he reflected, struggling with his collar -stud in the steaming bathroom. “Never mind. I’ll get up early and see -if I can’t see it again.” - -And so he did—but early as he was, Aunt Enid and the servants were -earlier. The aquarium was empty—clear, clean, shining and quite empty. - -Aunt Enid could not understand why Francis ate so little breakfast. - -“What has she done with them?” he wondered later. - -“_I_ know,” said Bernard solemnly. “She told Esther to put them on the -kitchen fire—I only just saved my fish.” - -“And what about my shells?” asked Mavis in sudden fear. - -“Oh, she took those to take care of. Said you weren’t old enough to -take care of them yourself.” - -You will wonder why the children did not ask their Aunt Enid right -out what had become of the contents of the aquarium. Well, you don’t -know their Aunt Enid. And besides, even on that first morning, -before anything that really _was_ anything could be said to have -happened—for, after all, what Francis said he had seen might have been -just fancy—there was a sort of misty, curious, trembling feeling at -the hearts of Mavis and her brother which made them feel that they did -not want to talk about the aquarium and what had been in it to any -grown-up—and least of all to their Aunt Enid. - -And leaving the aquarium, that was the hardest thing of all. They -thought of telegraphing to Mother, to ask whether, after all, they -mightn’t bring it—but there was first the difficulty of wording a -telegram so that their mother would understand and not deem it insanity -or a practical joke—secondly, the fact that ten-pence half-penny, which -was all they had between them, would not cover the baldest statement of -the facts. - - _MRS DESMOND, - CARE OF MRS PEARCE, - EAST CLIFF VILLA, - LEWIS ROAD, - WEST BEACHFIELD-ON-SEA, SUSSEX_ - -alone would be eightpence—and the simplest appeal, such as “May we -bring aquarium please say yes wire reply” brought the whole thing -hopelessly beyond their means. - -“It’s no good,” said Francis hopelessly. “And, anyway,” said Kathleen, -“there wouldn’t be time to get an answer before we go.” - -No one had thought of this. It was a sort of backhanded consolation. - -“But think of coming back to it,” said Mavis: “it’ll be something -to live for, when we come back from the sea and everything else is -beastly.” - -And it was. - - - - -CHAPTER TWO - -_The Captive_ - - -THE DELICATE pinkish bloom of newness was on the wooden spades, the -slick smoothness of the painted pails showed neither scratch nor dent -on their green and scarlet surface—the shrimping nets were full and -fluffy as, once they and sand and water had met, they never could be -again. The pails and spades and nets formed the topmost layer of a -pile of luggage—you know the sort of thing, with the big boxes at the -bottom; and the carryall bulging with its wraps and mackers; the old -portmanteau that shows its striped lining through the crack and is so -useful for putting boots in; and the sponge bag, and all the little -things that get left out. You can almost always squeeze a ball or a -paint box or a box of chalks or any of those things—which grown-ups say -you won’t really want till you come back—into that old portmanteau—and -then when it’s being unpacked at the journey’s end the most that can -happen will be that someone will say, “I thought I told you not to -bring that,” and if you don’t answer back, that will be all. But most -likely in the agitation of unpacking and settling in, your tennis ball, -or pencil box, or whatever it is, will pass unnoticed. Of course, you -can’t shove an aquarium into the old portmanteau—nor a pair of rabbits, -nor a hedgehog—but anything in reason you can. - -The luggage that goes in the van is not much trouble—of course, it -has to be packed and to be strapped, and labeled and looked after at -the junction, but apart from that the big luggage behaves itself, -keeps itself to itself, and like your elder brothers at college never -occasions its friends a moment’s anxiety. It is the younger fry of the -luggage family, the things you have with you in the carriage that are -troublesome—the bundle of umbrellas and walking sticks, the golf clubs, -the rugs, the greatcoats, the basket of things to eat, the books you -are going to read in the train and as often as not you never look at -them, the newspapers that the grown-ups are tired of and yet don’t want -to throw away, their little bags or dispatch cases and suitcases and -card cases, and scarfs and gloves— - -The children were traveling under the care of Aunt Enid, who always had -far more of these tiresome odds and ends than Mother had—and it was at -the last moment, when the cab was almost to be expected to be there, -that Aunt Enid rushed out to the corner shop and returned with four new -spades, four new pails, and four new shrimping nets, and presented them -to the children just in time for them to be added to the heap of odds -and ends with which the cab was filled up. - -“I hope it’s not ungrateful,” said Mavis at the station as they -stood waiting by the luggage mound while Aunt Enid went to take the -tickets—“but why couldn’t she have bought them at Beachfield?” - -“Makes us look such babies,” said Francis, who would not be above using -a wooden spade at the proper time and place but did not care to be -branded in the face of all Waterloo Junction as one of those kids off -to the seaside with little spades and pails. - -Kathleen and Bernard were, however, young enough to derive a certain -pleasure from stroking the smooth, curved surface of the spades till -Aunt Enid came fussing back with the tickets and told them to put their -gloves on for goodness’ sake and try not to look like street children. - -I am sorry that the first thing you should hear about the children -should be that they did not care about their Aunt Enid, but this was -unfortunately the case. And if you think this was not nice of them I -can only remind you that you do not know their Aunt Enid. - -There was a short, sharp struggle with the porter, a flustered passage -along the platform and the children were safe in the carriage marked -“Reserved”—thrown into it, as it were, with all that small fry of -luggage which I have just described. Then Aunt Enid fussed off again to -exchange a few last home truths with the porter, and the children were -left. - -“We breathe again,” said Mavis. - -“Not yet we don’t,” said Francis, “there’ll be some more fuss as soon -as she comes back. I’d almost as soon not go to the sea as go with her.” - -“But you’ve never seen the sea,” Mavis reminded him. - -“I know,” said Francis, morosely, “but look at all this—” he indicated -the tangle of their possessions which littered seats and rack—“I do -wish—” - -He stopped, for a head appeared in the open doorway—in a round hat very -like Aunt Enid’s—but it was not Aunt Enid’s. The face under the hat was -a much younger, kinder one. - -“I’m afraid this carriage is reserved,” said the voice that belonged to -the face. - -“Yes,” said Kathleen, “but there’s lots of room if you like to come -too.” - -“I don’t know if the aunt we’re with would like it,” said the more -cautious Mavis. “We should, of course,” she added to meet the kind -smiling eyes that looked from under the hat that was like Aunt Enid’s. - -The lady said: “I’m an aunt too—I’m going to meet my nephew at the -junction. The train’s frightfully crowded.... If I were to talk to your -aunt ... perhaps on the strength of our common aunthood. The train will -start in a minute. I haven’t any luggage to be a bother—nothing but one -paper.”—she had indeed a folded newspaper in her hands. - -“Oh, do get in,” said Kathleen, dancing with anxiety, “I’m sure Aunt -Enid won’t mind,”—Kathleen was always hopeful—“suppose the train were -to start or anything!” - -“Well, if you think I may,” said the lady, and tossed her paper into -the corner in a lighthearted way which the children found charming. Her -pleasant face was rising in the oblong of the carriage doorway, her -foot was on the carriage step, when suddenly she retreated back and -down. It was almost as though someone pulled her off the carriage step. - -“Excuse me,” said a voice, “this carriage is reserved.” The pleasant -face of the lady disappeared and the—well, the face of Aunt Enid took -its place. The lady vanished. Aunt Enid trod on Kathleen’s foot, pushed -against Bernard’s waistcoat, sat down, partly on Mavis and partly on -Francis and said—“Of all the impertinence!” Then someone banged the -door—the train shivered and trembled and pulled itself together in the -way we all know so well—grunted, snorted, screamed, and was off. Aunt -Enid stood up arranging things on the rack, so that the children could -not even see if the nice lady had found a seat in the train. - -“Well—I do think—” Francis could not help saying. - -“Oh—do you?” said Aunt Enid, “I should never have thought it of you.” - -When she had arranged the things in the rack to her satisfaction she -pointed out a few little faults that she had noticed in the children -and settled down to read a book by Miss Marie Corelli. The children -looked miserably at each other. They could not understand why Mother -had placed them under the control of this most unpleasant mock aunt. - -There was a reason for it, of course. If your parents, who are -generally so kind and jolly, suddenly do a thing that you can’t -understand and can hardly bear, you may be quite sure they have a good -reason for it. The reason in this case was that Aunt Enid was the only -person who offered to take charge of the children at a time when all -the nice people who usually did it were having influenza. Also she was -an old friend of Granny’s. Granny’s taste in friends must have been -very odd, Francis decided, or else Aunt Enid must have changed a good -deal since she was young. And there she sat reading her dull book. The -children also had been provided with books—_Eric, or Little by Little_; -_Elsie, or Like a Little Candle_; _Brave Bessie_ and _Ingenious Isabel_ -had been dealt out as though they were cards for a game, before leaving -home. They had been a great bother to carry, and they were impossible -to read. Kathleen and Bernard presently preferred looking out of the -windows, and the two elder ones tried to read the paper left by the -lady, “looking over.” - -Now, that is just where it was, and really what all that has been -written before is about. If that lady hadn’t happened to look in at -their door, and if she hadn’t happened to leave the paper they would -never have seen it, because they weren’t the sort of children who read -papers except under extreme provocation. - -You will not find it easy to believe, and I myself can’t see why -it should have happened, but the very first word they saw in that -newspaper was Beachfield, and the second was On, and the third was -Sea, and the fifth was Mermaid. The fourth which came between Sea and -Mermaid was Alleged. - -“I say,” said Mavis, “let’s look.” - -“Don’t pull then, you can see all right,” said Francis, and this is -what they read together: - - -BEACHFIELD-ON-SEA—ALLEGED MERMAID. AMAZING STORY. - - “‘At this season of the year, which has come to be - designated the silly season, the public press is - deluged with puerile old-world stories of gigantic - gooseberries and enormous sea serpents. So that it is - quite in keeping with the weird traditions of this - time of the year to find a story of some wonder of the - deep, arising even at so well-known a watering place - as Beachfield. Close to an excellent golf course, and - surrounded by various beauty spots, with a thoroughly - revised water supply, a newly painted pier and three - rival Cinematograph Picture Palaces, Beachfield has - long been known as a rising _plage_ of exceptional - attractions, the quaint charm of its....’” - -“Hold on,” said Francis, “this isn’t about any old Mermaid.” - -“Oh, that’ll be further on,” said Mavis. “I expect they have to put -all that stuff in to be polite to Beachfield—let’s skip—‘agreeable -promenade, every modern convenience, while preserving its quaint....’ -What does quaint mean, and why do they keep on saying it?” - -“I don’t think it means anything,” said Francis, “it’s just a word -they use, like weird and dainty. You always see it in a newspaper. -Ah—got her. Here she is—‘The excitement may be better imagined than -described’—no, that’s about the Gymkhana—here we are: - - “‘Master Wilfred Wilson, the son of a well-known and - respected resident, arrived home yesterday evening in - tears. Inquiry elicited a statement that he had been - paddling in the rock pools, which are to be found in - such profusion under the West Cliff, when something - gently pinched his foot. He feared that it might be a - lobster, having read that these crustaceans sometimes - attack the unwary intruder, and he screamed. So far - his story, though unusual, contains nothing inherently - impossible. But when he went on to state that a noise - “like a lady speaking” told him not to cry, and that, - on looking down, he perceived that what held him was a - hand “coming from one of the rocks under water,” his - statement was naturally received with some incredulity. - It was not until a boating party returning from a - pleasure trip westward stated that they had seen a - curious sort of white seal with a dark tail darting - through the clear water below their boat that Master - Wilfred’s story obtained any measure of credence.’” - -(“What’s credence?” said Mavis. - -“Oh, never mind. It’s what you believe with, I think. Go on,” said -Francis.) - - “‘—of credence. Mr. Wilson, who seems to have urged an - early retirement to bed as a cure for telling stories - and getting his feet wet, allowed his son to rise and - conduct him to the scene of adventure. But Mr. Wilson, - though he even went to the length of paddling in some - of the pools, did not see or feel any hands nor hear - any noise, ladylike or otherwise. No doubt the seal - theory is the correct one. A white seal would be a - valuable acquisition to the town, and would, no doubt, - attract visitors. Several boats have gone out, some - with nets and some with lines. Mr. Carrerras, a visitor - from South America, has gone out with a lariat, which - in these latitudes is, of course, quite a novelty.’” - -“That’s all,” whispered Francis, and glanced at Aunt Enid. “I say—she’s -asleep.” He beckoned the others, and they screwed themselves along -to that end of the carriage farthest from the slumbering aunt. “Just -listen to this,” he said. Then in hoarse undertones he read all about -the Mermaid. - -“I say,” said Bernard, “I do hope it’s a seal. I’ve never seen a seal.” - -“I hope they _do_ catch it,” said Kathleen. “Fancy seeing a real live -Mermaid.” - -“If it’s a real live Mermaid I jolly well hope they don’t catch her,” -said Francis. - -“So do I,” said Mavis. “I’m certain she would die in captivity.” - -“But I’ll tell you what,” said Francis, “we’ll go and look for her, -first thing tomorrow. I suppose,” he added thoughtfully, “Sabrina was a -sort of Mermaid.” - -“She hasn’t a tail, you know,” Kathleen reminded him. - -“It isn’t the tail that makes the Mermaid,” Francis reminded her. “It’s -being able to live underwater. If it was the tail, then mackerels would -be Mermaids.” - -“And, of course, they’re not. _I_ see,” said Kathleen. - -“I wish,” said Bernard, “that she’d given us bows and arrows instead of -pails and spades, and then we could have gone seal-shooting—” - -“Or Mermaid-shooting,” said Kathleen. “Yes, that would have been -ripping.” - -Before Francis and Mavis could say how shocked they were at the idea of -shooting Mermaids, Aunt Enid woke up and took the newspaper away from -them, because newspapers are not fit reading for children. - -She was somehow the kind of person before whom you never talk about -anything that you really care for, and it was impossible therefore to -pursue either seals or Mermaids. It seemed best to read _Eric_ and the -rest of the books. It was uphill work. - -But the last two remarks of Bernard and Kathleen had sunk into the -minds of the two elder children. That was why, when they had reached -Beachfield and found Mother and rejoiced over her, and when Aunt Enid -had unexpectedly gone on by that same train to stay with her really -relations at Bournemouth, they did not say any more to the little -ones about Mermaids or seals, but just joined freely in the chorus of -pleasure at Aunt Enid’s departure. - -“I thought she was going to stay with us all the time,” said Kathleen. -“Oh, Mummy, I am so glad she isn’t.” - -“Why? Don’t you like Aunt Enid? Isn’t she kind?” - -All four thought of the spades and pails and shrimping nets, and of -_Eric_ and _Elsie_ and the other books—and all said: - -“Yes.” - -“Then what was it?” Mother asked. And they could not tell her. It is -sometimes awfully difficult to tell things to your mother, however much -you love her. The best Francis could do was: - -“Well—you see we’re not used to her.” - -And Kathleen said: “I don’t think perhaps she’s used to being an aunt. -But she was kind.” - -And Mother was wise and didn’t ask any more questions. Also she at once -abandoned an idea one had had of asking Aunt Enid to come and stay at -Beachfield for part of the holidays; and this was just as well, for if -Aunt Enid had not passed out of the story exactly when she did, there -would not have been any story to pass out of. And as she does now pass -out of the story I will say that she thought she was very kind, and -that she meant extremely well. - -There was a little whispering between Francis and Mavis just after tea, -and a little more just before bed, but it was tactfully done and the -unwhispered-to younger ones never noticed it. - -The lodgings were very nice—a little way out of the town—not a villa at -all as everyone had feared. I suppose the landlady thought it grander -to call it a villa, but it was really a house that had once been a mill -house, and was all made of a soft-colored gray wood with a red-tiled -roof, and at the back was the old mill, also gray and beautiful—not -used now for what it was built for—but just as a store for fishing nets -and wheelbarrows and old rabbit hutches and beehives and harnesses -and odds and ends, and the sack of food for the landlady’s chickens. -There was a great corn bin there too—that must have been in some big -stable—and some broken chairs and an old wooden cradle that hadn’t had -any babies in it since the landlady’s mother was a little girl. - -On any ordinary holiday the mill would have had all the charm of -a magic palace for the children, with its wonderful collection of -pleasant and unusual things to play with, but just now all their -thoughts were on Mermaids. And the two elder ones decided that they -would go out alone the first thing in the morning and look for the -Mermaid. - -Mavis woke Francis up very early indeed, and they got up and dressed -quite quietly, not washing, I am sorry to say, because water makes such -a noise when you pour it out. And I am afraid their hair was not very -thoroughly brushed either. There was not a soul stirring in the road as -they went out, unless you count the mill cat who had been out all night -and was creeping home very tired and dusty looking, and a yellowhammer -who sat on a tree a hundred yards down the road and repeated his name -over and over again in that conceited way yellowhammers have, until -they got close to him; and then he wagged his tail impudently at them -and flew on to the next tree where he began to talk about himself as -loudly as ever. - -This desire to find the Mermaid must have been wonderfully strong in -Francis, for it completely swallowed the longing of years—the longing -to see the sea. It had been too dark the night before to see anything -but the winking faces of the houses as the fly went past them. But now -as he and Mavis ran noiselessly down the sandy path in their rubber -shoes and turned the corner of the road, he saw a great pale-gray -something spread out in front of him, lit with points of red and gold -fire where the sun touched it. He stopped. - -“Mavis,” he said, in quite an odd voice, “that’s the sea.” - -“Yes,” she said and stopped too. - -“It isn’t a bit what I expected,” he said, and went on running. - -“Don’t you like it?” asked Mavis, running after him. - -“Oh—like,” said Francis, “it isn’t the sort of thing you _like_.” - -When they got down to the shore the sands and the pebbles were all wet -because the tide had just gone down, and there were the rocks and the -little rock pools, and the limpets, and whelks, and the little yellow -periwinkles looking like particularly fine Indian corn all scattered -among the red and the brown and the green seaweed. - -“Now, this _is_ jolly,” said Francis. “This is jolly if you like. I -almost wish we’d wakened the others. It doesn’t seem quite fair.” - -“Oh, they’ve seen it before,” Mavis said, quite truly, “and I don’t -think it’s any good going by fours to look for Mermaids, do you?” - -“Besides,” said Francis, saying what had been in their thoughts since -yesterday in the train, “Kathleen wanted to shoot Mermaids, and Bernard -thought it was seals, anyhow.” - -They had sat down and were hastily pulling off their shoes and -stockings. - -“Of course,” said he, “we shan’t find anything. It isn’t likely.” - -“Well,” she said, “for anything we jolly well know, they may have found -her already. Take care how you go over these rocks, they’re awfully -slippy.” - -“As if I didn’t know that,” said he, and ran across the narrow strip -of sand that divided rocks from shingle and set his foot for the first -time in The Sea. It was only a shallow little green and white rock -pool, but it was the sea all the same. - -“I say, isn’t it cold,” said Mavis, withdrawing pink and dripping toes; -“do mind how you go—” - -“As if I—” said Francis, again, and sat down suddenly and splashingly -in a large, clear sparkling pool. - -“Now, I suppose we’ve got to go home at once and you change,” said -Mavis, not without bitterness. - -“Nonsense,” said Francis, getting up with some difficulty and clinging -wetly to Mavis to steady himself. “I’m quite dry, almost.” - -“You know what colds are like,” said Mavis, “and staying indoors all -day, or perhaps bed, and mustard plasters and gruel with butter in -it. Oh, come along home, we should never have found the Mermaid. It’s -much too bright and light and everyday-ish for anything like magic to -happen. Come on home, do.” - -“Let’s just go out to the end of the rocks,” Francis urged, “just to -see what it’s like where the water gets deep and the seaweed goes -swish, swish, all long and lanky and grassy, like in the Sabrina -picture.” - -“Halfway then, not more,” said Mavis, firmly, “it’s dangerous—deep -outside—Mother said so.” - -And halfway they went, Mavis still cautious, and Francis, after his -wetting, almost showing off in his fine carelessness of whether he -went in again or not. It was very jolly. You know how soft and squeezy -the blobby kind of seaweed is to walk on, and how satin smooth is the -ribbon kind; how sharp are limpets, especially when they are covered -with barnacles, and how comparatively bearable to the foot are the pale -primrose-colored hemispheres of the periwinkle. - -“Now,” said Mavis, “come on back. We’ll run all the way as soon as we -get our shoes and stockings on for fear of colds.” - -“I almost wish we hadn’t come,” said Francis, turning with a face of -gloom. - -“You didn’t really think we should find a Mermaid, did you?” Mavis -asked, and laughed, though she was really annoyed with Francis for -getting wet and cutting short this exciting morning game. But she was a -good sister. - -“It’s all been so silly. Flopping into that pool, and talking and -rotting, and just walking out and in again. We ought to have come by -moonlight, and been very quiet and serious, and said— - - “‘_Sabrina fair, - Listen where thou art sitting—_’” - -“Ow—Hold on a minute. I’ve caught my foot in something.” - -Mavis stopped and took hold of her brother’s arm to steady him; and as -she did so both children plainly heard a voice that was not the voice -of either of them. It was the sweetest voice in the world they thought, -and it said: - -“Save her. We die in captivity.” - -Francis looked down and had a sort of sudden sight of something white -and brown and green that moved and went quickly down under the stone on -which Mavis was standing. There was nothing now holding his foot. - -“I say,” he said, on a deep breath of awe and wonder, “did you hear -that?” - -“Of course, I heard it.” - -“We couldn’t both have fancied it,” he said, “I wish it had told us who -to save, and where, and how—” - -“Whose do you think that voice was?” Mavis asked softly. - -“The Mermaid’s,” said Francis, “who else’s could it have been?” - -[Illustration: “_We die in captivity._”] - -“Then the magic’s really begun—” - -“Mermaids aren’t magic,” he said, “anymore than flying fishes or -giraffes are.” - -“But she came when you said ‘Sabrina fair,’” said Mavis. - -“Sabrina wasn’t a Mermaid,” said Francis firmly. “It’s no use trying -to join things on when they won’t. Come on, we may as well be getting -home.” - -“Mightn’t she be?” suggested Mavis. “A Mermaid, I mean. Like salmon -that live in rivers and go down to the sea.” - -“I say, I never thought of that. How simply ripping if it turned out -to be really Sabrina—wouldn’t it be? But which do you suppose could -be her—the one who spoke to us or the one she’s afraid will die in -captivity—the one she wants us to save.” - -They had reached the shore by now and Mavis looked up from turning her -brown stockings right way out to say: - -“I suppose we didn’t really both fancy it. Could we have? Isn’t there -some sort of scientific magic that makes people think the same things -as each other when it’s not true at all, like with Indian mango tricks? -Uncle Fred said so, you know, they call it ‘Tell-ee-something.’” - -“I’ll tell _you_ something,” said Francis, urgent with shoelace, “if we -keep on saying things weren’t when we know perfectly well they were, -we shall soon dish up any sort of chance of magic we may ever have -had. When do you find people in books going on like that? They just -say ‘This is magic!’ and behave as if it was. They don’t go pretending -they’re not sure. Why, no magic would stand it.” - -“Aunt Dorothea once told me that all magic was like Prince Rupert’s -drop,” Mavis owned: “if once you broke it there was nothing left but a -little dust.” - -“That’s just what I’m saying, isn’t it? We’ve always felt there was -magic right enough, haven’t we? Well, now we’ve come across it, don’t -let’s be silly and pretend. Let’s believe in it as hard as ever we -can. Mavis—shall we, eh? Believing in things makes them stronger. Aunt -Dorothea said that too—you remember.” - -They stood up in their shoes. - -“Shall we tell the others?” Mavis asked. - -“We must,” said Francis, “it would be so sneakish not to. But they -won’t believe us. We shall have to be like Cassandra and not mind.” - -“I only wish I knew who it is we’ve got to save,” said Mavis. - -Francis had a very strong and perfect feeling that they would know this -all in good time. He could not have explained this, but he felt it. All -he said was, “Let’s run.” - -And they ran. - -Kathleen and Bernard met them at the gate, dancing with excitement and -impatience. - -“Where have you been?” they cried and “What on earth?” and “Why, you’re -all wet, France.” - -“Down to the sea—shut up, I know I am—” their elder brother came in and -passed up the path to the gate. - -“You might have called us,” said Kathleen in a -more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger sort of voice, “but anyhow you’ve lost -something by going out so early without us.” - -“Lost something. What?” - -“Hearing the great news,” said Bernard, and he added, “Aha!” - -“What news?” - -“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Bernard was naturally annoyed at having -been left out of the first expedition of the holidays. Anyone would -have. Even you or I. - -“Out with it,” said Francis, with a hand on Bernard’s ear. There -came a yell from Bernard and Mother’s voice from the window, saying, -“Children, children.” - -“All right, Mummy. Now, Bear—don’t be a young rotter. What’s the news?” - -“You’re hurting my ear,” was all Bernard’s rejoinder. - -“All right,” said Francis, “we’ve got some news too. But we won’t tell, -will we, Mavis?” - -“Oh _don’t_,” said Kathleen, “don’t let’s be sneaky, the very first day -too. It’s only that they’ve caught the Mermaid, and I’m afraid she’ll -die in captivity, like you said. What’s yours?” - -Francis had released Bernard’s ear and now he turned to Mavis. - -“So that’s it,” he said slowly—“who’s got her?” - -“The circus people. What’s your news?” asked Kathleen eagerly. - -“After brek,” said Francis. “Yes, Mother, half a sec! I apologize -about the ear, Bernard. We will tell you all. Oh, it’s quite different -from what you think. We meet and discuss the situation in the mill the -minute we’re free from brek. Agreed? Right! Yes, Mother, coming!” - -“Then there must,” Mavis whispered to Francis, “be two Mermaids. They -can’t both be Sabrina ... then which...?” - -“We’ve got to save one of them anyhow,” Francis answered with the light -of big adventure in his eye, “_they die in captivity_.” - - - - -CHAPTER THREE - -_The Rescue_ - - -THE GREAT QUESTION, of course, was—Would Mother take them to the -circus, or would she, if she wouldn’t herself take them, let them -go alone? She had once, in Buckinghamshire, allowed them to go to a -traveling menagerie, after exacting from them a promise that they were -not to touch any of the animals, and they had seen reason to regret -their promise when the showman offered to let them stroke his tame -performing wolf, who was so very like a collie. When they had said, -“No, thank you,” the showman had said, “Oh, frightened, are you? Run -along home to Mammy then!” and the bystanders had laughed in a most -insulting way. At a circus, of course, the horses and things aren’t -near enough for you to stroke them, so this time they might not be -asked to promise. If Mother came with them her presence, though -agreeable, would certainly add to the difficulties, already quite -enough—as even Mavis could not but see—of rescuing the Mermaid. But -suppose Mother didn’t come with them. - -“Suppose we have to promise we won’t touch any of the animals?” -suggested Cathay. “You can’t rescue a person without touching it.” - -“That’s just it,” said Mavis, “a Mermaid isn’t an animal. She’s a -person.” - -“But suppose it isn’t that sort of Mermaid,” said Bernard. “Suppose -it’s the sort that other people call seals, like it said in the paper.” - -“Well, it isn’t,” said Francis briefly, adding, “so there!” - -They were talking in the front garden, leaning over the green gate -while Mother upstairs unpacked the luggage that had been the mound with -spades on top only yesterday, at Waterloo. - -“Mavis!” Mother called through the open window. “I can only find—but -you’d better come up.” - -“I ought to offer to help Mother unpack,” said Mavis, and went walking -slowly. - -She came back after a little while, however, quickly running. - -“It’s all right,” she said. “Mother’s going to meet Daddy at the -Junction this afternoon and buy us sunbonnets. And we’re to take -our spades and go down to the sea till dinnertime—it’s roast rabbit -and apple dumps—I asked Mrs. Pearce—and we can go to the circus by -ourselves—and she never said a word about promise not to touch the -animals.” - -So off they went, down the white road where the yellowhammer was -talking about himself as usual on the tree just beyond wherever you -happened to be walking. And so to the beach. - -Now, it is very difficult to care much about a Mermaid you have never -seen or heard or touched. On the other hand, when once you have seen -one and touched one and heard one speak, you seem to care for very -little else. This was why when they got to the shore Kathleen and -Bernard began at once to dig the moat of a sandcastle, while the elder -ones walked up and down, dragging the new spades after them like some -new kind of tail, and talking, talking, talking till Kathleen said they -might help dig or the tide would be in before the castle was done. - -“You don’t know what a lark sandcastles are, France,” she added kindly, -“because you’ve never seen the sea before.” - -So then they all dug and piled and patted and made molds of their pails -to stand as towers to the castle and dug out dungeons and tunnels and -bridges, only the roof always gave way in the end unless you had beaten -the sand very tight beforehand. It was a glorious castle, though not -quite finished when the first thin flat wash of the sea reached it. -And then everyone worked twice as hard trying to keep the sea out till -all was hopeless, and then everyone crowded into the castle and the -sea washed it away bit by bit till there was only a shapeless island -left, and everyone was wet through and had to change every single thing -the minute they got home. You will know by that how much they enjoyed -themselves. - -After the roast rabbit and the apple dumplings Mother started on the -sunbonnet-and-meet-Daddy expedition. Francis went with her to the -station and returned a little sad. - -“I had to promise not to touch any of the animals,” he said. “And -perhaps a Mermaid _is_ an animal.” - -“Not if she can speak,” said Kathleen. “I say, don’t you think we ought -to wear our best things—I do. It’s more respectable to the wonders of -the deep. She’d like us to look beautiful.” - -“I’m not going to change for anybody,” said Bernard firmly. - -“All right, Bear,” said Mavis. “Only we will. Remember it’s magic.” - -“I say, France,” he said, “do you think we _ought_ to change?” - -“No, I don’t,” Francis answered. “I don’t believe Mermaids care a bit -what you’ve got on. You see, they don’t wear anything but tails and -hair and looking glasses themselves. If there’s any beautifulness to be -done they jolly well do it themselves. But I don’t say you wouldn’t be -better for washing your hands again, and you might as well try to get -_some_ of the sand out of your hair. It looks like the wrong end of a -broom as it is.” - -He himself went so far as to put on the blue necktie that Aunt Amy had -given him, and polished his silver watch chain on the inside of his -jacket. This helped to pass the time till the girls were ready. At -last this happened though they had put on their best things, and they -started. - -The yellowhammer went on about himself—he was never tired of the -subject. - -“It’s just as if that bird was making fun of us,” Bernard said. - -“I daresay it is a wild-goose step we’re taking,” said Kathleen; “but -the circus will be jolly, anyhow.” - -There is a piece of wasteland just beyond Beachfield on the least -agreeable side of that village—the side where the flat-faced shops are -and the yellow brick houses. At the nice end of Beachfield the shops -have little fat bow windows with greenish glass that you can hardly -see through. Here also are gaunt hoardings plastered with tattered, -ugly-colored posters, asking you in red to wear Ramsden’s Really Boots -or to Vote for Wilton Ashby in blue. Some of the corners of the posters -are always loose and flap dismally in the wind. There is always a good -deal of straw and torn paper and dust at this end of the village, and -bits of dirty rag, and old boots and tins are found under the hedges -where flowers ought to be. Also there are a great many nettles and -barbed wires instead of pleasant-colored fences. Don’t you sometimes -wonder who is to blame for all the uglification of places that might -be so pretty, and wish you could have a word with them and ask them -not to? Perhaps when these people were little nobody told them how -wrong it is to throw orange peel about, and the bits of paper off -chocolate, and the paper bag which once concealed your bun. And it is a -dreadful fact that the children who throw these things about are little -uglifiers, and they grow up to be perfect monsters of uglification, and -build hideous yellow brick cottages, and put up hoardings, and sell -Ramsden’s Really Boots (in red), and vote passionately for Wilton -Ashby (in blue), and care nothing for the fields that used to be green -and the hedges where once flowers used to grow. Some people like -this, and see nothing to hate in such ugly waste places as the one, -at the wrong end of the town, where the fair was being held on that -never-to-be-forgotten day when Francis, Mavis, Bernard and Kathleen set -out in their best clothes to rescue the Mermaid because Mermaids “die -in captivity.” - -The fair had none of those stalls and booths which old-fashioned -fairs used to have, where they sold toys, and gilt gingerbread, and -carters’ whips, and cups and saucers, and mutton pies, and dolls, and -china dogs, and shell boxes, and pincushions, and needle cases, and -penholders with views of the Isle of Wight and Winchester Cathedral -inside that you see so bright and plain when you put your eye close to -the little round hole at the top. - -The steam roundabouts were there—but hardly a lean back of their -spotted horses was covered by a rider. There were swings, but no one -happened to be swinging. There were no shows, no menagerie, no boxing -booth, no marionettes. No penny gaff with the spangled lady and the -fat man who beats the drum. Nor were there any stalls. There were -pink-and-white paper whips and bags of dust-colored minced paper—the -English substitute for _confetti_—there were little metal tubes of -dirty water to squirt in people’s faces, but except for the sale of -these crude instruments for making other people uncomfortable there was -not a stall in the fair. I give you my word, there was not a single -thing that you could buy—no gingerbread, no sweets, no crockery dogs, -not even a half-penny orange or a bag of nuts. Nor was there anything -to drink—not as much as a lemonade counter or a ginger beer stall. -The revelers were no doubt drinking elsewhere. A tomblike silence -reigned—a silence which all the steam roundabout’s hideous hootings -only emphasized. - -A very dirty-nosed boy, overhearing a hurried council, volunteered the -information that the circus had not yet opened. - -“Never mind,” they told each other—and turned to the sideshows. These -were all of one character—the arrangement by which you throw something -or roll something at something else, and if you hit the something you -get a prize—the sort of prize that is sold in Houndsditch at ninepence -a gross. - -Most of these arrangements are so ordered that to get a prize is -impossible. For instance, a peculiarly offensive row of masks with open -mouths in which pipes are set up. In the golden days of long ago if you -hit a pipe it broke—and you got a “prize” worth—I can’t do sums—put -it briefly at the hundred and forty-fourth part of ninepence. But the -children found that when their wooden ball struck the pipe it didn’t -break. They wondered why! Then, looking more closely, they saw that -the pipes were not of clay, but of painted wood. They could never be -broken—and the whole thing was a cruel mockery of hope. - -The coconut-shy was not what it used to be either. Once one threw -sticks, three shies a penny. Now it is a penny a shy, with light wooden -balls. You can win a coconut if you happen to hit one that is not glued -onto its support. If you really wish to win one of these unkindly -fruits it is well to stand and watch a little and not to aim at those -coconuts which, when they are hit, fail to fall off the sticks. Are -they glued on? One hopes not. But if they are, who can wonder or -reprove? It is hard to get a living, anyhow. - -There was one thing, though, that roused the children’s -resentment—chiefly, I think, because its owners were clean and did not -look half-starved, so there was no barrier of pity between them and -dislike—a sort of round table sloping up to its center. On this small -objects were arranged. For a penny you received two hoops. If you could -throw a hoop over an object that object was yours. None of the rustic -visitors to the fair could, it seemed, or cared to. It did not look -difficult, however. Nor was it. At the first shot a tiny candlestick -was encircled. Between pride and shame Mavis held out a hand. - -“Hard luck,” said one of the two young women, too clean to be pitied. -“Has to go flat on—see?” - -Francis tried again. This time the ring encircled a matchbox, “flat on.” - -“Hard luck,” said the lady again. - -“What’s the matter now?” the children asked, baffled. - -“Hoop has to be red side up,” said she. So she scored. Now they went -to the other side and had another penn’orth of hoops from the other -too clean young woman. And the same thing happened. Only on the second -winning she said: - -“Hard luck. Hoops have to be blue side up.” - -It was Bernard’s blood that was up. He determined to clear the board. - -“Blue side up, is it,” he said sternly, and took another penn’orth. -This time he brought down a tin pin tray and a little box which, I -hope, contained something. The girl hesitated and then handed over the -prizes. “Another penn’orth of hoops,” said Bernard, warming to the work. - -“Hard luck,” said she. “We don’t give more than two penn’orth to any -one party.” - -The prizes were not the kind of things you care to keep, even as -trophies of victory—especially when you have before you the business -of rescuing a Mermaid. The children gave their prizes to a small -female bystander and went to the shooting gallery. That, at least, -could have no nonsense about it. If you aimed at a bottle and hit it -it would break. No sordid self-seeking custodian could rob you of the -pleasant tinkling of the broken bottle. And even with a poor weapon -it is not impossible to aim at a bottle and hit it. This is true—but -at the shooting gallery the trouble was _not_ to hit the bottles. -There were so many of them and they were so near. The children got -thirteen tinkling smashes for their fourteen shots. The bottles were -hung fifteen feet away instead of thirty. Why? Space is not valuable at -the fair—can it be that the people of Sussex are such poor shots that -thirty feet is to them a prohibitive distance? - -They did not throw for coconuts, nor did they ride on the little horses -or pull themselves to dizzy heights in the swings. There was no heart -left in them for such adventures—and besides everyone in the fair, -saving themselves and the small female bystander and the hoop girls, -was dirtier than you would believe possible. I suppose Beachfield has -a water supply. But you would have doubted it if you had been at the -fair. They heard no laughter, no gay talk, no hearty give-and-take of -holiday jests. A dull heavy silence brooded over the place, and you -could hear that silence under the shallow insincere gaiety of the steam -roundabout. - -Laughter and song, music and good-fellowship, dancing and innocent -revelry, there were none of these at Beachfield Fair. For music -there was the steam roundabout’s echoes of the sordid musical comedy -of the year before the year before last—laughter there was not—nor -revelry—only the dirty guardians of the machines for getting your -pennies stood gloomily huddled, and a few groups of dejected girls -and little boys shivered in the cold wind that had come up with the -sunset. In that wind, too, danced the dust, the straw, the newspaper -and the chocolate wrappers. The only dancing there was. The big tent -that held the circus was at the top of the ground, and the people who -were busy among the ropes and pegs and between the bright vans resting -on their shafts seemed gayer and cleaner than the people who kept -the little arrangements for people not to win prizes at. And now the -circus at last was opened; the flap of the tent was pinned back, and -a gypsy-looking woman, with oily black ringlets and eyes like bright -black beads, came out at the side to take the money of those who wished -to see the circus. People were now strolling toward it in twos and -threes, and of these our four were the very first, and the gypsy woman -took four warm sixpences from their four hands. - -“Walk in, walk in, my little dears, and see the white elephant,” said -a stout, black-mustached man in evening dress—greenish it was and -shiny about the seams. He flourished a long whip as he spoke, and the -children stopped, although they had paid their sixpences, to hear what -they were to see when they did walk in. “The white elephant—tail, -trunk, and tusks all complete, sixpence only. See the Back Try A -or Camels, or Ships of the Arabs—heavy drinker when he gets the -chance—total abstainer while crossing the desert. Walk up, walk up. See -the Trained Wolves and Wolverines in their great National Dance with -the flags of all countries. Walk up, walk up, walk up. See the Educated -Seals and the Unique Lotus of the Heast in her famous bare-backed act, -riding three horses at once, the wonder and envy of royalty. Walk up -and see the very table Mermaid caught on your own coast only yesterday -as ever was.” - -“Thank you,” said Francis, “I think we will.” And the four went through -the opened canvas into the pleasant yellow dusty twilight which was -the inside of a squarish sort of tent, with an opening at the end, and -through that opening you could see the sawdust-covered ring of the -circus and benches all around it, and two men just finishing covering -the front benches with red cotton strips. - -“Where’s the Mermaid?” Mavis asked a little boy in tights and a -spangled cap. - -“In there,” he said, pointing to a little canvas door at the side of -the squarish tent. “I don’t advise you to touch her, though. Spiteful, -she is. Lashes out with her tail—splashed old Mother Lee all over water -she did—an’ dangerous too: our Bill ’e got ’is bone set out in his -wrist a-trying to hold on to her. An’ it’s thruppence extry to see her -close.” - -There are times, as we all know, when threepence extra is a baffling -obstacle—a cruel barrier to desire, but this was not, fortunately, such -a moment. The children had plenty of money, because Mother had given -them two half-crowns between them to spend as they liked. - -“Even then,” said Bernard, in allusion to the threepence extra, “we -shall have two bob left.” - -So Mavis, who was treasurer, paid over the extra threepences to a girl -with hair as fair and lank as hemp, and a face as brown and round as -a tea cake, who sat on a kitchen chair by the Mermaid door. Then one -by one they went in through the narrow opening, and at last there they -were alone in the little canvas room with a tank in it that held—well, -there was a large label, evidently written in a hurry, for the letters -were badly made and arranged quite crookedly, and this label declared: - - REAL LIVE MERMAID. - SAID TO BE FABULUS, BUT NOW TRUE. - CAUGHT HERE. - PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH. - DANGEROUS. - -The little Spangled Boy had followed them in and pointed to the last -word. - -“What I tell you?” he asked proudly. - -The children looked at each other. Nothing could be done with this -witness at hand. At least.... - -“Perhaps if it’s going to be magic,” Mavis whispered to Francis, -“outsiders wouldn’t notice. They don’t sometimes—I believe. Suppose you -just said a bit of ‘Sabrina’ to start the magic.” - -“Wouldn’t be safe,” Francis returned in the same low tones. “Suppose he -_wasn’t_ an outsider, and _did_ notice.” - -So there they stood helpless. What the label was hung on was a large -zinc tank—the kind that they have at the tops of houses for the water -supply—you must have seen one yourself often when the pipes burst in -frosty weather, and your father goes up into the roof of the house with -a candle and pail, and the water drips through the ceilings and the -plumber is sent for, and comes when it suits him. The tank was full -of water and at the bottom of it could be seen a mass of something -dark that looked as if it were partly browny-green fish and partly -greeny-brown seaweed. - -“Sabrina fair,” Francis suddenly whispered, “send him away.” - -And immediately a voice from outside called “Rube—Reuben—drat the boy, -where’s he got to?”—and the little spangled intruder had to go. - -“There, now,” said Mavis, “if _that_ isn’t magic!” Perhaps it was, but -still the dark fish-and-seaweed heap in the tank had not stirred. “Say -it all through,” said Mavis. - -“Yes, do,” said Bernard, “then we shall know for certain whether it’s a -seal or not.” - -So once again— - - “‘_Sabrina fair, - Listen where thou art sitting, - Under the glassie, cool, translucent wave_,’” - -He got no further. There was a heaving and stirring of the seaweed and -fish tail, something gleamed white, through the brown something white -parted the seaweed, two white hands parted it, and a face came to the -surface of the rather dirty water and—there was no doubt about it—spoke. - -“‘Translucent wave,’indeed!” was what the face said. “I wonder you’re -not ashamed to speak the invocation over a miserable cistern like this. -What do you want?” - -Brown hair and seaweed still veiled most of the face, but all the -children, who, after their first start back had pressed close to the -tank again, could see that the face looked exceedingly cross. - -“We want,” said Francis in a voice that would tremble though he told -himself again and again that he was not a baby and wasn’t going to -behave like one—“we want to help you.” - -“Help _me_? You?” She raised herself a little more in the tank and -looked contemptuously at them. “Why, don’t you know that I am mistress -of all water magic? I can raise a storm that will sweep away this -horrible place and my detestable captors and you with them, and carry -me on the back of a great wave down to the depths of the sea.” - -“Then why on earth don’t you?” Bernard asked. - -“Well, I was thinking about it,” she said, a little awkwardly, “when -you interrupted with your spells. Well, you’ve called and I’ve -answered—now tell me what I can do for you.” - -“We’ve told you,” said Mavis gently enough, though she was frightfully -disappointed that the Mermaid after having in the handsomest manner -turned out to be a Mermaid, should be such a very short-tempered one. -And when they had talked about her all day and paid the threepence each -extra to see her close, and put on their best white dresses too. “We’ve -told you—we want to help you. Another Sabrina in the sea told us to. -_She_ didn’t tell us anything about you being a magic-mistress. She -just said ‘they die in captivity.’” - -[Illustration: “_‘Translucent wave,’ indeed!_”] - -“Well, thank you for coming,” said the Mermaid. “If she really said -that it must be one of two things—either the sun is in the House of -Liber—which is impossible at this time of the year—or else the rope I -was caught with must be made of llama’s hair, and _that’s_ impossible -in these latitudes. Do you know anything about the rope they caught me -with?” - -“No,” said Bernard and Kathleen. But the others said, “It was a lariat.” - -“Ah,” said the Mermaid, “my worst fears are confirmed—But who could -have expected a lariat on these shores? But that must have been it. Now -I know why, though I have been on the point of working the magic of the -Great Storm at least five hundred times since my capture, some unseen -influence has always held me back.” - -“You mean,” said Bernard, “you feel that it wouldn’t work, so you -didn’t try.” - -A rattling, ripping sound outside, beginning softly, waxed louder and -louder so as almost to drown their voices. It was the drum, and it -announced the beginning of the circus. The Spangled Child put his head -in and said, “Hurry up or you’ll miss my Infant Prodigious Act on the -Horse with the Tambourines,” and took his head out again. - -“Oh, dear,” said Mavis, “and we haven’t arranged a single thing about -rescuing you.” - -“No more you have,” said the Mermaid carelessly. - -“Look here,” said Francis, “you do _want_ to be rescued, don’t you? - -“Of course I do,” replied the Mermaid impatiently, “now I know about -the llama rope. But I can’t walk even if they’d let me, and you -couldn’t carry me. Couldn’t you come at dead of night with a chariot—I -could lift myself into it with your aid—then you could drive swiftly -hence, and driving into the sea I could drop from the chariot and -escape while you swam ashore.” - -“I don’t believe we could—any of it,” said Bernard, “let alone swimming -ashore with horses and chariots. Why, Pharaoh himself couldn’t do that, -you know.” And even Mavis and Francis added helplessly, “I don’t see -how we’re to get a chariot,” and “do you think of some other way.” - -“I shall await you,” said the lady in the tank with perfect calmness, -“at dead of night.” - -With that she twisted the seaweed closely around her head and shoulders -and sank slowly to the bottom of the tank. And the children were left -staring blankly at each other, while in the circus tent music sounded -and the soft heavy pad-pad of hoofs on sawdust. - -“What shall we do?” Francis broke the silence. - -“Go and see the circus, of course,” said Bernard. - -“Of course we can talk about the chariot afterward,” Mavis admitted. - -“There’ll be lots of time to talk between now and dead of night,” said -Kathleen. “Come on, Bear.” - -And they went. - -There is nothing like a circus for making you forget your anxieties. -It is impossible to dwell on your troubles and difficulties when -performing dogs are displaying their accomplishments, and wolves -dancing their celebrated dance with the flags of all nations, and -the engaging lady who jumps through the paper hoops and comes down -miraculously on the flat back of the white horse, cannot but drive -dull care away, especially from the minds of the young. So that for an -hour and a half—it really was a good circus, and I can’t think how it -happened to be at Beachfield Fair at all—a solid slab of breathless -enjoyment was wedged in between the interview with the Mermaid and -the difficult task of procuring for her the chariot she wanted. But -when it was all over and they were part of a hot, tightly packed crowd -pouring out of the dusty tent into the sunshine, their responsibilities -came upon them with renewed force. - -“Wasn’t the clown ripping?” said Bernard, as they got free of the crowd. - -“I liked the riding-habit lady best, and the horse that went like that, -best,” said Kathleen, trying with small pale hands and brown shod legs -to give an example of a horse’s conduct during an exhibition of the -_haute école_. - -“Didn’t you think the elephant—” Mavis was beginning, when Francis -interrupted her. - -“About that chariot,” he said, and after that they talked of nothing -else. And whatever they said it always came to this in the end, that -they hadn’t got a chariot, and couldn’t get a chariot, and that anyhow -they didn’t suppose there was a chariot to be got, at any rate in -Beachfield. - -“It wouldn’t be any good, I suppose,” said Kathleen’s last and most -helpful suggestion—“be the slightest good saying ‘Sabrina fair’ to a -pumpkin?” - -“We haven’t got even a pumpkin,” Bernard reminded her, “let alone the -rats and mice and lizards that Cinderella had. No, that’s no good. But -I’ll tell you what.” He stopped short. They were near home now—it was -late afternoon, in the road where the talkative yellowhammer lived. -“What about a wheelbarrow?” - -“Not big enough,” said Francis. - -“There’s an extra big one in the mill,” said Bernard. “Now, look here. -I’m not any good at magic. But Uncle Tom said I was a born general. If -I tell you exactly what to do, will you two do it, and let Cathay and -me off going?” - -“Going to sneak out of it?” Francis asked bitterly. - -“It isn’t. It’s not my game at all, and I don’t want to play. And if I -do, the whole thing will be muffed—you know it will. I’m so unlucky. -You’d never get out at dead of night without me dropping a boot on the -stairs or sneezing—you know you wouldn’t.” - -Bernard took a sort of melancholy pride in being the kind of boy -who always gets caught. If you are that sort of boy, perhaps that’s -the best way to take it. And Francis could not deny that there was -something in what he said. He went on: “Then Kathleen’s my special -sister and I’m not going to have her dragged into a row. (“I want to,” -Kathleen put in ungratefully.) So will you and Mavis do it on your own -or not?” - -After some discussion, in which Kathleen was tactfully dealt with, it -was agreed that they would. Then Bernard unfolded his plan of campaign. - -“Directly we get home,” he said, “we’ll begin larking about with that -old wheelbarrow—giving each other rides, and so on, and when it’s time -to go in we’ll leave it at the far end of the field behind the old -sheep hut near the gate. Then it’ll be handy for you at dead of night. -You must take towels or something and tie around the wheel so that it -doesn’t make a row. You can sleep with my toy alarm under your pillow -and it won’t wake anyone but you. You get out through the dining room -window and in the same way. I’ll lend you my new knife, with three -blades and a corkscrew, if you’ll take care of it, to cut the canvas, -and go by the back lane that comes out behind where the circus is, but -if you took my advice you wouldn’t go at all. She’s not a nice Mermaid -at all. I’d rather have had a seal, any day. Hullo, there’s Daddy and -Mother. Come on.” - -They came on. - -The program sketched by Bernard was carried out without a hitch. -Everything went well, only Francis and Mavis were both astonished to -find themselves much more frightened than they had expected to be. Any -really great adventure like the rescuing of a Mermaid does always look -so very much more serious when you carry it out, at night, than it did -when you were planning it in the daytime. Also, though they knew they -were not doing anything wrong, they had an uncomfortable feeling that -Mother and Daddy might not agree with them on that point. And of course -they could not ask leave to go and rescue a Mermaid, with a chariot, -at dead of night. It is not the sort of thing you can ask leave to do, -somehow. And the more you explained your reasons the less grown-up -people would think you fit to conduct such an expedition. - -Francis lay down fully dressed, under his nightshirt. And Mavis under -hers wore her short blue skirt and jersey. The alarm, true to its -trust, went off into an ear-splitting whizz and bang under the pillow -of Francis, but no one else heard it. He crept cautiously into Mavis’s -room and wakened her, and as they crept down in stockinged feet not a -board creaked. The French window opened without noise, the wheelbarrow -was where they had left it, and they had fortunately brought quite -enough string to bind wads of towels and stockings to the tire of its -wheel. Also they had not forgotten the knife. - -The wheelbarrow was heavy and they rather shrank from imagining how -much heavier it would be when the discontented Mermaid was curled up in -it. However, they took it in turns, and got along all right by the back -lane that comes out above the waste ground where Beachfield holds its -fairs. - -“I hope the night’s dead enough,” Mavis whispered as the circus came in -sight, looking very white in the starlight, “it’s nearly two by now I -should think.” - -“Quite dead enough, if that’s all,” said Francis; “but suppose the -gypsies are awake? They do sit up to study astronomy to tell fortunes -with, don’t they? Suppose this is their astronomy night? I vote we -leave the barrow here and go and reconnoiter.” - -They did. Their sandshoes made no noise on the dewy grass, and treading -very carefully, on tiptoe, they came to the tent. Francis nearly -tumbled over a guy rope; he just saw it in time to avoid it. - -“If I’d been Bernard I should have come a beastly noisy cropper over -that,” he told himself. They crept around the tent till they came to -the little square bulge that marked the place where the tank was and -the seaweed and the Mermaid. - -“They die in captivity, they die in captivity, they die in captivity,” -Mavis kept repeating to herself, trying to keep up her courage by -reminding herself of the desperately urgent nature of the adventure. -“It’s a matter of life and death,” she told herself—“life and death.” - -And now they picked their way between the pegs and guy ropes and came -quite close to the canvas. Doubts of the strength and silence of the -knife possessed the trembling soul of Francis. Mavis’s heart was -beating so thickly that, as she said afterward, she could hardly hear -herself think. She scratched gently on the canvas, while Francis felt -for the knife with the three blades and the corkscrew. An answering -signal from the imprisoned Mermaid would, she felt, give her fresh -confidence. There was no answering scratch. Instead, a dark line -appeared to run up the canvas—it was an opening made by the two hands -of the Mermaid which held back the two halves of the tent side, cut -neatly from top to bottom. Her white face peered out. - -“Where is the chariot?” she asked in the softest of whispers, but -not too soft to carry to the children the feeling that she was, if -possible, crosser than ever. - -Francis was afraid to answer. He knew that his voice could never be -subdued to anything as soft as the voice that questioned him, a voice -like the sound of tiny waves on a summer night, like the whisper of -wheat when the wind passes through it on a summer morning. But he -pointed toward the lane where they had left the wheelbarrow and he and -Mavis crept away to fetch it. - -As they wheeled it down the waste place both felt how much they owed to -Bernard. But for his idea of muffling the wheel they could never have -got the clumsy great thing down that bumpy uneven slope. But as it was -they and the barrow stole toward the gypsy’s tent as silently as the -Arabs in the poem stole away with theirs, and they wheeled it close to -the riven tent side. Then Mavis scratched again, and again the tent -opened. - -“Have you any cords?” the soft voice whispered, and Francis pulled what -was left of the string from his pocket. - -She had made two holes in the tent side, and now passing the string -through these she tied back the flaps of the tent. - -“Now,” she said, raising herself in the tank and resting her hands on -its side. “You must both help—take hold of my tail and lift. Creep -in—one on each side.” - -It was a wet, sloppy, slippery, heavy business, and Mavis thought her -arms would break, but she kept saying: “Die in captivity,” and just as -she was feeling that she could not bear it another minute the strain -slackened and there was the Mermaid curled up in the barrow. - -“Now,” said the soft voice, “go—quickly.” - -It was all very well to say go quickly. It was as much as the two -children could do, with that barrow-load of dripping Mermaid, to go at -all. And very, very slowly they crept up the waste space. In the lane, -under cover of the tall hedges, they paused. - -“Go on,” said the Mermaid. - -“We can’t till we’ve rested a bit,” said Mavis, panting. “How did you -manage to get that canvas cut?” - -“My shell knife, of course,” said the person in the wheelbarrow. “We -always carry one in our hair, in case of sharks.” - -“I see,” said Francis, breathing heavily. - -“You had much better go on,” said the barrow’s occupant. “This chariot -is excessively uncomfortable and much too small. Besides, delays are -dangerous.” - -“We’ll go in half a sec,” said Francis, and Mavis added kindly: - -“You’re really quite safe now, you know.” - -“_You_ aren’t,” said the Mermaid. “I don’t know whether you realize -that I’m stolen property and that it will be extremely awkward for you -if you are caught with me.” - -“But we shan’t be caught with you,” said Mavis hopefully. - -“Everybody’s sound asleep,” said Francis. It was wonderful how brave -and confident they felt now that the deed was done. “It’s perfectly -safe—Oh, what’s that! Oh!” - -A hand had shot from the black shadow of the hedge and caught him by -the arm. - -“What is it, France? What is it?” said Mavis, who could not see what -was happening. - -“What is it—now what is it?” asked the Mermaid more crossly than she -had yet spoken. - -“_Who_ is it? Oh, who is it?” gasped Francis, writhing in the grip of -his invisible assailant. And from the dark shadow of the hedge came the -simple and terrible reply: - -“The police!” - - - - -CHAPTER FOUR - -_Gratitude_ - - -IT IS HARDLY POSSIBLE to imagine a situation less attractive than that -of Mavis and Francis—even the position of the Mermaid curled up in a -dry barrow and far from her native element was not exactly luxurious. -Still, she was no worse off than she had been when the lariat first -curled itself about her fishy extremity. But the children! They had -braved the terrors of night in an adventure of singular courage and -daring, they had carried out their desperate enterprise, the Mermaid -was rescued, and success seemed near—no further off than the sea -indeed, and that, in point of fact, was about a quarter of a mile away. -To be within a quarter of a mile of achievement, and then to have the -cup of victory dashed from your lips, the crown of victory torn from -your brow by—the police! - -It was indeed hard. And what was more, it was dangerous. - -“We shall pass the night in the cells,” thought Mavis, in agony; “and -whatever will Mother do when she finds we’re gone?” In her mind “the -cells” were underground dungeons, dark and damp and vaulted, where -toads and lizards crawled, and no daylight ever penetrated. That is -how dungeons are described in books about the Inquisition. - -When the voice from the bush had said “The police,” a stricken silence -followed. The mouth of Francis felt dry inside, just as if he had been -eating cracknels, he explained afterward, and he had to swallow nothing -before he could say: - -“What for?” - -“Let go his arm,” said Mavis to the hidden foe. “We won’t run away. -Really we won’t.” - -“You can’t,” said the Mermaid. “You can’t leave me.” - -“Leave go,” said Francis, wriggling. And then suddenly Mavis made a -dart at the clutching hand and caught it by the wrist and whispered -savagely: - -“It’s not a policeman at all. Come out of that bush—come out,” and -dragged. And something did come out of the bush. Something that -certainly was not a policeman. It was small and thin, whereas policemen -are almost always tall and stout. It did not wear the blue coats our -Roberts wear, but velveteen knickerbockers and a tweed jacket. It was, -in fact, a very small boy. - -Francis broke into a cackle of relief. - -“You little—animal,” he said. “What a fright you gave me.” - -“Animal yourself, if you come to that, let alone her and her tail,” the -boy answered; and Mavis thought his voice didn’t sound unfriendly. “My! -But I did take a rise out of you that time, eh? Ain’t she bit you yet, -nor yet strook you with that there mackerel-end of hers?” - -And then they recognized him. It was the little Spangled Boy. Only now, -of course, being off duty he was no more spangled than you and I are. - -“Whatever did you do it for?” Mavis asked crossly. “It was horrid of -you.” - -“It wasn’t only just a lark,” said the boy. “I cut around and listened -this afternoon when you was jawing, and I thought why not be in it? -Only I do sleep that heavy, what with the riding and the tumbling and -all. So I didn’t wake till you’d got her out and then I cut up along -ahind the hedge to be beforehand with you. An’ I was. It was a fair -cop, matey, eh?” - -“What are you going to do about it?” Francis asked flatly; “tell your -father?” But Mavis reflected that he didn’t seem to have told his -father yet, and perhaps wouldn’t. - -“Ain’t got no father,” said the Spangled Boy, “nor yet mother.” - -“If you are rested enough you’d better go on,” said the Mermaid. “I’m -getting dry through.” - -And Mavis understood that to her that was as bad as getting wet through -would be to us. - -“I’m so sorry,” she said gently, “but—” - -“I must say I think it’s very inconsiderate of you to keep me all this -time in the dry,” the Mermaid went on. “I really should have thought -that even _you_—” - -But Francis interrupted her. - -“What are you going to _do_?” he asked the Spangled Boy. And that -surprising child answered, spitting on his hands and rubbing them: - -“Do? Why, give a ’and with the barrer.” - -The Mermaid put out a white arm and touched him. - -“You are a hero,” she said. “I can recognize true nobility even under a -once-spangled exterior. You may kiss my hand.” - -“Well, of all the, ...” said Francis. - -“Shall I?” the boy asked, more of himself than of the others. - -“Do,” Mavis whispered. “Anything to keep her in a good temper.” - -So the Spangled Boy kissed the still dampish hand of the Lady from -the Sea, took the handles of the barrow and off they all went. - -[Illustration: “_The police._”] - -Mavis and Francis were too thankful for this unexpected help to ask any -questions, though they could not help wondering exactly what it felt -like to be a boy who did not mind stealing his own father’s Mermaid. It -was the boy himself who offered, at the next rest-halt, an explanation. - -“You see,” he said, “it’s like this here. This party in the barrow—” - -“I know you don’t mean it disrespectfully,” said the Mermaid, sweetly; -“but _not_ party—and _not_ a barrow.” - -“Lady,” suggested Mavis. - -“This lydy in the chariot, she’d been kidnapped—that’s how I look at -it. Same as what I was.” - -This was romance indeed; and Mavis recognized it and said: - -“You, kidnapped? I say!” - -“Yus,” said Spangles, “when I was a baby kid. Old Mother Romaine told -me, just afore she was took all down one side and never spoke no more.” - -“But why?” Mavis asked. “I never could understand in the books why -gypsies kidnapped babies. They always seem to have so many of their -own—far, far more than anyone could possibly want.” - -“Yes, indeed,” said the Mermaid, “they prodded at me with sticks—a -multitude of them.” - -“It wasn’t kids as was wanted,” said the boy, “it was revenge. That’s -what Mother Romaine said—my father he was a sort of Beak, so he give -George Lee eighteen months for poaching. An’ the day they took him the -church bells was ringing like mad, and George, as he was being took, he -said: ‘What’s all that row? It ain’t Sunday.’ And then they tells him -as how the bells was ringing ’cause him that was the Beak—my father, -you know—he’d got a son and hare. And that was me. You wouldn’t think -it to look at me,” he added, spitting pensively and taking up the -barrow handles, “but I’m a son and hare.” - -“And then what happened?” Mavis asked as they trudged on. - -“Oh, George—he done his time, and I was a kiddy then, year-and-a-half -old, all lace and ribbons and blue shoes made of glove-stuff, and -George pinched me, and it makes me breff short, wheeling and talking.” - -“Pause and rest, my spangled friend,” said the Mermaid in a voice of -honey, “and continue your thrilling narrative.” - -“There ain’t no more to it,” said the boy, “except that I got one of -the shoes. Old Mother Romaine ’ad kep’ it, and a little shirt like a -lady’s handkercher, with R. V. on it in needlework. She didn’t ever -tell me what part of the country my dad was Beak in. Said she’d tell -me next day. An’ then there wasn’t no next day for her—not fer telling -things in, there wasn’t.” - -He rubbed his sleeve across his eyes. - -“She wasn’t half a bad sort,” he explained. - -“Don’t cry,” said Mavis unwisely. - -“Cry? Me?” he answered scornfully. “I’ve got a cold in me ’ead. You -oughter know the difference between a cold in the head and sniveling. -You been to school, I lay?—they might have taught you that.” - -“I wonder the gypsies didn’t take the shoe and the shirt away from you?” - -“Nobody know’d I’d got ’em; I always kep’ ’em inside my shirt, wrapt -up in a bit of paper, and when I put on me tights I used to hide ’em. -I’m a-going to take the road one of these days, and find out who it was -lost a kid with blue shoes and shirt nine years come April.” - -“Then you’re ten and a half,” said Mavis. - -And the boy answered admiringly: - -“How do you do it in your head so quick, miss? Yes, that’s what I am.” - -Here the wheelbarrow resumed its rather bumpety progress, and nothing -more could be said till the next stoppage, which was at that spot where -the sea-front road swings around and down, and glides into the beach so -gently that you can hardly tell where one begins and the other ends. -It was much lighter there than up on the waste space. The moon was -just breaking through a fluffy white cloud and cast a trembling sort -of reflection on the sea. As they came down the slope all hands were -needed to steady the barrow, because as soon as she saw the sea the -Mermaid began to jump up and down like a small child at a Christmas -tree. - -“Oh, look!” she cried, “isn’t it beautiful? Isn’t it the only home in -the world?” - -“Not quite,” said the boy. - -“Ah!” said the lady in the barrow, “Of course you’re heir to one of -the—what is it...?” - -“‘Stately homes of England—how beautiful they stand,’” said Mavis. - -“Yes,” said the lady. “I knew by instinct that he was of noble birth.” - - _“‘I bid ye take care of the brat,’ said he, - ‘For he comes of a noble race,’”_ - - * * * * * - -Francis hummed. He was feeling a little cross and sore. He and Mavis -had had all the anxious trouble of the adventure, and now the Spangled -Boy was the only one the Mermaid was nice to. It was certainly hard. - -“But your stately home would not do for me at all,” she went on. “My -idea of home is all seaweed of coral and pearl—so cosy and delightful -and wet. Now—can you push the chariot to the water’s edge, or will you -carry me?” - -“Not much we won’t,” the Spangled Boy answered firmly. “We’ll push you -as far as we can, and then you’ll have to wriggle.” - -“I will do whatever you suggest,” she said amiably; “but what is this -wriggle of which you speak?” - -“Like a worm,” said Francis. - -“Or an eel,” said Mavis. - -“Nasty low things,” said the Mermaid; and the children never knew -whether she meant the worm and the eel, or the girl and the boy. - -“Now then. All together,” said the Spangled Child. And the barrow -bumped down to the very edge of the rocks. And at the very edge its -wheel caught in a chink and the barrow went sideways. Nobody could help -it, but the Mermaid was tumbled out of her chariot on to the seaweed. - -The seaweed was full and cushiony and soft, and she was not hurt at -all—but she was very angry. - -“You have been to school,” she said, “as my noble preserver reminds -you. You might have learned how not to upset chariots.” - -“It’s we who are your preservers,” Francis couldn’t help saying. - -“Of course you are,” she said coolly, “plain preservers. Not noble -ones. But I forgive you. You can’t help being common and clumsy. I -suppose it’s your nature—just as it’s his to be....” - -“Good-bye,” said Francis, firmly. - -“Not at all,” said the lady. “You must come with me in case there -are any places where I can’t exercise the elegant and vermiform -accomplishment you spoke about. Now, one on each side, and one behind, -and don’t walk on my tail. You can’t think how annoying it is to have -your tail walked on.” - -[Illustration: _And disappeared entirely._] - -“Oh, can’t I,” said Mavis. “I’ll tell you something. My mother has a -tail too.” - -“I _say_!” said Francis. - -But the Spangled Child understood. - -“She don’t wear it every day, though,” he said; and Mavis is almost -sure that he winked. Only it is so difficult to be sure about winks in -the starlight. - -“Your mother must be better born than I supposed,” said the Mermaid. -“Are you _quite_ sure about the tail?” - -“I’ve trodden on it often,” said Mavis—and then Francis saw. - -Wriggling and sliding and pushing herself along by her hands, and -helped now and then by the hands of the others, the Mermaid was at last -got to the edge of the water. - -“How glorious! In a moment I shall be quite wet,” she cried. - -In a moment everyone else was quite wet also—for with a movement that -was something between a squirm and a jump, she dropped from the edge -with a splashing flop. - -And disappeared entirely. - - - - -CHAPTER FIVE - -_Consequences_ - - -THE THREE CHILDREN looked at each other. - -“Well!” said Mavis. - -“I do think she’s ungrateful,” said Francis. - -“What did you expect?” asked the Spangled Child. - -They were all wet through. It was very late—they were very tired, and -the clouds were putting the moon to bed in a very great hurry. The -Mermaid was gone; the whole adventure was ended. - -There was nothing to do but to go home, and go to sleep, knowing that -when they woke the next morning it would be to a day in the course of -which they would have to explain their wet clothes to their parents. - -“Even _you_’ll have to do that,” Mavis reminded the Spangled Boy. - -He received her remark in what they afterward remembered to have been a -curiously deep silence. - -“I don’t know how on earth we _are_ to explain,” said Francis. “I -really don’t. Come on—let’s get home. No more adventures for me, thank -you. Bernard knew what he was talking about.” - -Mavis, very tired indeed, agreed. - -They had got over the beach by this time, recovered the wheelbarrow, -and trundled it up and along the road. At the corner the Spangled Boy -suddenly said: - -“Well then, so long, old sports,” and vanished down a side lane. - -The other two went on together—with the wheelbarrow, which, I may -remind you, was as wet as any of them. - -They went along by the hedge and the mill and up to the house. - -Suddenly Mavis clutched at her brother’s arm. - -“There’s a light,” she said, “in the house.” - -There certainly was, and the children experienced that terrible -empty sensation only too well known to all of us—the feeling of the -utterly-found-out. - -They could not be sure which window it was, but it was a downstairs -window, partly screened by ivy. A faint hope still buoyed up Francis -of getting up to bed unnoticed by whoever it was that had the light; -and he and his sister crept around to the window out of which they had -crept; but such a very long time ago it seemed. The window was shut. - -Francis suggested hiding in the mill and trying to creep in unobserved -later on, but Mavis said: - -“No. I’m too tired for anything. I’m too tired to _live_, I think. -Let’s go and get it over, and then we can go to bed and sleep, and -sleep, and sleep.” - -So they went and peeped in at the kitchen window, and there was no one -but Mrs. Pearce, and she had a fire lighted and was putting a big pot -on it. - -The children went to the back door and opened it. - -“You’re early, for sure,” said Mrs. Pearce, not turning. - -This seemed a bitter sarcasm. It was too much. Mavis answered it with -a sob. And at that Mrs. Pearce turned very quickly. - -“What to gracious!” she said—“whatever to gracious is the matter? -Where’ve you been?” She took Mavis by the shoulder. “Why, you’re all -sopping wet. You naughty, naughty little gell, you. Wait till I tell -your Ma—been shrimping I lay—or trying to—never asking when the tide -was right. And not a shrimp to show for it, I know, with the tide where -it is. You wait till we hear what your Ma’s got to say about it. And -look at my clean flags and you dripping all over ’em like a fortnight’s -wash in wet weather.” - -Mavis twisted a little in Mrs. Pearce’s grasp. “Oh, don’t scold us, -dear Mrs. Pearce,” she said, putting a wet arm up toward Mrs. Pearce’s -neck. “We _are_ so miserable.” - -“And so you deserve to be,” said Mrs. Pearce, smartly. “Here, young -chap, you go into the washhouse and get them things off, and drop -them outside the door, and have a good rub with the jack-towel; and -little miss can undress by the fire and put hern in this clean pail—and -I’ll pop up softlike and so as your Ma don’t hear, and bring you down -something dry.” - -A gleam of hope fell across the children’s hearts—a gleam wild and -watery as that which the moonlight had cast across the sea, into which -the Mermaid had disappeared. Perhaps after all Mrs. Pearce wasn’t going -to tell Mother. If she was, why should she pop up softlike? Perhaps she -would keep their secret. Perhaps she would dry their clothes. Perhaps, -after all, that impossible explanation would never have to be given. - -The kitchen was a pleasant place, with bright brasses and shining -crockery, and a round three-legged table with a clean cloth and -blue-and-white teacups on it. - -Mrs. Pearce came down with their nightgowns and the warm dressing gowns -that Aunt Enid had put in in spite of their expressed wishes. How glad -they were of them now! - -“There, that’s a bit more like,” said Mrs. Pearce; “here, don’t look -as if I was going to eat you, you little Peter Grievouses. I’ll hot up -some milk and here’s a morsel of bread and dripping to keep the cold -out. Lucky for you I was up—getting the boys’ breakfast ready. The -boats’ll be in directly. The boys will laugh when I tell them—laugh fit -to bust their selves they will.” - -“Oh, don’t tell,” said Mavis, “don’t, please don’t. Please, please -don’t.” - -“Well, I like that,” said Mrs. Pearce, pouring herself some tea from -a pot which, the children learned later, stood on the hob all day and -most of the night; “it’s the funniest piece I’ve heard this many a day. -Shrimping at high tide!” - -“I thought,” said Mavis, “perhaps you’d forgive us, and dry our -clothes, and not tell anybody.” - -“Oh, you did, did you?” said Mrs. Pearce. “Anything else—?” - -“No, nothing else, thank you,” said Mavis, “only I want to say thank -you for being so kind, and it isn’t high tide yet, and please we -haven’t done any harm to the barrow—but I’m afraid it’s rather wet, and -we oughtn’t to have taken it without asking, I know, but you were in -bed and—” - -“The barrow?” Mrs. Pearce repeated. “That great hulking barrow—you -took the barrow to bring the shrimps home in? No—I can’t keep it to -myself—that really I can’t—” she lay back in the armchair and shook -with silent laughter. - -The children looked at each other. It is not pleasant to be laughed at, -especially for something you have never done—but they both felt that -Mrs. Pearce would have laughed quite as much, or even more, if they had -told her what it really was they had wanted the barrow for. - -“Oh, don’t go on laughing,” said Mavis, creeping close to Mrs. Pearce, -“though you are a ducky darling not to be cross any more. And you won’t -tell, will you?” - -“Ah, well—I’ll let you off this time. But you’ll promise faithful never -to do it again, now, won’t you?” - -“We faithfully won’t ever,” said both children, earnestly. - -“Then off you go to your beds, and I’ll dry the things when your Ma’s -out. I’ll press ’em tomorrow morning while I’m waiting for the boys to -come in.” - -“You _are_ an angel,” said Mavis, embracing her. - -“More than you are then, you young limbs,” said Mrs. Pearce, returning -the embrace. “Now off you go, and get what sleep you can.” - -It was with a feeling that Fate had not, after all, been unduly harsh -with them that Mavis and Francis came down to a very late breakfast. - -“Your Ma and Pa’s gone off on their bikes,” said Mrs. Pearce, bringing -in the eggs and bacon, “won’t be back till dinner. So I let you have -your sleep out. The little ’uns had theirs three hours ago and out on -the sands. I told them to let you sleep, though I know they wanted to -hear how many shrimps you caught. I lay they expected a barrowful, same -as what you did.” - -“How did you know they knew we’d been out?” Francis asked. - -“Oh, the way they was being secret in corners, and looking the old -barrow all over was enough to make a cat laugh. Hurry up, now. I’ve got -the washing-up to do—and your things is well-nigh dry.” - -“You _are_ a darling,” said Mavis. “Suppose you’d been different, -whatever would have become of us?” - -“You’d a got your desserts—bed and bread and water, instead of this -nice egg and bacon and the sands to play on. So now you know,” said -Mrs. Pearce. - - * * * * * - -On the sands they found Kathleen and Bernard, and it really now, in -the bright warm sunshine, seemed almost worthwhile to have gone through -last night’s adventures, if only for the pleasure of telling the tale -of them to the two who had been safe and warm and dry in bed all the -time. - -“Though really,” said Mavis, when the tale was told, “sitting here and -seeing the tents and the children digging, and the ladies knitting, -and the gentlemen smoking and throwing stones, it does hardly seem as -though there _could_ be any magic. And yet, you know, there was.” - -“It’s like I told you about radium and things,” said Bernard. “Things -aren’t magic because they haven’t been found out yet. There’s always -been Mermaids, of course, only people didn’t know it.” - -“But she talks,” said Francis. - -“Why not?” said Bernard placidly. “Even parrots do that.” - -“But she talks English,” Mavis urged. - -“Well,” said Bernard, unmoved, “what would you have had her talk?” - -And so, in pretty sunshine, between blue sky and good sands, the -adventure of the Mermaid seemed to come to an end, to be now only as -a tale that is told. And when the four went slowly home to dinner all -were, I think, a little sad that this should be so. - -“Let’s go around and have a look at the empty barrow,” Mavis said; -“it’ll bring it all back to us, and remind us of what was in it, like -ladies’ gloves and troubadours.” - -The barrow was where they had left it, but it was not empty. A very -dirty piece of folded paper lay in it, addressed in penciled and -uncertain characters - - TO FRANCE - TO BE OPENED. - -Francis opened it and read aloud: - - “I went back and she came back and she wants you to - come back at ded of nite. - - RUBE.” - -“Well, I shan’t go,” said Francis. - -A voice from the bush by the gate made them all start. - -“Don’t let on you see me,” said the Spangled Boy, putting his head out -cautiously. - -“You seem very fond of hiding in bushes,” said Francis. - -“I am,” said the boy briefly. “Ain’t you going—to see her again, I -mean?” - -“No,” said Francis, “I’ve had enough dead of night to last me a long -time.” - -“You a-going, miss?” the boy asked. “No? You are a half-livered crew. -It’ll be only me, I suppose.” - -“You’re going, then?” - -“Well,” said the boy, “what do you think?” - -“I should go if I were you,” said Bernard impartially. - -“No, you wouldn’t; not if you were me,” said Francis. “You don’t know -how disagreeable she was. I’m fed up with her. And besides, we simply -_can’t_ get out at dead of night now. Mrs. Pearce’ll be on the lookout. -No—it’s no go.” - -“But you _must_ manage it somehow,” said Kathleen; “you can’t let it -drop like this. I shan’t believe it was magic at all if you do.” - -“If you were us, you’d have had enough of magic,” said Francis. “Why -don’t you go yourselves—you and Bernard.” - -“I’ve a good mind to,” said Bernard unexpectedly. “Only not in the -middle of the night, because of my being certain to drop my boots. -Would you come, Cathay?” - -“You know I wanted to before,” said Kathleen reproachfully. - -“But how?” the others asked. - -“Oh,” said Bernard, “we must think about that. I say, you chap, we must -get to our dinner. Will you be here after?” - -“Yes. I ain’t going to move from here. You might bring me a bit of grub -with you—I ain’t had a bite since yesterday teatime.” - -“I say,” said Francis kindly, “did they stop your grub to punish you -for getting wet?” - -“They didn’t know nothing about my getting wet,” he said darkly. “I -didn’t never go back to the tents. I’ve cut my lucky, I ’ave ’ooked it, -skedaddled, done a bunk, run away.” - -“And where are you going?” - -“_I_ dunno,” said the Spangled Boy. “I’m running _from_, not to.” - - - - -CHAPTER SIX - -_The Mermaid’s Home_ - - -THE PARENTS of Mavis, Francis, Kathleen and Bernard were extremely -sensible people. If they had not been, this story could never have -happened. They were as jolly as any father and mother you ever met, -but they were not always fussing and worrying about their children, -and they understood perfectly well that children do not care to be -absolutely always under the parental eye. So that, while there were -always plenty of good times in which the whole family took part, there -were also times when Father and Mother went off together and enjoyed -themselves in their own grown-up way, while the children enjoyed -themselves in theirs. It happened that on this particular afternoon -there was to be a concert at Lymington—Father and Mother were going. -The children were asked whether they would like to go, and replied with -equal courtesy and firmness. - -“Very well then,” said Mother, “you do whatever you like best. I should -play on the shore, I think, if I were you. Only don’t go around the -corner of the cliff, because that’s dangerous at high tide. It’s safe -so long as you’re within sight of the coast guards. Anyone have any -more pie? No—then I think I’ll run and dress.” - -“Mother,” said Kathleen suddenly, “may we take some pie and things to a -little boy who said he hadn’t had anything to eat since yesterday?” - -“Where is he?” Father asked. - -Kathleen blushed purple, but Mavis cautiously replied, “Outside. I’m -sure we shall be able to find him.” - -“Very well,” said Mother, “and you might ask Mrs. Pearce to give you -some bread and cheese as well. Now, I must simply fly.” - -“Cathay and I’ll help you, Mother,” said Mavis, and escaped the further -questioning she saw in her father’s eye. The boys had slipped away at -the first word of what seemed to be Kathleen’s amazing indiscretion -about the waiting Rube. - -“It was quite all right,” Kathleen argued later, as they went up the -field, carefully carrying a plate of plum pie and the bread and cheese -with not so much care and a certain bundle not carefully at all. “I -saw flying in Mother’s eye before I spoke. And if you _can_ ask leave -before you do a thing it’s always safer.” - -“And look here,” said Mavis. “If the Mermaid wants to see us we’ve only -got to go down and say ‘Sabrina fair,’ and she’s certain to turn up. If -it’s just seeing us she wants, and not another deadly night adventure.” - -Reuben did not eat with such pretty manners as yours, perhaps, but -there was no doubt about his enjoyment of the food they had brought, -though he only stopped eating for half a second, to answer, “Prime. -Thank you,” to Kathleen’s earnest inquiries. - -“Now,” said Francis when the last crumb of cheese had disappeared and -the last trace of plum juice had been licked from the spoon (a tin one, -because, as Mrs. Pearce very properly said, you never know)—“now, look -here. We’re going straight down to the shore to try and see her. And if -you like to come with us we can disguise you.” - -“What in?” Reuben asked. “I did disguise myself once in a false beard -and a green-colored mustache, but it didn’t take no one in for a -moment, not even the dogs.” - -“We thought,” said Mavis gently, “that perhaps the most complete -disguise for you would be girl’s clothes—because,” she added hastily to -dispel the thundercloud on Reuben’s brow—“because you’re such a manly -boy. Nobody would give vent to a moment’s suspicion. It would be so -very unlike _you_.” - -“G’a long—” said the Spangled Child, his dignity only half soothed. - -“And I’ve brought you some of my things and some sandshoes of France’s, -because, of course, mine are just kiddy shoes.” - -At that Reuben burst out laughing and then hummed: “‘Go, flatterer, go, -I’ll not trust to thy vow,’” quite musically. - -“Oh, do you know the ‘Gypsy Countess’? How jolly!” said Kathleen. - -“Old Mother Romaine knew a power of songs,” he said, suddenly grave. -“Come on, chuck us in the togs.” - -“You just take off your coat and come out and I’ll help you dress up,” -was Francis’s offer. - -“Best get a skirt over my kicksies first,” said Reuben, “case anyone -comes by and recognizes the gypsy child. Hand us in the silk attire -and jewels have to spare.” - -They pushed the blue serge skirt and jersey through the branches, which -he held apart. - -“Now the ’at,” he said, reaching a hand for it. But the hat was too -large for the opening in the bush, and he had to come out of it. The -moment he was out the girls crowned him with the big rush-hat, around -whose crown a blue scarf was twisted, and Francis and Bernard each -seizing a leg, adorned those legs with brown stockings and white -sandshoes. Reuben, the spangled runaway from the gypsy camp, stood up -among his new friends a rather awkward and quite presentable little -girl. - -“Now,” he said, looking down at his serge skirts with a queer smile, -“now we shan’t be long.” - -Nor were they. Thrusting the tin spoon and the pie plate and the -discarded boots of Reuben into the kind shelter of the bush they made -straight for the sea. - -When they got to that pleasant part of the shore which is smooth sand -and piled shingle, lying between low rocks and high cliffs, Bernard -stopped short. - -“Now, look here,” he said, “if Sabrina fair turns up trumps I don’t -mind going on with the adventure, but I won’t do it if Kathleen’s to be -in it.” - -“It’s not fair,” said Kathleen; “you said I might.” - -“Did I?” Bernard most handsomely referred the matter to the others. - -“Yes, you did,” said Francis shortly. Mavis said “Yes,” and Reuben -clinched the matter by saying, “Why, you up and asked her yourself if -she’d go along of you.” - -“All right,” said Bernard calmly. “Then I shan’t go myself. That’s all.” - -“Oh, bother,” said at least three of the five; and Kathleen said: “I -don’t see why I should always be out of everything.” - -“Well,” said Mavis impatiently, “after all, there’s no danger in -just trying to _see_ the Mermaid. You promise you won’t do anything -if Bernard says not—that’ll do, I suppose? Though why you should be -a slave to him just because he chooses to say you’re his particular -sister, I don’t see. Will _that_ do, Bear?” - -“I’ll promise _anything_,” said Kathleen, almost in tears, “if you’ll -only let me come with you all and see the Mermaid if she turns out to -be seeable.” - -So that was settled. - -Now came the question of where the magic words should be said. - -Mavis and Francis voted for the edge of the rocks where the words had -once already been so successfully spoken. Bernard said, “Why not here -where we are?” Kathleen said rather sadly that any place would do as -long as the Mermaid came when she was called. But Reuben, standing -sturdily in his girl’s clothes, said: - -“Look ’ere. When you’ve run away like what I have, least said soonest -mended, and out of sight’s out of mind. What about caves?” - -“Caves are too dry, except at high tide,” said Francis. “And then -they’re too wet. Much.” - -“Not all caves,” Reuben reminded him. “If we was to turn and go up by -the cliff path. There’s a cave up there. I hid in it t’other day. Quite -dry, except in one corner, and there it’s as wet as you want—a sort of -’orse trough in the rocks it looks like—only deep.” - -“Is it seawater?” Mavis asked anxiously. And Reuben said: - -“Bound to be, so near the sea and all.” - -But it wasn’t. For when they had climbed the cliff path and Reuben had -shown them where to turn aside from it, and had put aside the brambles -and furze that quite hid the cave’s mouth, Francis saw at once that the -water here could not be seawater. It was too far above the line which -the waves reached, even in the stormiest weather. - -“So it’s no use,” he explained. - -But the others said, “Oh, do let’s try, now we _are_ here,” and they -went on into the dusky twilight of the cave. - -It was a very pretty cave, not chalk, like the cliffs, but roofed and -walled with gray flints such as the houses and churches are built of -that you see on the downs near Brighton and Eastbourne. - -“This isn’t an accidental cave, you know,” said Bernard importantly; -“it’s built by the hand of man in distant ages, like Stonehenge and the -Cheesewring and Kit’s Coty House.” - -The cave was lighted from the entrance where the sunshine crept -faintly through the brambles. Their eyes soon grew used to the gloom -and they could see that the floor of the cave was of dry white sand, -and that along one end was a narrow dark pool of water. Ferns fringed -its edge and drooped their fronds to its smooth surface—a surface which -caught a gleam of light, and shone whitely; but the pool was very -still, and they felt somehow, without knowing why, very deep. - -“It’s no good, no earthly,” said Francis. - -“But it’s an awfully pretty cave,” said Mavis consolingly. “Thank you -for showing it to us, Reuben. And it’s jolly cool. Do let’s rest a -minute or two. I’m simply boiling, climbing that cliff path. We’ll go -down to the sea in a minute. Reuben could wait here if he felt safer.” - -“All right, squattez-vous,” said Bernard, and the children sat down at -the water’s edge, Reuben still very awkward in his girl’s clothes. - -It was very, very quiet. Only now and then one fat drop of water would -fall from the cave’s roof into that quiet pool and just move its -surface in a spreading circle. - -“It’s a ripping place for a hidey-hole,” said Bernard, “better than -that old bush of yours, anyhow. I don’t believe anybody knows of the -way in.” - -“_I_ don’t think anyone does, either,” said Reuben, “because there -wasn’t any way in till it fell in two days ago, when I was trying to -dig up a furze root.” - -“I should hide here if you want to hide,” said Bernard. - -“I mean to,” said Reuben. - -“Well, if you’re rested, let’s get on,” Francis said; but Kathleen -urged: - -“Do let’s say ‘Sabrina fair,’ first—just to try!” So they said it—all -but the Spangled Child who did not know it— - - “‘_Sabrina fair - Listen where thou art sitting - Under the glassie, cool...._’” - -There was a splash and a swirl in the pool, and there was the Mermaid -herself, sure enough. Their eyes had grown used to the dusk and they -could see her quite plainly, could see too that she was holding out her -arms to them and smiling so sweetly that it almost took their breath -away. - -“My cherished preservers,” she cried, “my dear, darling, kind, brave, -noble, unselfish dears!” - -“You’re talking to Reuben, in the plural, by mistake, I suppose,” said -Francis, a little bitterly. - -“To him, too, of course. But you two most of all,” she said, swishing -her tail around and leaning her hands on the edge of the pool. “I -_am_ so sorry I was so ungrateful the other night. I’ll tell you how -it was. It’s in your air. You see, coming out of the water we’re very -susceptible to aerial influences—and that sort of ungratefulness and, -what’s the word—?” - -“Snobbishness,” said Francis firmly. - -“Is that what you call it?—is most frightfully infectious, and your -air’s absolutely crammed with the germs of it. That’s why I was so -horrid. You do forgive me, don’t you, dears? And I was so selfish, -too—oh, horrid. But it’s all washed off now, in the nice clean sea, -and I’m as sorry as if it had been my fault, which it really and truly -wasn’t.” - -The children said all right, and she wasn’t to mind, and it didn’t -matter, and all the things you say when people say they are sorry, and -you cannot kiss them and say, “Right oh,” which is the natural answer -to such confessions. - -“It was very curious,” she said thoughtfully, “a most odd experience, -that little boy ... his having been born of people who had always been -rich, really seemed to me to be important. I assure you it did. Funny, -wasn’t it? And now I want you all to come home with me, and see where I -live.” - -She smiled radiantly at them, and they all said, “Thank you,” and -looked at each other rather blankly. - -“All our people will be unspeakably pleased to see you. We Mer-people -are not really ungrateful. You mustn’t think that,” she said pleadingly. - -She looked very kind, very friendly. But Francis thought of the -Lorelei. Just so kind and friendly must the Lady of the Rhine have -looked to the “sailor in a little skiff” whom he had disentangled -from Heine’s poem, last term, with the aid of the German dicker. By a -curious coincidence and the same hard means, Mavis had, only last term, -read of Undine, and she tried not to think that there was any lack of -soul in the Mermaid’s kind eyes. Kathleen who, by another coincidence, -had fed her fancy in English literature on the “Forsaken Merman” was -more at ease. - -“Do you mean down with you under the sea?” she asked— - - “‘_Where the sea snakes coil and twine, - Dry their mail and bask in the brine, - Where great whales go sailing by, - Sail and sail with unshut eye - Round the world for ever and aye?_’” - -“Well, it’s not exactly like that, really,” said the Mermaid; “but -you’ll see soon enough.” - -This had, in Bernard’s ears, a sinister ring. - -“Why,” he asked suddenly, “did you say you wanted to see us at dead of -night?” - -“It’s the usual time, isn’t it?” she asked, looking at him with -innocent surprise. “It is in all the stories. You know we have air -stories just as you have fairy stories and water stories—and the -rescuer almost always comes to the castle gate at dead of night, on a -coal-black steed or a dapple-gray, you know, or a red-roan steed of -might; but as there were four of you, besides me and my tail, I thought -it more considerate to suggest a chariot. Now, we really ought to be -going.” - -“Which way?” asked Bernard, and everyone held their breath to hear the -answer. - -“The way I came, of course,” she answered, “down here,” and she pointed -to the water that rippled around her. - -“Thank you so very, _very_ much,” said Mavis, in a voice which trembled -a little; “but I don’t know whether you’ve heard that people who -go down into the water like that—people like us—without tails, you -know—they get drowned.” - -“Not if they’re personally conducted,” said the Mermaid. “Of course we -can’t be responsible for trespassers, though even with them I don’t -think anything very dreadful has ever happened. Someone once told me a -story about Water Babies. Did you ever hear of that?” - -“Yes, but that was a made-up story,” said Bernard stolidly. - -“Yes, of course,” she agreed, “but a great deal of it’s quite true, all -the same. But you won’t grow fins and gills or anything like that. You -needn’t be afraid.” - -The children looked at each other, and then all looked at Francis. He -spoke. - -“Thank you,” he said. “Thank you very much, but we would rather -not—much rather.” - -“Oh, nonsense,” said the lady kindly. “Look here, it’s as easy as easy. -I give you each a lock of my hair,” she cut off the locks with her -shell knife as she spoke, long locks they were and soft. “Look here, -tie these round your necks—if I’d had a lock of human hair round my -neck I should never have suffered from the dryness as I did. And then -just jump in. Keep your eyes shut. It’s rather confusing if you don’t; -but there’s no danger.” - -The children took the locks of hair, but no one regarded them with any -confidence at all as lifesaving apparatus. They still hung back. - -“You really are silly,” said the sea lady indulgently. “Why did you -meddle with magic at all if you weren’t prepared to go through with -it? Why, this is one of the simplest forms of magic, and the safest. -Whatever would you have done if you had happened to call up a fire -spirit and had had to go down Vesuvius with a Salamander round your -little necks?” - -She laughed merrily at the thought. But her laugh sounded a little -angry too. - -“Come, don’t be foolish,” she said. “You’ll never have such a -chance again. And I feel that this air is full of your horrid human -microbes—distrust, suspicion, fear, anger, resentment—horrid little -germs. I don’t want to risk catching them. Come.” - -“No,” said Francis, and held out to her the lock of her hair; so did -Mavis and Bernard. But Kathleen had tied the lock of hair round her -neck, and she said: - -“I _should_ have liked to, but I promised Bernard I would not do -anything unless he said I might.” It was toward Kathleen that the -Mermaid turned, holding out a white hand for the lock. - -Kathleen bent over the water trying to untie it, and in one awful -instant the Mermaid had reared herself up in the water, caught Kathleen -in her long white arms, pulled her over the edge of the pool, and with -a bubbling splash disappeared with her beneath the dark water. - -[Illustration: _She caught Kathleen in her arms._] - -Mavis screamed and knew it; Francis and Bernard thought they did not -scream. It was the Spangled Child alone who said nothing. He had not -offered to give back the lock of soft hair. He, like Kathleen, had -knotted it round his neck; he now tied a further knot, stepped -forward, and spoke in tones which the other three thought the most -noble they had ever heard. - -“She give me the plum pie,” he said, and leaped into the water. - -He sank at once. And this, curiously enough, gave the others -confidence. If he had struggled—but no—he sank like a stone, or like a -diver who means diving and diving to the very bottom. - -“She’s my special sister,” said Bernard, and leaped. - -“If it’s magic it’s all right—and if it isn’t we couldn’t go back home -without her,” said Mavis hoarsely. And she and Francis took hands and -jumped together. - -It was not so difficult as it sounds. From the moment of Kathleen’s -disappearance the sense of magic—which is rather like very sleepy -comfort and sweet scent and sweet music that you just can’t hear the -tune of—had been growing stronger and stronger. And there are some -things so horrible that if you can bring yourself to face them you -simply _can’t_ believe that they’re true. It did not seem possible—when -they came quite close to the idea—that a Mermaid could really come and -talk so kindly and then drown the five children who had rescued her. - -“It’s all right,” Francis cried as they jumped. - -“I ...” He shut his mouth just in time, and down they went. - -You have probably dreamed that you were a perfect swimmer? You know -the delight of that dream-swimming, which is no effort at all, and yet -carries you as far and as fast as you choose. It was like that with -the children. The moment they touched the water they felt that they -belonged in it—that they were as much at home in water as in air. As -they sank beneath the water their feet went up and their heads went -down, and there they were swimming downward with long, steady, easy -strokes. It was like swimming down a well that presently widened to a -cavern. Suddenly Francis found that his head was above water. So was -Mavis’s. - -“All right so far,” she said, “but how are we going to get back?” - -“Oh, the magic will do that,” he answered, and swam faster. - -The cave was lighted by bars of phosphorescence placed like pillars -against the walls. The water was clear and deeply green and along -the sides of the stream were sea anemones and starfish of the most -beautiful forms and the most dazzling colors. The walls were of dark -squarish shapes, and here and there a white oblong, or a blue and a -red, and the roof was of mother-of-pearl which gleamed and glistened -in the pale golden radiance of the phosphorescent pillars. It was very -beautiful, and the mere pleasure of swimming so finely and easily swept -away almost their last fear. This, too, went when a voice far ahead -called: “Hurry up, France—Come on, Mavis,”—and the voice was the voice -of Kathleen. - -They hurried up, and they came on; and the gleaming soft light grew -brighter and brighter. It shone all along the way they had to go, -making a path of glory such as the moon makes across the sea on a -summer night. And presently they saw that this growing light was from -a great gate that barred the waterway in front of them. Five steps led -up to this gate, and sitting on it, waiting for them, were Kathleen, -Reuben, Bernard and the Mermaid. Only now she had no tail. It lay -beside her on the marble steps, just as your stockings lie when you -have taken them off; and there were her white feet sticking out from -under a dress of soft feathery red seaweed. - -They could see it was seaweed though it was woven into a wonderful -fabric. Bernard and Kathleen and the Spangled Boy had somehow got -seaweed dresses too, and the Spangled Boy was no longer dressed as a -girl; and looking down as they scrambled up the steps Mavis and Francis -saw that they, too, wore seaweed suits—“Very pretty, but how awkward to -go home in,” Mavis thought. - -[Illustration: _The golden door._] - -“Now,” said the Mer-lady, “forgive me for taking the plunge. I knew -you’d hesitate forever, and I was beginning to feel so cross! That’s -your dreadful atmosphere! Now, here we are at the door of our kingdom. -You do want to come in, don’t you? I can bring you as far as this -against your will, but not any farther. And you can’t come any farther -unless you trust me absolutely. Do you? Will you? Try!” - -“Yes,” said the children, all but Bernard, who said stoutly: - -“I don’t; but I’ll try to. I want to.” - -“If you want to, I think you _do_,” said she very kindly. “And now -I will tell you one thing. What you’re breathing isn’t air, and it -isn’t water. It’s something that both water people and air people can -breathe.” - -“The greatest common measure,” said Bernard. - -“A simple equation,” said Mavis. - -“Things which are equal to the same thing are equal to each other,” -said Francis; and the three looked at each other and wondered why they -had said such things. - -“Don’t worry,” said the lady, “it’s only the influence of the place. -This is the Cave of Learning, you know, very dark at the beginning and -getting lighter and lighter as you get nearer to the golden door. All -these rocks are made of books really, and they exude learning from -every crack. We cover them up with anemones and seaweed and pretty -things as well as we can, but the learning will leak out. Let us go -through the gate or you’ll all be talking Sanskrit before we know where -we are.” - -She opened the gate. A great flood of glorious sunlight met them, the -solace of green trees and the jeweled grace of bright blossoms. She -pulled them through the door, and shut it. - -“This is where we live,” she said. “Aren’t you glad you came?” - - - - -CHAPTER SEVEN - -_The Skies Are Falling_ - - -AS THE CHILDREN passed through the golden doors a sort of swollen -feeling which was beginning to make their heads quite uncomfortable -passed away, and left them with a curiously clear and comfortable -certainty that they were much cleverer than usual. - -“I _could_ do sums now, and no mistake,” Bernard whispered to Kathleen, -who replied to the effect that dates no longer presented the slightest -difficulty to her. - -Mavis and Francis felt as though they had never before known what it -was to have a clear brain. They followed the others through the golden -door, and then came Reuben, and the Mermaid came last. She had picked -up her discarded tail and was carrying it over her arm as you might a -shawl. She shut the gate, and its lock clicked sharply. - -“We have to be careful, you know,” she said, “because of the people in -the books. They are always trying to get out of the books that the cave -is made of; and some of them are very undesirable characters. There’s a -Mrs. Fairchild—we’ve had a great deal of trouble with her, and a person -called Mrs. Markham who makes everybody miserable, and a lot of people -who think they are being funny when they aren’t—dreadful.” - -The party was now walking along a smooth grassy path, between tall, -clipped box hedges—at least they looked like box hedges, but when Mavis -stroked the close face of one she found that it was not stiff box, but -soft seaweed. - -“Are we in the water or not?” said she, stopping suddenly. - -“That depends on what you mean by water. Water’s a thing human beings -can’t breathe, isn’t it? Well, you are breathing. So this can’t be -water.” - -“I see that,” said Mavis, “but the soft seaweed won’t stand up in air, -and it does in water.” - -“Oh, you’ve found out, have you?” said the Mermaid. “Well, then, -perhaps it is water. Only you see it can’t be. Everything’s like that -down here.” - -“Once you said you lived in water, and you wanted to be wet,” said -Mavis. - -“Mer-people aren’t responsible for what they say in your world. I told -you that, you know,” the Mermaid reminded them. - -Presently they came to a little coral bridge over a stream that flowed -still and deep. “But if what we’re in is water, what’s that?” said -Bernard, pointing down. - -“Ah, now you’re going too deep for me,” said the Mermaid, “at least if -I were to answer I should go too deep for you. Come on—we shall be too -late for the banquet.” - -“What do you have for the banquet?” Bernard asked; and the Mermaid -answered sweetly: “Things to eat.” - -“And to drink?” - -“It’s no use,” said she; “you can’t get at it that way. We drink—but -you wouldn’t understand.” - -Here the grassy road widened, and they came onto a terrace of -mother-of-pearl, very smooth and shining. Pearly steps led down from -it into the most beautiful garden you could invent if you tried for a -year and a day with all the loveliest pictures and the most learned -books on gardening to help you. But the odd thing about it was that -when they came to talk it over afterward they never could agree about -the shape of the beds, the direction of the walks, the kinds and colors -of the flowers, or indeed any single thing about it. But to each it -seemed and will always seem the most beautiful garden ever imagined or -invented. And everyone saw, beyond a distant belt of trees the shining -domes and minarets of very beautiful buildings, and far, far away there -was a sound of music, so far away that at first they could only hear -the music and not the tune. But soon that too was plain, and it was the -most beautiful tune in the world. - -“Crikey,” said Reuben, speaking suddenly and for the first time, “ain’t -it ’evingly neither. Not arf,” he added with decision. - -“Now,” said the Mermaid, as they neared the belt of trees, “you are -going to receive something.” - -“Oh, thank you,” said everybody, and no one liked to add: -“What?”—though that simple word trembled on every tongue. It slipped -off the tip of Reuben’s, indeed, at last, and the Mermaid answered: - -“An ovation.” - -“That’s something to do with eggs, I know,” said Kathleen. “Father was -saying so only the other day.” - -“There will be no eggs in this,” said the Mermaid, “and you may find -it a trifle heavy. But when it is over the fun begins. Don’t be -frightened, Kathleen—Mavis, don’t smooth your hair. Ugly untidiness is -impossible here. You are about to be publicly thanked by our Queen. -You’d rather not? You should have thought of that before. If you will -go about doing these noble deeds of rescue you must expect to be -thanked. Now, don’t forget to bow. And there’s nothing to be frightened -of.” - -They passed through the trees and came on a sort of open courtyard in -front of a palace of gleaming pearl and gold. There on a silver throne -sat the loveliest lady in the world. She wore a starry crown and a -gown of green, and golden shoes, and she smiled at them so kindly that -they forgot any fear they may have felt. The music ended on a note of -piercing sweetness and in the great hush that followed the children -felt themselves gently pushed forward to the foot of the throne. All -around was a great crowd, forming a circle about the pearly pavement on -which they stood. - -The Queen rose up in her place and reached toward them the end of her -scepter where shone a star like those that crowned her. - -“Welcome,” she said in a voice far sweeter than the music, “Welcome -to our Home. You have been kind, you have been brave, you have been -unselfish, and all my subjects do homage to you.” - -At the word the whole of that great crowd bent toward them like -bulrushes in the wind, and the Queen herself came down the steps of her -throne and held out her hands to the children. - -A choking feeling in their throats became almost unbearable as those -kind hands rested on one head after another. - -Then the crowd raised itself and stood upright, and someone called out -in a voice like a trumpet: - -“The children saved one of us—_We die in captivity_. Shout for the -children. Shout!” - -And a roar like the roar of wild waves breaking on rocks went up from -the great crowd that stood all about them. There was a fluttering of -flags or handkerchiefs—the children could not tell which—and then the -voice of their own Mermaid, saying: “There—that’s over. And now we -shall have the banquet. Shan’t we, Mamma?” - -“Yes, my daughter,” said the Queen. - -So the Mermaid they had rescued was a Queen’s daughter! - -“I didn’t know you were a Princess,” said Mavis, as they followed the -Queen along a corridor. - -“That’s why they have made such a fuss, I suppose,” said Bernard. - -“Oh, no, we should have given the ovation to anyone who had saved any -of us from captivity. We love giving ovations. Only we so seldom get -the chance, and even ordinary entertaining is difficult. People are -so prejudiced. We can hardly ever get anyone to come and visit us. I -shouldn’t have got you if you hadn’t happened to find that cave. It -would have been quite impossible for me to give Kathleen that clinging -embrace from shallow water. The cave water is so much more buoyant than -the sea. I daresay you noticed that.” - -Yes—they had. - -“May we sit next you at the banquet?” Kathleen asked suddenly, -“because, you know, it’s all rather strange to us.” - -“Of course, dear,” said the sea lady. - -“But,” said Bernard, “I’m awfully sorry, but I think we ought to go -home.” - -“Oh, don’t talk of it,” said the Mermaid. “Why, you’ve only just come.” - -Bernard muttered something about getting home in time to wash for tea. - -“There’ll be heaps of time,” said Francis impatiently; “don’t fuss and -spoil everything.” - -“I’m not fussing,” said Bernard, stolid as ever. “I never fuss. But I -think we ought to be thinking of getting home.” - -“Well, think about it then,” said Francis impatiently, and turned to -admire the clusters of scarlet flowers that hung from the pillars of -the gallery. - -The banquet was very magnificent, but they never could remember -afterward what it was that they ate out of the silver dishes and drank -out of the golden cups. They none of them forgot the footmen, however, -who were dressed in tight-fitting suits of silver scales, with silver -fingerless gloves, and a sort of helmet on that made them look less -like people than like fish, as Kathleen said. - -“But they _are_ fish,” said the Princess, opening her beautiful eyes; -“they’re the Salmoners, and the one behind Mother’s chair is the Grand -Salmoner. In your country I have heard there are Grand Almoners. We -have Grand Salmoners.” - -“Are all your servants fish?” Mavis asked. - -“Of course,” said the Princess, “but we don’t use servants much -except for state occasions. Most of our work is done by the lower -orders—electric eels, most of them. We get all the power for our -machinery from them.” - -“How do you do it?” Bernard asked, with a fleeting vision of being some -day known as the great man who discovered the commercial value of the -electricity obtainable from eels. - -“We keep a tank of them,” said she, “and you just turn a tap—they’re -connected up to people’s houses—and you connect them with your looms or -lathes or whatever you’re working. That sets up a continuous current -and the eels swim around and around in the current till the work’s -done. It’s beautifully simple.” - -“It’s simply beautiful,” said Mavis warmly. “I mean all this.” She -waved her hand to the row of white arches through which the green of -the garden and the blue of what looked like the sky showed plainly. -“And you live down here and do nothing but play all day long? How -lovely.” - -“You’d soon get tired of play if you did nothing else,” said Bernard -wisely. “At least I know I should. Did you ever make a steam engine?” -he asked the Princess. “That’s what I call work.” - -“It would be, to me,” she said, “but don’t you know that work is what -you have to do and don’t like doing? And play’s whatever you want to -do. Have some more Andrew Aromaticus.” - -She made a sign to a Salmoner, who approached with a great salver -of fruit. The company were seated by fours and fives and sixes at -little tables, such as you see in the dining rooms of the big hotels -where people feed who have motors. These little tables are good for -conversation. - -“Then what _do_ you do?” Kathleen asked. - -“Well, we have to keep all the rivers flowing, for one thing—the -earthly rivers, I mean—and to see to the rain and snow taps, and to -attend to the tides and whirlpools, and open the cages where the winds -are kept. Oh, it’s no easy business being a Princess in our country, I -can tell you, whatever it may be in yours. What do your Princesses do? -Do they open the wind cages?” - -“I ... I don’t know,” said the children. “I think they only open -bazaars.” - -“Mother says they work awfully hard, and they go and see people who are -ill in hospitals,” Kathleen was beginning, but at this moment the Queen -rose and so did everyone else. - -“Come,” said the Princess, “I must go and take my turn at -river-filling. Only Princesses can do the finest sort of work.” - -“What is the hardest thing you have to do?” Francis asked as they -walked out into the garden. - -“Keeping the sea out of our kingdom,” was the answer, “and fighting the -Under Folk. We kept the sea out by trying very hard with both hands, -inside our minds. And, of course, the sky helps.” - -“And how do you fight the Under Folk—and who are they?” Bernard wanted -to know. - -“Why, the thick-headed, heavy people who live in the deep sea.” - -“Different from you?” Kathleen asked. - -“My dear child!” - -“She means,” explained Mavis, “that we didn’t know there were any -other kind of people in the sea except your kind.” - -“You know much less about us than we do about you,” said the Princess. -“Of course there are different nations and tribes, and different -customs and dresses and everything. But there are two great divisions -down here besides us, the Thick-Heads and the Thin-Skins, and we have -to fight both of them. The Thin-Skins live near the surface of the -water, frivolous, silly things like nautiluses and flying fish, very -pleasant, but deceitful and light-minded. They are very treacherous. -The Thick-Heads live in the cold deep dark waters. They are desperate -people.” - -“Do you ever go down there?” - -The Princess shuddered. - -“No,” she said, “but we might have to. If the water ever came into our -kingdom they would attack us, and we should have to drive them out; -and then we should have to drive them right down to their own kingdom -again. It happened once, in my grandfather’s time.” - -“But how on earth,” asked Bernard, “did you ever get the water out -again?” - -“It wasn’t on earth, you know,” said the Princess, “and the Whales blew -a good deal of it out—the Grampuses did their best, but they don’t blow -hard enough. And the Octopuses finished the work by sucking the water -out with their suckers.” - -“Do you have cats here then?” asked Kathleen, whose attention had -wandered, and had only caught a word that sounded like Pussies. - -“Only Octopussies,” said the Princess, “but then they’re eight times as -pussy as your dry-land cats.” - -What Kathleen’s attention had wandered to was a tall lady standing on a -marble pedestal in the middle of a pool. She held a big vase over her -head, and from it poured a thin stream of water. This stream fell in -an arch right across the pool into a narrow channel cut in the marble -of the square in which they now stood, ran across the square, and -disappeared under a dark arch in the face of the rock. - -“There,” said the Princess, stopping. - -“What is it?” asked Reuben, who had been singularly silent. - -“This,” she said simply, “is the source of the Nile. And of all other -rivers. And it’s my turn now. I must not speak again till my term of -source-service is at an end. Do what you will. Go where you will. All -is yours. Only beware that you do not touch the sky. If once profane -hands touch the sky the whole heaven is overwhelmed.” - -She ran a few steps, jumped, and landed on the marble pedestal without -touching the lady who stood there already. Then, with the utmost -care, so that the curved arc of the water should not be slackened or -diverted, she took the vase in her hands and the other lady in her turn -leaped across the pool and stood beside the children and greeted them -kindly. - -“I am Maia. My sister has told me all you did for her,” she said; “it -was I who pinched your foot,” and as she spoke they knew the voice that -had said, among the seaweed-covered rocks at Beachfield: “Save her. We -die in captivity.” - -“What will you do?” she asked, “while my sister performs her -source-service?” - -“Wait, I suppose,” said Bernard. “You see we want to know about going -home.” - -“Didn’t you fix a time to be recalled?” asked Maia. And when they said -no, her beautiful smiling face suddenly looked grave. - -“With whom have you left the charge of speaking the spell of recall?” - -“I don’t know what you mean,” said Bernard. “What spell?” - -“The one which enabled me to speak to you that day in the shallows,” -said Maia. “Of course my sister explained to you that the spell which -enables us to come at your call is the only one by which you can -yourselves return.” - -“She didn’t,” said Mavis. - -“Ah, she is young and impulsive. But no doubt she arranged with someone -to speak the spell and recall you?” - -“No, she didn’t. She doesn’t know any land people except us. She told -me so,” said Kathleen. - -“Well, is the spell written anywhere?” Maia asked. - -“Under a picture” they told her, not knowing that it was also written -in the works of Mr. John Milton. - -“Then I’m afraid you’ll have to wait ’til someone happens to read what -is under the picture,” said Maia kindly. - -“But the house is locked up; there’s no one there to read anything,” -Bernard reminded them. - -There was a dismal silence. Then: - -“Perhaps burglars will break in and read it,” suggested Reuben kindly. -“Anyhow, what’s the use of kicking up a shine about it? _I_ can’t see -what you want to go back for. It’s a little bit of all right here, so -it is—I _don’t_ think. Plucky sight better than anything _I_ ever come -across. I’m a-goin’ to enjoy myself I am, and see all the sights. Miss, -there, said we might.” - -“Well spoken indeed,” said Maia, smiling at his earnest face. “That is -the true spirit of the explorer.” - -“But we’re not explorers,” said Mavis, a little crossly, for her; “and -we’re not so selfish as you think, either. Mother will be awfully -frightened if we’re not home to tea. She’ll think we’re drowned.” - -“Well, you _are_ drowned,” said Maia brightly. “At least that’s what I -believe you land people call it when you come down to us and neglect to -arrange to have the spell of return said for you.” - -“How horrible,” said Mavis. “Oh, Cathay,” and she clutched her sister -tightly. - -“But you needn’t _stay_ drowned,” said the Princess. “Someone’s sure -to say the spell somehow or other. I assure you that this is true; and -then you will go home with the speed of an eel.” - -They felt, somehow, in their bones that this was true, and it consoled -them a little. Things which you feel in your bones are most convincing. - -“But Mother,” said Mavis. - -“You don’t seem to know much about magic,” said Maia pityingly: “the -first principle of magic is that time spent in other worlds doesn’t -count in your own home. No, I see you don’t understand. In your home -it’s still the same time as it was when you dived into the well in the -cave.” - -“But that’s hours ago,” said Bernard; and she answered: - -“I know. But your time is not like our time at all.” - -“What’s the difference?” - -“I can’t explain,” said the Princess. “You can’t compare them any more -than you can compare a starlight and a starfish. They’re quite, quite -different. But the really important thing is that your Mother won’t be -anxious. So now why not enjoy yourselves?” - -And all this time the other Princess had been holding up the jar which -was the source of all the rivers in all the world. - -“Won’t she be very tired?” asked Reuben. - -“Yes, but suppose all the rivers dried up—and she had to know how -people were suffering—that would be something much harder to bear than -tiredness. Look in the pool and see what she is doing for the world.” - -They looked, and it was like a colored cinematograph; and the pictures -melted into one another like the old dissolving views that children -used to love so before cinematographs were thought of. - -They saw the Red Indians building their wigwams by the great rivers—and -the beavers building their dams across the little rivers; they saw -brown men setting their fish traps by the Nile, and brown girls sending -out little golden-lighted love-ships on the Ganges. They saw the -stormy splendor of the St. Lawrence, and the Medway’s pastoral peace. -Little streams dappled with sunlight and the shadow of green leaves, -and the dark and secret torrents that tear through the underworld -in caverns and hidden places. They saw women washing clothes in the -Seine, and boys sailing boats on the Serpentine. Naked savages dancing -in masks beside tropical streams overshadowed by strange trees and -flowers that we do not know—and men in flannels and girls in pink and -blue, punting in the backwaters of the Thames. They saw Niagara and the -Zambesi Falls; and all the time the surface of the pool was smooth as a -mirror and the arched stream that was the source of all they saw poured -ceaselessly over their heads and fell splashing softly into its little -marble channel. - -I don’t know how long they would have stayed leaning their elbows -on the cool parapet and looking down on the changing pictures, but -suddenly a trumpet sounded, drums beat, and everyone looked up. - -“It’s for the review,” said Maia, through the rattle of the drums. “Do -you care for soldiers?” - -“Rather,” said Bernard, “but I didn’t know you had soldiers.” - -“We’re very proud of our troops,” said the Princess. “I am Colonel of -the Lobster Battalion, and my sister commands the Crustacean Brigade; -but we’re not going on parade today.” - -The sound of drums was drawing nearer. “This way to the parade ground,” -said the Princess, leading the way. They looked at the review through a -big arch, and it was like looking into a very big aquarium. - -The first regiment they saw was, as it happened, the 23rd Lobsters. - -If you can imagine a Lobster as big as a Guardsman, and rather stouter, -you will have some idea of the splendid appearance of this regiment. -Only don’t forget that Lobsters in their natural regimentals are not -red. They wear a sort of steel-blue armor, and carry arms of dreadful -precision. They are terrible fellows, the 23rd, and they marched with -an air at once proud and confident. - -Then came the 16th Swordfish—in uniform of delicate silver, their drawn -swords displayed. - -The Queen’s Own Gurnards were magnificent in pink and silver, with real -helmets and spiked collars; and the Boy Scouts—“The Sea Urchins” as -they were familiarly called—were the last of the infantry. - -Then came Mer-men, mounted on Dolphins and Sea Horses, and the Cetacean -Regiments, riding on their whales. Each whale carried a squadron. - -“They look like great trams going by,” said Francis. And so they did. -The children remarked that while the infantry walked upright like -any other foot soldiers, the cavalry troops seemed to be, with their -mounts, suspended in the air about a foot from the ground. - -“And that shows it’s water,” said Bernard. - -“No, it doesn’t,” said Francis. - -“Well, a whale’s not a bird,” said Bernard. - -“And there are other things besides air and water,” said Francis. - -The Household Brigade was perhaps the handsomest. The Grand Salmoner -led his silvery soldiers, and the 100th Halibuts were evidently the -sort of troops to make the foes of anywhere “feel sorry they were born.” - -It was a glorious review, and when it was over the children found that -they had been quite forgetting their desire to get home. - -But as the back of the last Halibut vanished behind the seaweed trees -the desire came back with full force. Princess Maia had disappeared. -Their own Princess was, they supposed, still performing her -source-service. - -Suddenly everything seemed to have grown tiresome. - -“Oh, I do wish we could go home,” said Kathleen. “Couldn’t we just find -the door and go out?” - -“We might _look_ for the door,” said Bernard cautiously, “but I don’t -see how we could get up into the cave again.” - -“We can swim all right, you know,” Mavis reminded them. - -“I think it would be pretty low down to go without saying good-bye to -the Princesses,” said Francis. “Still, there’s no harm in _looking_ for -the door.” - -They did look for the door. And they did not find it. What they did -find was a wall—a great gray wall built of solid stones—above it -nothing could be seen but blue sky. - -“I do wonder what’s on the other side,” said Bernard; and someone, I -will not say which, said: “Let’s climb up and see.” - -It was easy to climb up, for the big stones had rough edges and so did -not fit very closely, and there was room for a toe here and a hand -there. In a minute or two they were all up, but they could not see down -on the other side because the wall was about eight feet thick. They -walked toward the other edge, and still they could not see down; quite -close to the edge, and still no seeing. - -“It isn’t sky at all,” said Bernard suddenly. “It’s a sort of dome—tin -I shouldn’t wonder, painted to look like sky.” - -“It can’t be,” said someone. - -“It is though,” said Bernard. - -“There couldn’t be one so big,” said someone else. - -“But there _is_,” said Bernard. - -And then someone—I will not tell you who—put out a hand, and, quite -forgetting the Princess’s warning, touched the sky. That hand felt -something as faint and thin as a bubble—and instantly this something -broke, and the sea came pouring into the Mer-people’s country. - -“Now you’ve done it,” said one of those whose hand it wasn’t. And -there was no doubt about it; the person who owned the hand _had_ done -it—and done it very thoroughly. It was plain enough now that what they -had been living in was not water, and that this was. The first rush -of it was terrible—but in less than a moment the whole kingdom was -flooded, and then the water became clear and quiet. - -The children found no difficulty in breathing, and it was as easy to -walk as it is on land in a high wind. They could not run, but they -walked as fast as they could to the place where they had left the -Princess pouring out the water for all the rivers in all the world. - -And as they went, one of them said, “Oh don’t, don’t tell it was me. -You don’t know what punishments they may have here.” - -The others said of course they wouldn’t tell. But the one who had -touched the sky felt that it was despised and disgraced. - -They found the pedestal, but what had been the pool was only part of -the enormous sea, and so was the little marble channel. - -The Princess was not there, and they began to look for her, more and -more anxious and wretched. - -“It’s all your fault,” said Francis to the guilty one who had broken -the sky by touching it; and Bernard said, “You shut up, can’t you?” - -It was a long time before they found their Princess, and when they did -find her they hardly knew her. She came swimming toward them, and she -was wearing her tail, and a cuirass and helmet of the most beautiful -mother-of-pearl—thin scales of it overlapping; and the crest on her -helmet was one great pearl, as big as a billiard ball. She carried -something over her arm. - -“Here you are,” she said. “I’ve been looking for you. The future is -full of danger. The water has got in.” - -“Yes, we noticed that,” said Bernard. - -And Mavis said: “Please, it was us. We touched the sky.” - -“Will they punish us?” asked Cathay. - -“There are no punishments here,” said the pearly Princess gravely, -“only the consequences of your action. Our great defense against the -Under Folk is that thin blue dome which you have broken. It can only be -broken from the inside. Our enemies were powerless to destroy it. But -now they may attack us at any moment. I am going to command my troops. -Will you come too?” - -“Rather,” said Reuben, and the others, somewhat less cordially, agreed. -They cheered up a little when the Princess went on. - -“It’s the only way to make you safe. There are four posts vacant -on my staff, and I have brought you the uniforms that go with the -appointments.” She unfolded five tails, and four little pearly coats -like her own, with round pearls for buttons, pearls as big as marbles. -“Put these on quickly,” she said, “they are enchanted coats, given by -Neptune himself to an ancestor of ours. By pressing the third button -from the top you can render yourself invisible. The third button below -that will make you visible again when you wish it, and the last button -of all will enable you to become intangible as well as invisible.” - -“Intangible?” said Cathay. - -“Unfeelable, so you’re quite safe.” - -“But there are only four coats,” said Francis. “That is so,” said the -Princess. “One of you will have to take its chance with the Boy Scouts. -Which is it to be?” - -Each of the children always said, and thought that it meant to say “I -will,” but somehow or other the person who spoke first was Reuben. -The instant the Princess had said “be,” Reuben shouted: “Me,” adding -however almost at once, “please.” - -“Right,” said the Princess kindly, “off with you! The Sea Urchins’ -barracks are behind that rock. Off with you! Here, don’t forget your -tail. It enables you to be as comfortable in the water as any fish.” - -Reuben took the tail and hastened away. - -“Now,” said the Princess. And they all began putting on their tails. It -was like putting both your feet into a very large stocking. Then came -the mail coats. - -“Don’t we have swords?” Francis asked, looking down at his slim and -silvery extremity. - -“Swords? In the Crustacean Brigade? Never forget, children, that you -belong to the Princess’s Own Oysters. Here are your weapons.” She -pointed to a heap of large oyster shells, as big as Roman shields. - -“See,” she said, “you hold them this way as a rule. A very powerful -spring is released when you hold them _that_ way.” - -“But what do you do with it?” Mavis asked. - -“Nip the feet of the enemy,” said the Princess, “and it holds on. Under -Folk have no tails. You wait till they are near a rock; then nip a -foe-man’s foot with your good weapon, laying the other end on the rock. -The oyster shell will at once attach itself to the rock and....” - -A terrible shout rang out, and the Princess stopped. - -“What is it; oh, what is it?” said the children. And the Princess -shuddered. - -Again that shout—the most terrible sound the children had ever heard. - -“What is it?” they said again. - -The Princess drew herself up, as if ashamed of her momentary weakness, -and said: - -“It is the war cry of the Under Folk.” - - - - -CHAPTER EIGHT - -_The Water-War_ - - -AFTER THE SOUND of that terrible shouting there came silence—that is, -there was silence where the children were, but all above they could -hear the rush and rustle of a quick arming. - -“The war cry of the People of the Depths,” said the Princess. - -“I suppose,” said Kathleen forlornly, “that if they’re so near as that -all is lost.” - -“Lost? No, indeed,” cried the Princess. “The People of the Depths are -very strong, but they are very heavy. They cannot rise up and come to -us from the water above. Before they can get in they must scale the -wall.” - -“But they will get over the wall—won’t they?” - -“Not while one of the Royal Halibuts still lives. The Halibuts have -manned the wall; they will keep back the foe. But they won’t attack -yet. They’ll send out their scouts and skirmishers. Till they approach, -the Crustacean Brigade can do nothing. It is a hard thing to watch a -fight in which you may not share. I must apologize for appointing you -to such an unsatisfactory position.” - -“Thank you, _we_ don’t mind,” said Cathay hastily. “What’s that?” - -It was a solid, gleaming sheet of silver that rose above them like a -great carpet—which split and tore itself into silver threads. - -“It is the Swordfish Brigade,” said the Princess. “We could swim up a -little and watch them, if you’re not afraid. You see, the first attack -will probably be delivered by one of their Shark regiments. The 7th -Sharks have a horrible reputation. But our brave Swordfish are a match -for them,” she added proudly. - -The Swordfish, who were slowly swimming to and fro above, seemed to -stiffen as though to meet some danger at present unseen by the others. -Then, with a swift, silent, terrible movement, the Sharks rushed on the -noble defenders of Merland. - -The Swordfish with their deadly weapons were ready—and next moment all -the water was a wild whirl of confused conflict. The Sharks fought with -a sort of harsh, rough courage, and the children, who had drawn away to -a little distance, could not help admiring their desperate onslaught. -But the Swordfish were more than their match. With more skill, and an -equally desperate gallantry, they met and repulsed the savage onslaught -of the Sharks. - -Shoals of large, calm Cod swept up from the depths, and began to -shoulder the dead Sharks sideways toward the water above the walls—the -dead Sharks and, alas! many a brave, dead Swordfish, too. For the -victory had not been a cheap one. - -The children could not help cheering as the victorious Swordfish -re-formed. - -“Pursuit is unnecessary,” said the Princess. “The Sharks have lost too -heavily to resume the attack.” - -A Shark in terror-stricken retreat passed close by her, and she clipped -its tail with her oyster shell. - -The Shark turned savagely, but the Princess with one tail-swish was -out of danger, pushing the children before her outspread arms, and the -Shark began to sink, still making vain efforts to pursue them. - -[Illustration: _The Swordfish Brigade._] - -“The shell will drag him down,” said the Princess; “and now I must go -and get a fresh shield. I wish I knew where the next attack would be -delivered.” - -They sank slowly through the water. - -“I wonder where Reuben is?” said Bernard. - -“Oh, he’s quite safe,” said the Princess. “The Boy Scouts don’t go -outside the walls—they just do a good turn for anybody who wants it, -you know—and help the kind Soles to look after the wounded.” - -They had reached the great flooded garden again and turned toward the -Palace, and as they went a Sea Urchin shell suddenly rose from behind -one of the clipped hedges—a Sea Urchin shell and behind it a long tail. - -The shell was raised, and the face under it was Reuben’s. - -“Hi, Princess!” he shouted. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere. -We’ve been scouting. I got a lot of seaweed, and they thought I was -nothing _but_ seaweed; and so I got quite close to the enemy.” - -“It was very rash,” said the Princess severely. - -“The others don’t think so,” he said, a little hurt. “They began by -saying I was only an irregular Sea Urchin, because I’ve got this jolly -tail”—he gave it a merry wag—“and they called me Spatangus, and names -like that. But they’ve made me their General now—General Echinus. I’m a -regular now, and no mistake, and what I was going to say is the enemy -is going to attack the North Tower in force in half an hour.” - -“You good boy,” said the Princess. I do believe if it hadn’t been for -his Sea Urchin’s uniform she would have kissed him. “You’re splendid. -You’re a hero. If you could do it safely—there’s heaps of seaweed—could -you find out if there’s any danger from the Book People? You know—the -ones in the cave. It’s always been our fear that they might attack, -_too_: and if they did—well, I’d rather be the slave of a Shark than -of Mrs. Fairchild.” She gathered an armful of seaweed from the nearest -tree, and Reuben wrapped himself in it and drifted off—looking less -like a live Boy Scout than you could believe possible. - -The defenders of Merland, now acting on Reuben’s information, began to -mass themselves near the North Wall. - -“Now is our time,” said the Princess. “We must go along the tunnel, and -when we hear the sound of their heavy feet shaking the flow of ocean -we must make sallies, and fix our shell shields in their feet. Major, -rally your men.” - -A tall Merchild in the Crustacean uniform blew a clear note, and the -soldiers of the Crustacean Brigade, who having nothing particular to do -had been helping anyone and everyone as best they could, which is the -way in Merland, though not in Europe, gathered about their officers. - -When they were all drawn up before her, the Princess addressed her -troops. - -“My men,” she said, “we have been suddenly plunged into war. But it -has not found us unprepared. I am proud to think that my regiments are -ready to the last pearl button. And I know that every man among you -will be as proud as I am that our post is, as tradition tells us it has -always been, the post of danger. We shall go out into the depths of -the sea to fight the enemies of our dear country, and to lay down our -lives, if need be, for that country’s sake.” - -The soldiers answered by cheers, and the Princess led the way to one of -those little buildings, like Temples of Flora in old pictures, which -the children had noticed in the gardens. At the order given a sergeant -raised a great stone by a golden ring embedded in it and disclosed a -dark passage leading underground. - -A splendid captain of Cockles, six feet high if he was an inch, with a -sergeant and six men, led the way. Three Oyster officers followed, then -a company of Oysters, the advance guard. At the head of the main body -following were the Princess and her Staff. As they went the Princess -explained why the tunnel was so long and sloped so steeply. - -“You see,” she said, “the inside of our wall is only about ten feet -high, but it goes down on the other side for forty feet or more. It -is built on a hill. Now, I don’t want you to feel obliged to come out -and fight. You can stay inside and get the shields ready for us to -take. We shall keep on rushing back for fresh weapons. Of course the -tunnel’s much too narrow for the Under Folk to get in, but they have -their regiment of highly trained Sea Serpents, who, of course, can make -themselves thin and worm through anything.” - -“Cathay doesn’t like serpents,” said Mavis anxiously. - -“You needn’t be afraid,” said the Princess. “They’re dreadful cowards. -They know the passage is guarded by our Lobsters. They won’t come -within a mile of the entrance. But the main body of the enemy will have -to pass quite close. There’s a great sea mountain, and the only way -to our North Tower is in the narrow ravine between that mountain and -Merland.” - -The tunnel ended in a large rocky hall with the armory, hung with ten -thousand gleaming shields, on the one side, and the guardroom crowded -with enthusiastic Lobsters on the other. The entrance from the sea was -a short, narrow passage, in which stood two Lobsters in their beautiful -dark coats of mail. - -Since the moment when the blue sky that looked first so like sky -and then so like painted tin had, touched, confessed itself to be a -bubble—confessed, too, in the most practical way, by bursting and -letting the water into Merland—the children had been carried along by -the breathless rush of preparations for the invasion, and the world -they were now in had rapidly increased in reality, while their own -world, in which till today they had always lived, had been losing -reality at exactly the same rate as that by which the new world gained -it. So it was that when the Princess said: - -“You needn’t go out and attack the enemy unless you like,” they all -answered, in some astonishment: - -“But we _want_ to.” - -“That’s all right,” said the Princess. “I only wanted to see if they -were in working order.” - -“If what were?” - -“Your coats. They’re coats of valor, of course.” - -“I think I could be brave without a coat,” said Bernard, and began to -undo his pearl buttons. - -“Of course you could,” said the Princess. “In fact, you must be brave -to begin with, or the coat couldn’t work. It would be no good to a -coward. It just keeps your natural valor warm and your wits cool.” - -“It makes you braver,” said Kathleen suddenly. “At least I hope it’s -me—but I expect it’s the coat. Anyhow, I’m glad it does. Because I do -want to be brave. Oh, Princess!” - -“Well?” said the Princess, gravely, but not unkindly, “what is it?” - -Kathleen stood a moment, her hands twisting in each other and her eyes -downcast. Then in an instant she had unbuttoned and pulled off her coat -of pearly mail and thrown it at the Princess’s feet. - -“I’ll do it without the coat,” she said, and drew a long breath. - -The others looked on in silence, longing to help her, but knowing that -no one could help her now but herself. - -“It was me,” said Kathleen suddenly, and let go a deep breath of -relief. “It was me that touched the sky and let in the water; and I am -most frightfully sorry, and I know you’ll never forgive me. But—” - -“Quick,” said the Princess, picking up the coat, “get into your armor; -it’ll prevent your crying.” She hustled Kathleen into the coat and kept -her arms around her. “Brave girl,” she whispered. “I’m glad you did it -without the coat.” The other three thought it polite to turn away. “Of -course,” the Princess added, “I knew—but you didn’t know I knew.” - -“How did you know?” said Kathleen. - -“By your eyes,” said the Princess, with one last hug; “they’re quite -different now. Come, let us go to the gate and see if any of our Scouts -are signaling.” - -The two Lobster sentries presented claws as the Princess passed with -her Staff through the narrow arch and onto the sandy plain of the sea -bottom. The children were astonished to find that they could see quite -plain a long way through the water—as far as they could have seen in -air, and the view was very like one kind of land view. First, the -smooth flat sand dotted with copses of branching seaweed—then woods of -taller treelike weeds with rocks shelving up and up to a tall, rocky -mountain. This mountain sent out a spur, then ran along beside the -Merkingdom and joined the rock behind it; and it was along the narrow -gorge so formed that the Under Folk were expected to advance. There -were balls of seaweed floating in the air—at least, it really now had -grown to seem like air, though, of course, it was water—but no signs of -Scouts. - -Suddenly the balls of seaweed drew together and the Princess murmured, -“I thought so,” as they formed into orderly lines, sank to the ground, -and remained motionless for a moment, while one ball of seaweed stood -in front of them. - -“It’s the Boy Scouts,” she said. “Your Reuben is giving them their -orders.” - -It seemed that she was right, for next moment the balls of seaweed -drifted away in different directions, and the one who had stood before -them drifted straight to the arch where the Princess and the children -stood. It drifted in, pulled off its seaweed disguise, and was, in -effect, Reuben. - -“We’ve found out something more, your Highness,” he said, saluting the -Princess. “The vanguard are to be Sea Horses; you know, not the little -ones, but the great things they have in the depths.” - -“No use our attacking the horses,” said the Princess. “They’re as hard -as ice. Who rides them?” - -“The First Dipsys,” said Reuben. “They’re the young Under Folk who want -to cut a dash. They call them the Forlorn Hopers, for short.” - -“Have they got armor?” - -“No—that’s their swank. They’ve no armor but their natural scales. -Those look thick enough, though. I say, Princess, I suppose we Sea -Urchins are free to do exactly as we choose?” - -“Yes,” said the Princess, “unless orders are given.” - -“Well, then—my idea is that the Lobsters are the fellows to tackle the -Sea Horses. Hold on to their tails, see? They can’t hurt the Lobsters -because they can’t get at their own tails.” - -“But when the Lobsters let go?” said the Princess. - -“The Lobsters wouldn’t let go till they had driven back the enemy,” -said the Lobster Captain, saluting. “Your Highness, may I ask if you -propose to take this Urchin’s advice?” - -“Isn’t it good?” she asked. - -“Yes, your Highness,” the Lobster Captain answered, “but it’s -impertinent.” - -[Illustration: _The First Dipsys._] - -“I am the best judge of that,” said the Princess gently; “remember that -these are noble volunteers, who are fighting for us of their own free -will.” - -The Lobster saluted and was silent. - -“I cannot send the Lobsters,” said the Princess, “we need them to -protect the gate. But the Crabs—” - -“Ah, Highness, let us go,” pleaded the Lobster Captain. - -“The Crabs cannot keep the gate,” said the Princess kindly. “You know -they are not narrow enough. Francis, will you be my aide-de-camp and -take a message to the Queen?” - -“May I go, too?” asked Mavis. - -“Yes. But we must deliver a double assault. If the Crabs attack the -Horses, who will deal with the riders?” - -“I have an idea about that, too,” said Reuben. - -“If we could have some good heavy shoving regiment—and someone sharp to -finish them off. The Swordfish, perhaps?” - -“You are a born general,” the Princess said; “but you don’t quite -know our resources. The United Narwhals can do the shoving, as you -call it—and their horns are sharp and heavy. Now”—she took a smooth -white chalkstone from the seafloor, and a ready Lobster brought her a -sharpened haddock bone. She wrote quickly, scratching the letters deep -on the chalk. “Here,” she said, “take this to the Queen. You will find -her at Headquarters at the Palace yard. Tell her everything. I have -only asked for the two regiments; you must explain the rest. I don’t -suppose there’ll be any difficulty in getting through our lines, but, -if there should be, the password is ‘Glory’ and the countersign is ‘or -Death.’ And hurry, hurry, hurry for your lives!” - -Never before had Mavis and Francis felt anything like the glow of -excitement and importance which warmed them as they went up the long -tunnel to take the message to the Queen. - -“But where is the Palace?” Mavis said, and they stopped, looking at -each other. - -“I’ll show you, please,” said a little voice behind them. They turned -quickly to find a small, spruce, gentlemanly Mackerel at their heels. -“I’m one of the Guides,” it said. “I felt sure you’d need me. This -way, sir, please,” and it led the way across the gardens in and out -of the clumps of trees and between the seaweed hedges till they came -to the Palace. Rows and rows of soldiers surrounded it, all waiting -impatiently for the word of command that should send them to meet the -enemies of their country. - -“Glory,” said the gentlemanly Mackerel, as he passed the outposts. - -“Or Death,” replied the sentinel Sea Bream. - -The Queen was in the courtyard, in which the children had received -their ovation—so short a time ago, and yet how long it seemed. Then -the courtyard had been a scene of the calm and charming gaiety of a -nation at peace; now it was full of the ardent, intense inactivity of -waiting warriors. The Queen in her gleaming coral armor met them as -the password opened a way to her through the close-packed ranks of the -soldiers. She took the stone and read it, and with true royal kindness -she found time, even at such a moment, for a word of thanks to the -messengers. - -“See the Narwhals start,” she added, “and then back to your posts with -all speed. Tell your commanding officer that so far the Book People -have made no sign, but the golden gate is strongly defended by the -King’s Own Cod, and—” - -“I didn’t know there was a King,” said Francis. - -The Queen looked stern, and the Mackerel guide jerked Francis’s magic -coattail warningly and whispered “Hush!” - -“The King,” said the Queen quietly, “is no more. He was lost at sea.” - -When the splendid steady column of Narwhals had marched off to its -appointed place the children bowed to the Queen and went back to their -posts. - -“I’m sorry I said anything,” said Francis to the Mackerel, “but I -didn’t know. Besides, how can a Mer-king be lost at sea?” - -“Aren’t your Kings lost on land?” asked the Mackerel, “or if not Kings, -men quite as good? What about explorers?” - -“I see,” said Mavis; “and doesn’t anyone know what has become of him?” - -“No,” said the Mackerel; “he has been lost for a very long time. We -fear the worst. If he were alive he would have come back. We think the -Under Folk have him. They bewitch prisoners so that they forget who -they are. Of course, there’s the antidote. Every uniform is made with -a little antidote pocket just over the heart.” He put his fin inside -his scales and produced a little golden case, just like a skate’s egg. -“You’ve got them, too, of course,” he added. “If you are taken prisoner -swallow the contents at once.” - -“But if you forget who you are,” said Francis, “don’t you forget the -antidote?” - -“No charm,” the Mackerel assured him, “is strong enough to make one -forget one’s counter-charm.” - -And now they were back at the Lobster-guarded gate. The Princess ran to -meet them. - -“What a time you’ve been,” she said. “Is all well? Have the Narwhals -taken up their position?” - -Satisfied on this point, she led the children up a way long and steep -to a window in the wall whence they could look down on the ravine and -see the advance of the foe. The Narwhals were halted about halfway up -the ravine, where it widened to a sort of amphitheater. Here, among the -rocks, they lay in ambush, waiting for the advance of the foe. - -“If it hadn’t been for you, Reuben,” said the Princess, as they leaned -their elbows on the broad rocky ledge of the window, “they might easily -have stormed the North Tower—we should not have been ready—all our -strongest defenses were massed on the south side. It was there they -attacked last time, so the history books tell us.” - -And now a heavy, thundering sound, faint yet terrible, announced the -approach of the enemy—and far away across the sea plain something could -be seen moving. A ball of seaweed seemed to drift up the ravine. - -“A Sea Urchin gone to give the alarm,” said the Princess; “what -splendid things Boy Scouts are. We didn’t have them in the last war. -My dear father only invented them just before—” She paused and sighed. -“Look,” she said. - -The enemy’s heavy cavalry were moving in a solid mass toward -Merland—the great Sea Horses, twenty feet long, and their great riders, -who must have been eight or ten feet high, came more and more quickly, -heading to the ravine. The riders were the most terrible beings the -children had ever seen. Clothed from head to feet in closely fitting -scales, with large heads, large ears, large mouths and blunt noses and -large, blind-looking eyes, they sat each erect on his armored steed, -the long harpoons swaying lightly in their enormous hands. - -The Sea Horses quickened their pace—and a noise like a hoarse trumpet -rang out. - -“They are sounding the charge,” said the Princess; and as she spoke the -Under Folk charged at the ravine, in a determined, furious onrush. - -“Oh, no one can stand up against that—they can’t,” said Cathay, in -despair. - -From the window they could see right down onto the amphitheater, where -the Narwhals were concealed. - -On came the Sea Cavalry—so far unresisted—but as they neared the ambush -bunches of seaweed drifted in the faces of the riders. They floundered -and strove to push away the clinging stuff—and as they strove the -Narwhals made their sortie—drove their weight against the riders and -hurled them from their horses, and from the covers of the rocks the -Crabs advanced with an incredible speed and caught the tails of the -Sea Horses in their inexorable claws. The riders lay on the ground. -The horses were rearing and prancing with fear and pain as the clouds -of seaweed, each with a prickly Sea Urchin in it, flung themselves -against their faces. The riders stood up, fighting to the last; but the -harpoons were no match for the Narwhal’s horns. - -“Come away,” said the Princess. - -Already the Sea Horses, urged by the enormous Crabs, were retreating in -the wildest disorder, pursued by Narwhals and harassed by Sea Urchins. - -The Princess and the children went back to the Lobster sentries. - -“Repulsed,” said the Princess, “with heavy loss”—and the Lobsters -cheered. - -“How’s that, Princess?” said a ball of seaweed, uncurling itself at the -gate and presenting the familiar features of Reuben. - -“How is it?” she said. “It is Victory. And we owe it to you. But you’re -wounded?” - -“Only a scratch,” said Reuben; “harpoon just missed me.” - -“Oh, Reuben, you are a hero,” said Cathay. - -“Get along, you silly,” he answered gracefully. - - - - -CHAPTER NINE - -_The Book People_ - - -EVEN IN THE MIDST OF WAR there are intervals for refreshments. Our -own soldiers, no matter how fierce, must eat to live, and the same is -the case with the submarine regiments. The Crustacean Brigade took -advantage of the lull in hostilities which followed the defeat of the -Sea Horses to march back to the Palace and have a meal. A very plain -meal it was, too, and very different from the “Banquet of Ovations,” -as Cathay pointed out afterward. There were no prettily spread tables -decorated with bunches of seaweed, no plates or knives or forks. The -food was passed around by hand, and there was one drinking horn (a sea -cow’s horn) to every six soldiers. They all sat on the ground as you do -at a picnic, and the Queen came and spoke a few hurried words to them -when on her way to strengthen the defenses of the golden gate. And, -as I said, the food was plain. However, everyone had enough to eat, -which was the main thing. Baskets of provisions were sent down to the -Lobsters’ guardroom. - -“It is important,” said Princess Freia, “that our men should be on the -spot in case they are needed, and the same with the dinner. I shall go -down with the provisions and keep their hearts up.” - -“Yes, dear, do,” said the Princess Maia; “but don’t do anything rash. -No sorties now. You Lobsters are so terribly brave. But you know Mother -said you weren’t to. Ah me! War is a terrible thing! What a state the -rivers will get into with all this water going on, and the winds all -loose and doing as they like. It’s horrible to think about. It will -take ages to get things straight again.” - -(Her fears were only too well founded. All this happened last year—and -you know what a wet summer that was.) - -“I know, dear,” said Freia; “but I know now who broke the sky, and it -is very, very sorry—so we won’t rub it in, will we?” - -“I didn’t mean to,” said Maia, smiling kindly at the children, and went -off to encourage her Lobsters. - -“And now,” said Francis, when the meal was over, “what are we going to -do next?” - -“We can’t do anything but wait for news,” said the Princess. “Our -Scouts will let us know soon enough. I only hope the Book People won’t -attack us at the same time as the Under Folk. That’s always the danger.” - -“How could they get in?” Mavis asked. - -“Through the golden door,” said the Princess. “Of course they couldn’t -do anything if we hadn’t read the books they’re in. That’s the worst -of Education. We’ve all read such an awful lot, and that unlocks the -books and they can come out if anyone calls them. Even our fish are -intolerably well read—except the Porpoises, dear things, who never -could read anything. That’s why the golden door is guarded by them, of -course.” - -“If not having read things is useful,” said Mavis, “we’ve read almost -nothing. Couldn’t we help guard the door?” - -“The very thing,” said the Princess joyously; “for you possess the only -weapon that can be used against these people or against the authors -who created them. If you can truthfully say to them, ‘I never heard -of you,’ your words become a deadly sword that strikes at their most -sensitive spot.” - -“What spot?” asked Bernard. And the Princess answered, “Their vanity.” - -So the little party went toward the golden door and found it behind a -thick wall of Porpoises. Incessant cries came from beyond the gates, -and to every cry they answered like one Porpoise, “We never heard of -you. You can’t come in. You can’t come in. We never heard of you.” - -“We shan’t be any good here,” said Bernard, among the thick, rich -voices of the Porpoises. “They can keep anyone back.” - -“Yes,” said the Princess; “but if the Book Folk look through the gate -and see that they’re only Porpoises their wounded vanity will heal, and -they’ll come on as strongly as ever. Whereas if they did find human -beings who have never heard of them the wounds ought to be mortal. As -long as you are able truthfully to say that you don’t know them they -can’t get in.” - -“Reuben would be the person for this,” said Francis. “I don’t believe -he’s read _anything_!” - -“Well, we haven’t read much,” said Cathay comfortably; “at least, not -about nasty people.” - -“I wish I hadn’t,” sighed the Princess through the noise of the voices -outside the gate. “I know them all. You hear that cold squeak? That’s -Mrs. Fairchild. And that short, sharp, barking sound—that’s Aunt -Fortune. The sort of growl that goes on all the time is Mr. Murdstone, -and that icy voice is Rosamund’s mother—the one who was so hateful -about the purple jar.” - -“I’m afraid we know some of those,” said Mavis. - -“Then be careful not to say you don’t. There are heaps you don’t -know—John Knox and Machiavelli and Don Diego and Tippoo Sahib and -Sally Brass and—I _must_ go back. If anything should happen, fling your -arms round the nearest Porpoise and trust to luck. These Book People -can’t kill—they can only stupefy.” - -“But how do you know them all?” Mavis asked. “Do they often attack you?” - -“No, only when the sky falls. But they always howl outside the gate at -the full moon.” - -So saying she turned away and disappeared in the crowd of faithful -Porpoises. - -And outside the noise grew louder and the words more definite. - -“I am Mrs. Randolph. Let me in!” - -“I am good Mrs. Brown. Let me in!” - -“I am Eric, or Little by Little. I _will_ come in!” - -“I am Elsie, or Like a Little Candle. Let me in—let me in!” - -“I am Mrs. Markham.” - -“I am Mrs. Squeers.” - -“I am Uriah Heep.” - -“I am Montdidier.” - -“I am King John.” - -“I am Caliban.” - -“I am the Giant Blunderbore.” - -“I am the Dragon of Wantley.” - -And they all cried, again and again: “Let us in! Let me in! Let me in!” - -The strain of listening for the names and calling out “I don’t know -you!” when they didn’t, and saying nothing when they did, became almost -unbearable. It was like that horrid game with the corners of the -handkerchief, “Hold fast” and “Let loose,” and you have to remember to -do the opposite. Sooner or later an accident is bound to happen, and -the children felt a growing conviction that it would be sooner. - -“What will happen if they do get in?” Cathay asked a neighboring -Porpoise. - -“Can’t say, miss, I’m sure,” it answered. - -“But what will you do?” - -“Obstruct them in the execution of our duty,” it answered. “You see, -miss, they can’t kill; they can only stupefy, and they can’t stupefy -us, ’cause why? We’re that stupid already we can’t hold no more. That’s -why they trust us to defend the golden gate,” it added proudly. - -The babel of voices outside grew louder and thicker, and the task of -knowing when to say “I don’t know you,” and so wound the vanity of the -invaders, grew more and more difficult. At last the disaster, foreseen -for some time, with a growing plainness, came upon them. - -“I am the Great Seal,” said a thick, furry voice. - -“I don’t know you,” cried Cathay. - -“You do—he’s in history. James the Second dropped him in the Thames,” -said Francis. “Yes, you’ve done it again.” - -“Shut up,” said Bernard. - -The last two remarks were made in a deep silence, broken only by the -heavy breathing of the Porpoises. The voices behind the golden gate had -died down and ceased. The Porpoises massed their heavy bulk close to -the door. - -“Remember the Porpoises,” said Francis. “Don’t forget to hold on to a -Porpoise.” - -Four of these amiable if unintellectual creatures drew away from their -companions, and one came to the side of each child. - -Every eye was fixed on the golden door, and then slowly—very slowly, -the door began to open. As it opened it revealed the crowd that stood -without—cruel faces, stupid faces, crafty faces, sullen faces, angry -faces, not a single face that you ever could wish to see again. - -Then slowly, terribly, without words, the close ranks of the Book -People advanced. Mrs. Fairchild, Mrs. Markham, and Mrs. Barbauld led -the van. Closely following came the Dragon of Wantley, the Minotaur, -and the Little Man that Sintram knew. Then came Mr. Murdstone, neat in -a folded white neckcloth, and clothes as black as his whiskers. Miss -Murdstone was with him, every bead of her alight with gratified malice. -The children found that they knew, without being told, the name of each -foe now advancing on them. Paralyzed with terror, they watched the -slow and terrible advance. It was not till Eric, or Little by Little, -broke the silence with a whoop of joy and rushed upon them that they -remembered their own danger, and clutched the waiting Porpoises. Alas! -it was too late. Mrs. Markham had turned a frozen glare upon them, Mrs. -Fairchild had wagged an admonitory forefinger, wave on wave of sheer -stupidity swept over them, and next moment they lost consciousness -and sank, each with his faithful Porpoise, into the dreamless sleep -of the entirely unintelligent. In vain the main body of the Porpoises -hurled themselves against the intruders; their heroism was fruitless. -Overwhelmed by the heavy truisms wielded by the enemy, they turned and -fled in disorder, and the conquering army entered Merland. - -Francis was the first to recover consciousness. The Porpoise to which -he had clung was fanning him with its fin, and imploring him, for its -sake, to look up, to speak. - -“All right, old chap,” said Francis. “I must have fallen asleep. Where -are the others?” - -They were all there, and the devoted Porpoises quickly restored them to -consciousness. - -[Illustration: _Book Hatefuls._] - -The four children stood up and looked at each other. - -“I wish Reuben was here,” said Cathay. “He’d know what to do.” - -“He wouldn’t know any more than we do,” said Francis haughtily. - -“We _must_ do _something_,” said Mavis. “It’s our fault again.” - -“It’s mine,” said Cathay, “but I couldn’t help it.” - -“If you hadn’t, one of us would have,” said Bernard, seeking to -console. “I say, why do only the nasty people come out of the books?” - -“_I_ know that,” said his Porpoise, turning his black face eagerly -toward them. “The stupidest people can’t help knowing something. The -Under Folk get in and open the books—at least, they send the Bookworms -in to open them. And, of course, they only open the pages where the -enemies are quartered.” - -“Then—” said Bernard, looking at the golden gate, which swung open, its -lock hanging broken and useless. - -“Yes,” said Mavis, “we could, couldn’t we? Open the other books, we -mean!” She appealed to her Porpoise. - -“Yes,” it said, “perhaps you could. Human children can open books, I -believe. Porpoises can’t. And Mer-people can’t open the books in the -Cave of Learning, though they can unlock them. If they want to open -them they have to get them from the Public Mer Libraries. I can’t help -knowing that,” it added. The Porpoises seemed really ashamed of not -being thoroughly stupid. - -“Come on,” said Francis, “we’ll raise an army to fight these Book -People. Here’s something we can do that _isn’t_ mischief.” - -“You shut up,” said Bernard, and thumping Cathay on the back told her -to never mind. - -They went toward the golden gate. - -“I suppose all the nasty people are out of the books by now?” Mavis -asked her Porpoise, who followed her with the close fidelity of an -affectionate little dog. - -“_I_ don’t know,” it said, with some pride. “I’m stupid, I am. But I -can’t help knowing that no one can come out of books unless they’re -called. You’ve just got to tap on the back of the book and call the -name and then you open it, and the person comes out. At least, that’s -what the Bookworms do, and I don’t see why you should be different.” - -What _was_ different, it soon appeared, was the water in the stream -in the Cave of Learning, which was quite plainly still water in some -other sense than that in which what they were in was water. That is, -they could not walk in it; they had to swim. The cave seemed dark, -but enough light came from the golden gate to enable them to read the -titles of the books when they had pulled away the seaweed which covered -many of them. They had to hold on to the rocks—which were books—with -one hand, and clear away the seaweed with the other. - -You can guess the sort of books at which they knocked—Kingsley and -Shakespeare and Marryat and Dickens, Miss Alcott and Mrs. Ewing, Hans -Andersen and Stevenson, and Mayne Reid—and when they had knocked they -called the name of the hero whose help they desired, and “Will you help -us,” they asked, “to conquer the horrid Book People, and drive them -back to cover?” - -And not a hero but said, “Yes, indeed we will, with all our hearts.” - -And they climbed down out of the books, and swam up to the golden gate -and waited, talking with courage and dignity among themselves, while -the children went on knocking at the backs of books—which are books’ -front doors—and calling out more and more heroes to help in the fight. - -Quentin Durward and Laurie were the first to come out, then Hereward -and Amyas and Will Cary, David Copperfield, Rob Roy, Ivanhoe, Caesar -and Anthony, Coriolanus and Othello; but you can make the list for -yourselves. They came forth, all alive and splendid, with valor and the -longing to strike once more a blow for the good cause, as they had been -used to do in their old lives. - -“These are enough,” said Francis, at last. “We ought to leave some, in -case we want more help later.” - -You see for yourselves what a splendid company it was that swam -to the golden gate—there was no other way than swimming, except -for Perseus—and awaited the children. And when the children joined -them—rather nervous at the thought of the speeches they would have to -make to their newly recruited regiment—they found that there was no -need of speeches. The faithful Porpoises had not been too stupid to -explain the simple facts of danger and rescue. - -It was a proud moment for the children when they marched toward the -Palace at the head of the band of heroes whom they had pressed into the -service of the Merland. Between the clipped seaweed hedges they went, -and along the paths paved with pearl and marble, and so, at last, drew -near the Palace. They gave the watchword “Glory.” - -“Or Death,” said the sentry. And they passed on to the Queen. - -“We’ve brought a reinforcement,” said Francis, who had learned the word -from Quentin Durward as they came along. And the Queen gave one look at -her reinforcement’s faces and said simply: - -“We are saved.” - -The horrible Book People had not attacked the Palace; they had gone -furtively through the country killing stray fish and destroying any -beautiful thing they happened to find. For these people hate beauty -and happiness. They were now holding a meeting in the Palace gardens, -near the fountain where the Princesses had been wont to do their -source-service, and they were making speeches like mad. You could hear -the dull, flat murmur of them even from the Palace. They were the sort -of people who love the sound of their own silly voices. - -The newcomers were ranged in orderly ranks before the Queen, awaiting -her orders. It looked like a pageant or a fancy-dress parade. There -was St. George in his armor, and Joan of Arc in hers—heroes in plumed -hats and laced shirts, heroes in ruffs and doublets—brave gentlemen of -England, gallant gentlemen of France. For all the differences in their -dress, there was nothing motley about the band which stood before the -Queen. Varied as they were in dress and feature, they had one quality -in common, which marked them as one company. The same light of bravery -shone on them all, and became them like a fine uniform. - -“Will you,” the Queen asked of their leader—a pale, thin-faced man in -the dress of a Roman—“will you do just as you think best? I would not -presume,” she added, with a kind of proud humility, “to teach the game -of war to Caesar.” - -“Oh, Queen,” he answered, “these brave men and I will drive back the -intruders, but, having driven them back, we must ourselves return -through those dark doors which we passed when your young defenders -called our names. We will drive back the _men_—and by the look of them -’twill be an easy task. But Caesar wars not with women, and the women -on our side are few, though each, I doubt not, has the heart of a -lioness.” - -He turned toward Joan of Arc with a smile and she gave him back a smile -as bright as the sword she carried. - -“How many women are there among you?” the Queen asked, and Joan -answered: - -“Queen Boadicea and Torfrida and I are but three.” - -“But we three,” cried Torfrida, “are a match for three hundred of such -women as those. Give us but whips instead of swords, and we will drive -them like dogs to their red and blue cloth-bound kennels.” - -“I’m afraid,” said the Queen, “they’d overcome you by sheer weight. -You’ve no idea how heavy they are.” And then Kathleen covered herself -with glory by saying, “Well, but what about Amazons?” - -“The very thing,” said Caesar kindly. “Would you mind running back? -You’ll find them in the third book from the corner where the large -purple starfish is; you can’t mistake it.” - -The children tore off to the golden gate, rushed through it, and -swam to the spot where, unmistakably, the purplish starfish spread -its violet rays. They knocked on the book, and Cathay, by previous -arrangement, called out— - -“Come out, please, Queen of the Amazons, and bring all your fighting -ladies.” - -Then out came a very splendid lady in glorious golden armor. “You’d -better get some boats for us,” she said, standing straight and splendid -on a ledge of rock, “enough to reach from here to the gate, or a -bridge. There are all these things in Caesar’s books. I’m sure he -wouldn’t mind your calling them out. We must not swim, I know, because -of getting our bowstrings wet.” - -So Francis called out a bridge, and when it was not long enough to -reach the golden gate he called another. And then the Queen called her -ladies, and out came a procession, which seemed as though it would -never end, of tall and beautiful women armed and equipped for war. They -carried bows, and the children noticed that one side of their chests -was flatter than the other. And the procession went on and on, passing -along the bridge and through the golden gate, till Cathay grew quite -dizzy; and at last Mavis said, “Oh, your Majesty, do stop them. I’m -sure there are heaps, and we shall be too late if we wait for any more.” - -So the Queen stopped the procession and they went back to the Palace, -where the Queen of the Amazons greeted Joan of Arc and the other ladies -as though they were old acquaintances. - -In a few moments their plans were laid. I wish I could describe to you -the great fight between the Nice Book People and the others. But I -have not time, and besides, the children did not see all of it, so I -don’t see why _you_ should. It was fought out in the Palace gardens. -The armies were fairly evenly matched as to numbers, because the -Bookworms had let out a great many Barbarians, and these, though not so -unpleasant as Mr. Murdstone and Mrs. Fairchild, were quite bad enough. -The children were not allowed to join in the battle, which they would -dearly have liked to do. Only from a safe distance they heard the -sound of steel on steel, the whir of arrows, and the war cries of the -combatants. And presently a stream of fugitives darkened the pearly -pathways, and one could see the heroes with drawn swords following in -pursuit. - -And then, among those who were left, the shouts of war turned suddenly -to shouts of laughter, and the Merlish Queen herself moved toward the -battlefield. And as she drew near she, too, laughed. For, it would -seem, the Amazons had only shot their arrows at the men among their -foes—they had disdained to shoot the women, and so good was their aim -that not a single woman was wounded. Only, when the Book Hatefuls -had been driven back by the Book Heroes, the Book Heroines advanced -and, without more ado, fell on the remaining foes. They did not fight -them with swords or spears or arrows or the short, sharp knives they -wore—they simply picked up the screaming Bookwomen and carried them -back to the books where they belonged. Each Amazon caught up one of -the foe and, disregarding her screaming and scratching, carried her -back to the book where she belonged, pushed her in, and shut the door. - -Boadicea carried Mrs. Markham and her brown silk under one bare, -braceleted arm as though she had been a naughty child. Joan of Arc made -herself responsible for Aunt Fortune, and the Queen of the Amazons -made nothing of picking up Miss Murdstone, beads and all, and carrying -her in her arms like a baby. Torfrida’s was the hardest task. She had, -from the beginning, singled out Alftruda, her old and bitter enemy, and -the fight between them was a fierce one, though it was but a battle of -looks. Yet before long the fire in Torfrida’s great dark eyes seemed to -scorch her adversary, she shrank before it, and shrank and shrank till -at last she turned and crept back to her book and went in of her own -accord, and Torfrida shut the door. - -“But,” said Mavis, who had followed her, “don’t you live in the same -book?” - -Torfrida smiled. - -“Not quite,” she said. “That would be impossible. I live in a different -edition, where only the Nice People are alive. In hers it is the nasty -ones.” - -“And where is Hereward?” Cathay asked, before Mavis could stop her. “I -do love him, don’t you?” - -“Yes,” said Torfrida, “I love him. But he is not alive in the book -where I live. But he will be—he will be.” - -And smiling and sighing, she opened her book and went into it, and the -children went slowly back to the Palace. The fight was over, the Book -People had gone back into their books, and it was almost as though they -had never left them—not quite, for the children had seen the faces of -the heroes, and the books where these lived could never again now be -the same to them. All books, indeed, would now have an interest far -above any they had ever held before—for any of these people might be -found in any book. You never know. - -[Illustration: _Book Heroines._] - -The Princess Freia met them in the Palace courtyard, and clasped -their hands and called them the preservers of the country, which was -extremely pleasant. She also told them that a slight skirmish had been -fought on the Mussel-beds south of the city, and the foe had retreated. - -“But Reuben tells me,” she added—“that boy is really worth his -weight in pearls—that the main body are to attack at midnight. We -must sleep now, to be ready for the call of duty when it comes. Sure -you understand your duties? And the power of your buttons and your -antidotes? I might not have time to remind you later. You can sleep in -the armory—you must be awfully tired. You’ll be asleep before you can -say Jack Sprat.” - -So they lay down on the seaweed, heaped along one end of the Oysters’ -armory, and were instantly asleep. - -It may have been their natures, or it may have been the influence of -the magic coats. But whatever the cause, it is certain that they lay -down without fear, slept without dreams, and awoke without alarm when -an Oyster corporal touched their arms and whispered, “Now!” - -They were wide awake on the instant and started up, picking their -oyster shields from the ground beside them. - -“I feel just like a Roman soldier,” Cathay said. “Don’t you?” - -And the others owned that so far as they knew the feelings of a Roman -soldier, those feelings were their own. - -The shadows of the guardroom were changed and shifted and flung here -and there by the torches carried by the busy Oysters. Phosphorescent -fish these torches were, and gave out a moony light like that of the -pillars in the Cave of Learning. Outside the Lobster-guarded arch the -water showed darkly clear. Large phosphorescent fish were twined round -pillars of stone, rather like the fish you see on the lampposts on the -Thames Embankment, only in this case the fish were the lamps. So strong -was the illumination that you could see as clearly as you can on a -moonlit night on the downs, where there are no trees to steal the light -from the landscape and bury it in their thick branches. - -All was hurry and bustle. The Salmoners had sent a detachment to harass -the flank of the enemy, and the Sea Urchins, under the command of -Reuben, were ready in their seaweed disguises. - -There was a waiting time, and the children used it to practice with -their shells, using the thick stems of seaweed—thick as a man’s arm—to -represent the ankles of the invading force, and they were soon fairly -expert at the trick which was their duty. Francis had just nipped an -extra fat stalk and released it again by touching the secret spring -when the word went around, “Every man to his post!” - -The children proudly took up their post next to the Princess, and -hardly had they done so when a faint yet growing sound knocked gently -at their ears. It grew and grew and grew till it seemed to shake the -ground on which they stood, and the Princess murmured, “It is the tramp -of the army of the Under Folk. Now, be ready. We shall lurk among these -rocks. Hold your good oyster shell in readiness, and when you see a -foot near you clip it, and at the same time set down the base of the -shell on the rock. The trusty shell will do the rest.” - -“Yes, we know, thank you, dear Princess,” said Mavis. “Didn’t you see -us practicing?” - -But the Princess was not listening; she had enough to do to find cover -for her troops among the limpet-studded rocks. - -And now the tramp, tramp, tramp of the great army sounded nearer and -more near, and through the dimly lighted water the children could see -the great Deep Sea People advancing. - -Very terrible they were, big beyond man-size, more stalwart and more -finely knit than the Forlorn Hopers who had led the attack so happily -and gloriously frustrated by the Crabs, the Narwhals and the Sea -Urchins. As the advance guard drew near all the children stared, from -their places of concealment, at the faces of these terrible foes of the -happy Merland. Very strong the faces were, and, surprisingly, very, -very sad. They looked—Francis at least was able to see it—like strong -folk suffering proudly an almost intolerable injury—bearing, bravely, -an almost intolerable pain. - -“But I’m on the other side,” he told himself, to check a sudden rising -in his heart of—well, if it was not sympathy, what was it? - -And now the head of the advancing column was level with the Princess. -True to the old tradition which bids a commander lead and not to follow -his troops, she was the first to dart out and fix a shell to the heel -of the left-rank man. The children were next. Their practice bore its -fruit. There was no blunder, no mistake. Each oyster shell clipped -sharp and clean the attached ankle of an enemy; each oyster shell at -the same moment attached itself firmly to the rock, thus clinging to -his base in the most thorough and military way. A spring of joy and -triumph welled up in the children’s hearts. How easy it was to get the -better of these foolish Deep Sea Folk. A faint, kindly contempt floated -into the children’s minds for the Mer-people, who so dreaded and hated -these stupid giants. Why, there were fifty or sixty of them tied by the -leg already! It was as easy as— - -The pleasant nature of these reflections had kept our four rooted to -the spot. In the triumphant performance of one duty they failed to -remember the duty that should have followed. They stood there rejoicing -in their victory, when by all the rules of the Service they should have -rushed back to the armory for fresh weapons. - -The omission was fatal. Even as they stood there rejoicing in their -cleverness and boldness and in the helpless anger of the enemy, -something thin and string-like spread itself around them—their feet -caught in string, their fingers caught in string, string tweaked -their ears and flattened their noses—string confined their elbows and -confused their legs. The Lobster-guarded doorway seemed farther off—and -farther, and farther.... They turned their heads; they were following -backward, and against their will, a retreating enemy. - -“Oh, why didn’t we do what she said?” breathed Cathay. “Something’s -happened!” - -“I should think it had,” said Bernard. “We’re caught—in a net.” - -They were. And a tall Infantryman of the Under Folk was towing them -away from Merland as swiftly and as easily as a running child tows a -captive air balloon. - - - - -CHAPTER TEN - -_The Under Folk_ - - -THOSE OF US who have had the misfortune to be caught in a net in the -execution of our military duty, and to be dragged away by the enemy -with all the helpless buoyancy of captive balloons, will be able to -appreciate the sensations of the four children to whom this gloomy -catastrophe had occurred. - -The net was very strong—made of twisted fibrous filaments of seaweed. -All efforts to break it were vain, and they had, unfortunately, nothing -to cut it with. They had not even their oyster shells, the rough edges -of which might have done something to help, or at least would have been -useful weapons, and the discomfort of their position was extreme. They -were, as Cathay put it, “all mixed up with each other’s arms and legs,” -and it was very difficult and painful to sort themselves out without -hurting each other. - -“Let’s do it, one at a time,” said Mavis, after some minutes of severe -and unsuccessful struggle. “France first. Get right away, France, and -see if you can’t sit down on a piece of the net that isn’t covered with -_us_, and then Cathay can try.” - -It was excellent advice and when all four had followed it, it was found -possible to sit side by side on what may be called the floor of the -net, only the squeezing of the net walls tended to jerk one up from -one’s place if one wasn’t very careful. - -By the time the rearrangement was complete, and they were free to look -about them, the whole aspect of the world had changed. The world, for -one thing, was much darker, in itself that is, though the part of it -where the children were was much lighter than had been the sea where -they were first netted. It was a curious scene—rather like looking down -on London at night from the top of St. Paul’s. Some bright things, -like trams or omnibuses, were rushing along, and smaller lights, which -looked mighty like cabs and carriages, dotted the expanse of blackness -till, where they were thick set, the darkness disappeared in a blaze of -silvery light. - -Other light-bearers had rows of round lights like the portholes of -great liners. One came sweeping toward them, and a wild idea came -to Cathay that perhaps when ships sink they go on living and moving -underwater just as she and the others had done. Perhaps they do. -Anyhow, this was not one of them, for, as it came close, it was plainly -to be perceived as a vast fish with phosphorescent lights in rows along -its gigantic sides. It opened its jaws as it passed, and for an instant -everyone shut their eyes and felt that all was over. When the eyes -were opened again, the mighty fish was far away. Cathay, however, was -discovered to be in tears. - -“I wish we hadn’t come,” she said; and the others could not but feel -that there was something in what she said. They comforted her and -themselves as best they could by expressing a curious half-certainty -which they had that everything would be all right in the end. As I -said before, there are some things so horrible that if you can bring -yourself to face them you see at once that they can’t be true. The -barest idea of poetic justice—which we all believe in at the bottom -of our hearts—made it impossible to think that the children who had -nobly (they couldn’t help feeling it _was_ noble) defended their -friends, the Mer Folk, should have anything really dreadful happen to -them in consequence. And when Bernard talked about the fortunes of war -he did it in an unconvinced sort of way and Francis told him to shut up. - -[Illustration: _In the net._] - -“But what are we to do,” sniffed Cathay for the twentieth time, and all -the while the Infantryman was going steadily on, dragging the wretched -netful after him. - -“Press our pearl buttons,” suggested Francis hopefully. “Then we shall -be invisible and unfeelable and we can escape.” He fumbled with the -round marble-like pearl. - -“No, no,” said Bernard, catching at his hand, “don’t you see? If we -do, we may never get out of the net. If they can’t see us or feel us -they’ll think the net’s empty, and perhaps hang it up on a hook or put -it away in a box.” - -“And forget it while years roll by. _I_ see,” said Cathay. - -“But we can undo them the minute we’re there. Can’t we?” said Mavis. - -“Yes, of course,” said Bernard; but as a matter of fact they couldn’t. - -At last the Infantryman, after threading his way through streets of -enormous rocky palaces, passed through a colossal arch, and so into a -hall as big as St. Paul’s and Westminster Abbey into one. - -A crowd of Under Folk, who were seated on stone benches around rude -tables, eating strange luminous food, rose up, and cried, “What news?” - -“Four prisoners,” said the Infantryman. - -“Upper Folk,” the Colonel said; “and my orders are to deliver them to -the Queen herself.” - -He passed to the end of the hall and up a long wide flight of steps -made of something so green and clear that it was plainly either glass -or emerald, and I don’t think it could have been glass, because how -could they have made glass in the sea? There were lights below it which -shone through the green transparency so clear and lovely that Francis -said dreamily— - - “‘_Sabrina fair, - Listen where thou art sitting, - Under the glassie, cool, translucent wave_,’” - -and quite suddenly there was much less room in the net, and they were -being embraced all at once and with tears of relief and joy by the -Princess Freia—their own Mer Princess. - -“Oh, I _didn’t_ mean to—Princess dear, I _didn’t_,” said Francis. “It -was the emerald steps made me think of translucent.” - -“So they are,” she said, “but oh, if you knew what I’ve felt—you, our -guests, our knights-errant, our noble defenders—to be prisoners and -all of us safe. I did so hope you’d call me. And I’m so proud that you -didn’t—that you were brave enough not to call for me until you did it -by accident.” - -“We never thought of doing it,” said Mavis candidly, “but I hope we -shouldn’t have, if we _had_ thought of it.” - -“Why haven’t you pressed your pearl buttons?” she asked, and they told -her why. - -“Wise children,” she said, “but at any rate we must all use the charm -that prevents our losing our memories.” - -“I shan’t use mine,” said Cathay. “I don’t want to remember. If I -didn’t remember I should forget to be frightened. Do please let -me forget to remember.” She clung pleadingly to the Princess, who -whispered to Mavis, “Perhaps it would be best,” and they let Cathay -have her way. - -The others had only just time to swallow their charms before the -Infantryman threw the net onto a great table, which seemed to be cut -out of one vast diamond, and fell on his face on the ground. It was his -way of saluting his sovereign. - -“Prisoners, your Majesty,” he said when he had got up again. “Four of -the young of the Upper Folk—” and he turned to the net as he spoke, -and stopped short—“there’s someone else,” he said in an altered voice, -“someone as wasn’t there when we started, I’ll swear.” - -“Open the net,” said a strong, sweet voice, “and bid the prisoners -stand up that I may look upon them.” - -“They might escape, my love,” said another voice anxiously, “or perhaps -they bite.” - -“Submersia,” said the first voice, “do you and four of my women stand -ready. Take the prisoners one by one. Seize each a prisoner and hold -them, awaiting my royal pleasure.” - -The net was opened and large and strong hands took Bernard, who was -nearest the mouth of the net back, and held him gently but with extreme -firmness in an upright position on the table. None of them could stand -because of their tails. - -They saw before them, on a throne, a tall and splendid Queen, very -beautiful and very sad, and by her side a King (they knew the royalty -by their crowns), not so handsome as his wife, but still very different -from the uncouth, heavy Under Folk. And he looked sad too. They were -clad in robes of richest woven seaweed, sewn with jewels, and their -crowns were like dreams of magnificence. Their throne was of one clear -blood-bright ruby, and its canopy of green drooping seaweed was gemmed -with topazes and amethysts. The Queen rose and came down the steps of -the throne and whispered to her whom she had called Submersia, and she -in turn whispered to the four other large ladies who held, each, a -captive. - -And with a dreadful unanimity the five acted; with one dexterous -movement they took off the magic jackets, and with another they removed -the useful tails. The Princess and the four children stood upon the -table on their own ten feet. - -“What funny little things,” said the King, not unkindly. - -“Hush,” said the Queen, “perhaps they can understand what you say—and -at any rate that Mer-girl can.” - -The children were furious to hear their Princess so disrespectfully -spoken of. But she herself remained beautifully calm. - -“Now,” said the Queen, “before we destroy your memories, will you -answer questions?” - -“Some questions, yes—others, no,” said the Princess. - -“Are these human children?” - -“Yes.” - -“How do they come under the sea?” - -“Mer-magic. You wouldn’t understand,” said the Princess haughtily. - -“Were they fighting against us?” - -“Yes,” cried Bernard and Mavis before the Princess answered. - -“And lucky to do it,” Francis added. - -“If you will tell us the fighting strength of the Merlanders, your -tails and coats shall be restored to you and you shall go free. Will -you tell?” - -“Is it likely?” the Princess answered. “I am a Mer-woman, and a -Princess of the Royal House. Such do not betray their country.” - -“No, I suppose not,” said the Queen. And she paused a moment before she -said, “Administer the cup of forgetfulness.” - -The cup of forgetfulness was exceedingly pleasant. It tasted of toffee -and coconuts, and pineapple ices, and plum cake, and roast chicken, -with a faint underflavor of lavender, rose leaves and the very best -_eau de cologne_. - -The children had tasted cider-cup and champagne-cup at parties, and -had disliked both, but oblivion-cup was delicious. It was served in -a goblet of opal color, in dreamy pink and pearl—and green and blue -and gray—and the sides of the goblet were engraved with pictures of -beautiful people asleep. The goblet passed from hand to hand, and -when each had drunk enough the Lord High Cupbearer, a very handsome, -reserved-looking fish, laid a restraining touch on the goblet and, -taking it between his fins, handed it to the next drinker. So, one by -one, each took the draught. Kathleen was the last. - -The draught had no effect on four out of the five—but Kathleen changed -before their eyes, and though they had known that the draught of -oblivion would make her forget, it was terrible to see it do its fell -work. - -Mavis had her arm protectingly around Kathleen, and the moment the -draught had been swallowed Kathleen threw off that loving arm and drew -herself away. It hurt like a knife. Then she looked at her brothers and -sisters, and it is a very terrible thing when the eyes you love look at -you as though you were a stranger. - -Now, it had been agreed, while still the captives were in the net, that -all of them should pretend that the cup of oblivion had taken effect, -that they should just keep still and say nothing and look as stupid -as they could. But this coldness of her dear Cathay’s was more than -Mavis could bear, and no one had counted on it. So when Cathay looked -at Mavis as at a stranger whom she rather disliked, and drew away from -her arm, Mavis could not bear it, and cried out in heart-piercing -tones, “Oh, Cathay, darling, what is it? What’s the matter?” before the -Princess or the boys could stop her. And to make matters worse, both -boys said in a very loud, plain whisper, “Shut up, Mavis,” and only the -Princess kept enough presence of mind to go on saying nothing. - -Cathay turned and looked at her sister. - -“Cathay, darling,” Mavis said again, and stopped, for no one could go -on saying “darling” to anyone who looked at you as Cathay was looking. - -She turned her eyes away as Cathay looked toward the Queen—looked, and -went, to lean against the royal knee as though it had been her mother’s. - -“Dear little thing,” said the Queen; “see, it’s quite tame. I shall -keep it for a pet. Nice little pet then!” - -“You shan’t keep her,” cried Mavis, but again the Princess hushed her, -and the Queen treated her cry with contemptuous indifference. Cathay -snuggled against her new mistress. - -“As for the rest of you,” said the Queen, “it is evident from your -manner that the draught of oblivion has not yet taken effect on you. -So it is impossible for me to make presents of you to those prominent -members of the nobility, who are wanting pets, as I should otherwise -have done. We will try another draught tomorrow. In the meantime ... -the fetters, Jailer.” - -A tall sour-looking Under-man stepped forward. Hanging over his arm -were scaly tails, which at first sight of the children’s hearts leaped, -for they hoped they were their own. But no sooner were the tails fitted -on than they knew the bitter truth. - -“Yes,” said the Queen “they are false tails. You will not be able to -take them off, and you can neither swim nor walk with them. You can, -however, move along quite comfortably on the floor of the ocean. What’s -the matter?” she asked the Jailer. - -“None of the tails will fit this prisoner, your Majesty,” said the -Jailer. - -“I am a Princess of the reigning Mer House,” said Freia, “and your -false, degrading tails cannot cling to me.” - -“Oh, put them all in the lockup,” said the King, “as sullen a lot of -prisoners as ever I saw—what?” - -The lockup was a great building, broader at the top than at the bottom, -which seemed to be balanced on the sea floor, but really it was propped -up at both ends with great chunks of rock. The prisoners were taken -there in the net, and being dragged along in nets is so confusing, that -it was not till the Jailer had left them that they discovered that the -prison was really a ship—an enormous ship—which lay there, perfect in -every detail as on the day when it first left dock. The water did not -seem to have spoiled it at all. They were imprisoned in the saloon, -and, worn out with the varied emotions of the day, they lay down on the -comfortable red velvet cushions and went to sleep. Even Mavis felt that -Kathleen had found a friend in the Queen, and was in no danger. - -The Princess was the last to close her eyes. She looked long at the -sleeping children. - -“Oh, _why_ don’t they think of it?” she said, “and why mustn’t I tell -them?” - -There was no answer to either question, and presently she too slept. - -I must own that I share the Princess’s wonder that the children did not -spend the night in saying “Sabrina fair” over and over again. Because -of course each invocation would have been answered by an inhabitant of -Merland, and thus a small army could easily have been collected, the -Jailer overpowered and a rush made for freedom. - -I wish I had time to tell you all that happened to Kathleen, because -the daily life of a pampered lap-child to a reigning Queen is one that -you would find most interesting to read about. As interesting as your -Rover or Binkie would find it to read—if he could read—about the life -of one of Queen Alexandra’s Japanese Spaniels. But time is getting on, -and I must make a long story short. And anyhow you can never tell all -about everything, can you? - -The next day the Jailers brought food to the prison, as well as a -second draught of oblivion, which, of course, had no effect, and they -spent the day wondering how they could escape. In the evening the -Jailer’s son brought more food and more oblivion-cup, and he lingered -while they ate. He did not look at all unkind, and Francis ventured to -speak to him. - -“I say,” he said. - -“What do you say?” the Under-lad asked. - -“Are you forbidden to talk to us?” - -“No.” - -“Then do tell us what they will do with us.” - -“I do not know. But we shall have to know before long. The prisons are -filling up quickly—they will soon be quite full. Then we shall have to -let some of you out on what is called ticket-of-leave—that means with -your artificial tails on, which prevent you getting away, even if the -oblivion-cup doesn’t take effect.” - -“I say,” it was Bernard’s turn to ask. - -“What do you say?” - -“Why don’t the King and Queen go and fight, like the Mer Royal Family -do?” - -“Against the law,” said the Under-lad. “We took a King prisoner once, -and our people were afraid our King and Queen might be taken, so they -made that rule.” - -“What did you do with him—the prisoner King?” the Princess asked. - -“Put him in an Iswater,” said the lad, “a piece of water entirely -surrounded by land.” - -“I should like to see him,” said the Princess. - -“Nothing easier,” said the Under-lad, “as soon as you get your -tickets-of-leaves. It’s a good long passage to the lake—nearly all -water, of course, but lots of our young people go there three times -a week. Of course, he can’t be a King anymore now—but they made him -Professor of Conchology.” - -“And has he forgotten he was a _King_?” asked the Princess. - -“Of course: but he was so learned the oblivion-cup wasn’t deep enough -to make him forget everything: that’s why he’s a Professor.” - -“What was he King of?” the Princess asked anxiously. - -“He was King of the Barbarians,” said the Jailer’s son—and the Princess -sighed. - -“I thought it might have been my father,” she said, “he was lost at -sea, you know.” - -The Under-lad nodded sympathetically and went away. - -“He doesn’t seem such a bad sort,” said Mavis. - -“No,” said the Princess, “I can’t understand it. I thought all the -Under Folk were terrible fierce creatures, cruel and implacable.” - -“And they don’t seem so very different from us—except to look at,” said -Bernard. - -“I wonder,” said Mavis, “what the war began about?” - -“Oh—we’ve always been enemies,” said the Princess, carelessly. - -“Yes—but how did you begin being enemies?” - -“Oh, that,” said the Princess, “is lost in the mists of antiquity, -before the dawn of history and all that.” - -“Oh,” said Mavis. - -But when Ulfin came with the next meal—did I tell you that the Jailer’s -son’s name was Ulfin?—Mavis asked him the same question. - -“I don’t know—little land-lady,” said Ulfin, “but I will find out—my -uncle is the Keeper of the National Archives, graven on tables of -stone, so many that no one can count them, but there are smaller tables -telling what is on the big ones—” he hesitated. “If I could get leave -to show you the Hall of the Archives, would you promise not to try to -escape?” - -They had now been shut up for two days and would have promised anything -in reason. - -“You see, the prisons are quite full now,” he said, “and I don’t see -why you shouldn’t be the first to get your leaves-tickets. I’ll ask my -father.” - -“I say!” said Mavis. - -“What do you say?” said Ulfin. - -“Do you know anything about my sister?” - -“The Queen’s new lap-child? Oh—she’s a great pet—her gold collar with -her name on it came home today. My cousin’s brother-in-law made it.” - -“The name—Kathleen?” said Mavis. - -“The name on the collar is Fido,” said Ulfin. - -The next day Ulfin brought their tickets-of-leaves, made of the leaves -of the tree of Liberty which grows at the bottom of the well where -Truth lies. - -“Don’t lose them,” he said, “and come with me.” They found it quite -possible to move along slowly on hands and tails, though they looked -rather like seals as they did so. - -He led them through the strange streets of massive passages, pointing -out the buildings, giving them their names as you might do if you were -showing the marvels of your own city to a stranger. - -“That’s the Astrologers’ Tower,” he said, pointing to a huge building -high above the others. “The wise men sit there and observe the stars.” - -“But you can’t see the stars down here.” - -“Oh, yes, we can. The tower is fitted up with tubes and mirrors and -water transparence apparatus. The wisest men in the country are -there—all but the Professor of Conchology. He’s the wisest of all. He -invented the nets that caught you—or rather, making nets was one of the -things that he had learned and couldn’t forget.” - -“But who thought of using them for catching prisoners?” - -“I did,” said Ulfin proudly, “I’m to have a glass medal for it.” - -“Do you have glass down here?” - -“A little comes down, you know. It is very precious. We engrave it. -That is the Library—millions of tables of stone—the Hall of Public -Joy is next to it—that garden is the mothers’ garden where they go to -rest while their children are at school—that’s one of our schools. And -here’s the Hall of Public Archives.” - -The Keeper of the Records received them with grave courtesy. The daily -services of Ulfin had accustomed the children to the appearance of the -Under Folk, and they no longer found their strange, mournful faces -terrifying, and the great hall where, on shelves cut out of the sheer -rock, were stored the graven tables of Underworld Records, was very -wonderful and impressive. - -“What is it you want to know?” said the Keeper, rolling away some of -the stones he had been showing them. “Ulfin said there was something -special.” - -“Why the war began?” said Francis. - -“Why the King and Queen are different?” said Mavis. - -“The war,” said the Keeper of the Records, “began exactly three million -five hundred and seventy-nine thousand three hundred and eight years -ago. An Under-man, getting off his Sea Horse in a hurry trod on the -tail of a sleeping Merman. He did not apologize because he was under -a vow not to speak for a year and a day. If the Mer-people had only -waited he would have explained, but they went to war at once, and, of -course, after that you couldn’t expect him to apologize. And the war -has gone on, off and on and on and off, ever since.” - -[Illustration: _The Hall of Public Archives._] - -“And won’t it ever stop?” asked Bernard. - -“Not till we apologize, which, of course, we can’t until _they_ find -out why the war began and that it wasn’t our fault.” - -“How awful!” said Mavis; “then it’s all really about nothing.” - -“Quite so,” said the Keeper, “what are your wars about? The other -question I shouldn’t answer only I know you’ll forget it when the -oblivion-cup begins to work. Ulfin tells me it hasn’t begun yet. Our -King and Queen are _imported_. We used to be a Republic, but Presidents -were so uppish and so grasping, and all their friends and relations -too; so we decided to be a Monarchy, and that all jealousies might be -taken away we imported the two handsomest Land Folk we could find. -They’ve been a great success, and as they have no relations we find it -much less expensive.” - -When the Keeper had thus kindly gratified the curiosity of the -prisoners the Princess said suddenly: - -“Couldn’t we learn Conchology?” - -And the Keeper said kindly, “Why not? It’s the Professor’s day -tomorrow.” - -“Couldn’t we go there today?” asked the Princess, “just to arrange -about times and terms and all that?” - -“If my Uncle says I may take you there,” said Ulfin, “I will, for I -have never known any pleasure so great as doing anything that you wish -will give me.” - -The Uncle looked a little anxious, but he said he thought there could -be no harm in calling on the Professor. So they went. The way was long -for people who were not seals by nature and were not yet compelled to -walk after the manner of those charming and intelligent animals. The -Mer Princess alone was at her ease. But when they passed a building, -as long as from here to the end of the Mile End Road, which Ulfin told -them was the Cavalry Barracks, a young Under-man leaned out of a window -and said: - -“What ho! Ulf.” - -“What ho! yourself,” said Ulfin, and approaching the window spoke in -whispers. Two minutes later the young Cavalry Officer who had leaned -out of the window gave an order, and almost at once some magnificent -Sea Horses, richly caparisoned, came out from under an arched gateway. -The three children were mounted on these, and the crowd which had -collected in the street seemed to find it most amusing to see people -in fetter-tails riding on the chargers of the Horse Marines. But their -laughter was not ill-natured. And the horses were indeed a boon to the -weary tails of the amateur seals. - -Riding along the bottom of the sea was a wonderful experience—but soon -the open country was left behind and they began to go up ways cut in -the heart of the rock—ways long and steep, and lighted, as all that -great Underworld was, with phosphorescent light. - -When they had been traveling for some hours and the children were -beginning to think that you could perhaps have too much even of such -an excellent thing as Sea Horse exercise, the phosphorescent lights -suddenly stopped, and yet the sea was not dark. There seemed to be a -light ahead, and it got stronger and stronger as they advanced, and -presently it streamed down on them from shallow water above their heads. - -“We leave the Sea Horses here,” said Ulfin, “they cannot live in the -air. Come.” - -They dismounted and swam up. At least Ulfin and the Princess swam and -the others held hands and were pulled by the two swimmers. Almost at -once their heads struck the surface of the water, and there they were, -on the verge of a rocky shore. They landed, and walked—if you can call -what seals do walking—across a ridge of land, then plunged into a -landlocked lake that lay beyond. - -[Illustration: _The chargers of the Horse Marines._] - -“This is the Iswater,” said Ulfin as they touched bottom, “and yonder -is the King.” And indeed a stately figure in long robes was coming -toward them. - -“But this,” said the Princess, trembling, “is just like our garden at -home, only smaller.” - -“It was made as it is,” said Ulfin, “by wish of the captive King. -Majesty is Majesty, be it never so conquered.” - -The advancing figure was now quite near them. It saluted them with -royal courtesy. - -“We wanted to know,” said Mavis, “please, your Majesty, if we might -have lessons from you.” - -The King answered, but the Princess did not hear. She was speaking with -Ulfin, apart. - -“Ulfin,” she said, “this captive King is my Father.” - -“Yes, Princess,” said Ulfin. - -“And he does not know me—” - -“He will,” said Ulfin strongly. - -“Did you know?” - -“Yes.” - -“But the people of your land will punish you for bringing us here, -if they find out that he is my Father and that you have brought us -together. They will kill you. Why did you do it, Ulfin?” - -“Because you wished it, Princess,” he said, “and because I would rather -die for you than live without you.” - - - - -CHAPTER ELEVEN - -_The Peacemaker_ - - -THE CHILDREN thought they had never seen a kinder face or more noble -bearing than that of the Professor of Conchology, but the Mer Princess -could not bear to look at him. She now felt what Mavis had felt when -Cathay failed to recognize her—the misery of being looked at without -recognition by the eyes that we know and love. She turned away, and -pretended to be looking at the leaves of the seaweed hedge while Mavis -and Francis were arranging to take lessons in Conchology three days a -week, from two to four. - -“You had better join a class,” said the Professor, “you will learn less -that way.” - -“But we want to learn,” said Mavis. - -And the Professor looked at her very searchingly and said, “Do you?” - -“Yes,” she said, “at least—” - -“Yes,” he said, “I quite understand. I am only an exiled Professor, -teaching Conchology to youthful aliens, but I retain some remnants of -the wisdom of my many years. I know that I am not what I seem, and that -you are not what you seem, and that your desire to learn my special -subject is not sincere and whole-hearted, but is merely, or mainly, the -cloak to some other design. Is it not so, my child?” - -No one answered. His question was so plainly addressed to the Princess. -And she must have felt the question, for she turned and said, “Yes, O -most wise King.” - -“I am no King,” said the Professor, “rather I am a weak child picking -up pebbles by the shore of an infinite sea of knowledge.” - -“You _are_,” the Princess was beginning impulsively, when Ulfin -interrupted her. - -“Lady, lady!” he said, “all will be lost! Can you not play your part -better than this? If you continue these indiscretions my head will -undoubtedly pay the forfeit. Not that I should for a moment grudge that -trifling service, but if my head is cut off you will be left without -a friend in this strange country, and I shall die with the annoying -consciousness that I shall no longer be able to serve you.” - -He whispered this into the Princess’s ear while the Professor of -Conchology looked on with mild surprise. - -“Your attendant,” he observed, “is eloquent but inaudible.” - -“I mean to be,” said Ulfin, with a sudden change of manner. “Look here, -sir, I don’t suppose you care what becomes of you.” - -“Not in the least,” said the Professor. - -“But I suppose you would be sorry if anything uncomfortable happened to -your new pupils?” - -“Yes,” said the Professor, and his eye dwelt on Freia. - -“Then please concentrate your powerful mind on being a Professor. Think -of nothing else. More depends on this than you can easily believe.” - -“Believing is easy,” said the Professor. “Tomorrow at two, I think you -said?” and with a grave salutation he turned his back on the company -and walked away through his garden. - -It was a thoughtful party that rode home on the borrowed chargers of -the Deep Sea Cavalry. No one spoke. The minds of all were busy with the -strange words of Ulfin, and even the least imaginative of them, which -in this case was Bernard, could not but think that Ulfin had in that -strange oddly shaped head of his, some plan for helping the prisoners, -to one of whom at least he was so obviously attached. He also was -silent, and the others could not help encouraging the hope that he was -maturing plans. - -They reached the many-windowed prison, gave up their tickets-of-leaves -and reentered it. It was not till they were in the saloon and the -evening was all but over that Bernard spoke of what was in every head. - -“Look here,” he said, “I think Ulfin means to help us to escape.” - -“Do you,” said Mavis. “I think he means to help us to something, but I -don’t somehow think it’s as simple as that.” - -“Nothing near,” said Francis simply. - -“But that’s all we want, isn’t it?” said Bernard. - -“It’s not all _I_ want,” said Mavis, finishing the last of a fine bunch -of sea-grapes, “what I want is to get the Mer King restored to his -sorrowing relations.” - -The Mer Princess pressed her hand affectionately. - -“So do I,” said Francis, “but I want something more than that even. I -want to stop this war. For always. So that there’ll never be any more -of it.” - -“But how can you,” said the Mer Princess, leaning her elbows on the -table, “there’s always been war; there always will be.” - -“Why?” asked Francis. - -“I don’t know; it’s Merman nature, I suppose.” - -“I don’t believe it,” said Francis earnestly, “not for a minute I -don’t. Why, don’t you see, all these people you’re at war with are -_nice_. Look how kind the Queen is to Cathay—look how kind Ulfin is to -us—and the Librarian, and the Keeper of the Archives, and the soldiers -who lent us the horses. They’re all as decent as they can stick, and -all the Mer-people are nice too—and then they all go killing each -other, and all those brave, jolly soldier fish too, just all about -nothing. I call it simply _rot_.” - -“But there always has been war I tell you,” said the Mer-Princess. -“People would get slack and silly and cowardly if there were no wars.” - -“If I were King,” said Francis, who was now thoroughly roused, “there -should never be any more wars. There are plenty of things to be brave -about without hurting other brave people—exploring and rescuing and -saving your comrades in mines and in fires and floods and things and—” -his eloquence suddenly gave way to a breathless shyness—“oh, well,” he -ended, “it’s no use gassing; you know what I mean.” - -“Yes,” said Mavis, “and oh, France—I think you’re right. But what can -we _do_?” - -“I shall ask to see the Queen of the Under Folk, and try to make her -see sense. She didn’t look an absolute duffer.” - -They all gasped at the glorious and simple daring of the idea. But the -Mer Princess said: - -“I know you’d do everything you could—but it’s very difficult to talk -to kings unless you’ve been accustomed to it. There are books in the -cave, _Straight Talks with Monarchs_, and _Kings I Have Spoken My Mind -To_, which might help you. But, unfortunately, we can’t get them. You -see, Kings start so much further than subjects do: they know such a lot -more. Why, even I—” - -“Then why won’t _you_ try talking to the Queen?” - -“I shouldn’t dare,” said Freia. “I’m only a girl-Princess. Oh, if only -my dear Father could talk to her. If he believed it possible that -war could cease ... _he_ could persuade anybody of anything. And, of -course, they would start on the same footing—both Monarchs, you know.” - -“I see: like belonging to the same club,” said Francis vaguely. - -“But, of course, as things are, my royal Father thinks of nothing but -shells—if only we could restore his memory....” - -“I say,” said Bernard suddenly, “does that Keep-your-Memory charm work -backward?” - -“Backward?” - -“I mean—is it any use taking it after you’ve swallowed your dose of -oblivion-cup? Is it a rester what’s its name as well as an antidote?” - -“Surely,” said the Princess, “it is a restorative; only we have no -charm to give my Father—they are not made in this country—and alas! we -cannot escape and go to our own kingdom and return with one.” - -“No need,” said Bernard, with growing excitement, “no need. Cathay’s -charm is there, in the inner pocket of her magic coat. If we could get -that, give the charm to your Father, and then get him an interview with -the Queen?” - -“But what about Cathay?” said Mavis. - -“If my Father’s memory were restored,” said the Princess, “his wisdom -would find us a way out of all our difficulties. To find Cathay’s coat: -that is what we have to do.” - -“Yes,” said Francis. “That’s all.” He spoke a little bitterly, for he -had really rather looked forward to that straight talk with the King, -and the others had not been as enthusiastic as he felt he had a right -to expect. - -“Let’s call Ulfin,” said the Princess, and they all scratched on the -door of polished bird’s-eye maple that separated their apartments from -the rest of the prison. The electric bells were out of order, so one -scratched instead of ringing. It was quite as easy. - -Ulfin came with all speed. - -“We’re holding a council,” said Freia, “and we want you to help. We -know you will.” - -“I know it,” said Ulfin, “tell me your needs—” - -And without more ado they told him all. - -“You trust me, Princess, I am proud,” he told her, but when he heard -Francis’s dream of universal peace he took the freckled paw of Francis -and laid his lips to it. And Francis, even in the midst of his pride -and embarrassment at this token, could not help noticing that the lips -of Ulfin were hard, like horn. - -“I kiss your hand,” said Ulfin, “because you give me back my honor, -which I was willing to lay down, with all else, for the Princess to -walk on to safety and escape. I would have helped you to find the -hidden coat—for her sake alone, and that would have been a sin against -my honor and my country—but now that I know it is to lead to peace, -which, warriors as we are, the whole nation passionately desires, then -I am acting as a true and honorable patriot. My only regret is that I -have one gift the less to lay at the feet of the Princess.” - -“Do you know where the coats are?” Mavis asked. - -“They are in the Foreign Curiosities Museum,” said Ulfin, “strongly -guarded: but the guards are the Horse Marines—whose officer lent you -your chargers today. He is my friend, and when I tell him what is -toward, he will help me. I only ask of you one promise in return. That -you will not seek to escape, or to return to your own country, except -by the free leave and license of our gracious Sovereigns.” - -The children easily promised—and they thought the promise would be -easily kept. - -“Then tomorrow,” said Ulfin, “shall begin the splendid Peace Plot which -shall hand our names down, haloed with glory, to remotest ages.” - -He looked kindly on them and went out. - -“He _is_ a dear, isn’t he?” said Mavis. - -“Yes, indeed,” said the Princess absently. - -And now next day the children, carrying their tickets-of-leaves, were -led to the great pearl and turquoise building, which was the Museum -of Foreign Curiosities. Many were the strange objects preserved -there—china and glass and books and land-things of all kinds, -taken from sunken ships. And all the things were under dome-shaped -cases, apparently of glass. The Curator of the Museum showed them -his treasures with pride, and explained them all wrong in the most -interesting way. - -“Those discs,” he said, pointing to the china plates, “are used in -games of skill. They are thrown from one hand to another, and if one -fails to catch them his head is broken.” - -An egg boiler, he explained, was a Land Queen’s jewel case, and four -egg-shaped emeralds had been fitted into it to show its use to the -vulgar. A silver ice pail was labeled: “Drinking Vessel of the Horses -of the Kings of Earth,” and a cigar case half full was called “Charm -case containing Evil Charms: probably Ancient Barbarian.” In fact it -was very like the museums you see on land. - -They were just coming to a large case containing something whitish and -labeled, “Very valuable indeed,” when a messenger came to tell the -Curator that a soldier was waiting with valuable curiosities taken as -loot from the enemy. - -“Excuse me one moment,” said the Curator, and left them. - -“_I_ arranged that,” said Ulfin, “quick, before he returns—take your -coats if you know any spell to remove the case.” - -The Princess laughed and laid her hand on the glassy dome, and lo! it -broke and disappeared as a bubble does when you touch it. - -“Magic,” whispered Ulfin. - -“Not magic,” said the Princess. “Your cases are only bubbles.” - -“And I never knew,” said Ulfin. - -“No,” said the Princess, “because you never dared to touch them.” - -The children were already busy pulling the coats off the ruby slab -where they lay. “Here’s Cathay’s,” whispered Mavis. - -The Princess snatched it and her own pearly coat which, in one quick -movement, she put on and buttoned over Cathay’s little folded coat, -holding this against her. “Quick,” she said, “put yours on, all of you. -Take your mer-tails on your arms.” - -They did. The soldiers at the end of the long hall had noticed the -movements and came charging up toward them. - -“Quick, quick!” said the Princess, “now—altogether. One, two, three. -Press your third buttons.” - -The children did, and the soldiers tearing up the hall to arrest the -breakers of the cases of the Museum—for by this time they could see -what had happened—almost fell over each other in their confusion. For -there, where a moment ago had been four children with fin-tail fetters, -was now empty space, and beside the rifled Museum case stood only Ulfin. - -And then an odd thing happened. Out of nowhere, as it seemed, a little -pearly coat appeared, hanging alone in air (water, of course, it was -really. Or was it?). It seemed to grow and to twine itself round Ulfin. - -“Put it on,” said a voice from invisibility, “put it on,” and Ulfin did -put it on. - -The soldiers were close upon him. “Press the third button,” cried the -Princess, and Ulfin did so. But as his right hand sought the button, -the foremost soldier caught his left arm with the bitter cry— - -“Traitor, I arrest you in the King’s name,” and though he could now not -see that he was holding anything, he could feel that he was, and he -held on. - -“The last button, Ulfin,” cried the voice of the unseen Princess, -“press the last button,” and next moment the soldier, breathless with -amazement and terror, was looking stupidly at his empty hand. Ulfin, as -well as the three children and the Princess, was not only invisible but -intangible, the soldiers could not see or feel anything. - -And what is more, neither could the Princess or the children or Ulfin. - -“Oh, where are you? Where am I?” cried Mavis. - -“Silence,” said the Princess, “we must keep together by our voices, but -that is dangerous. _A la porte!_” she added. How fortunate it was that -none of the soldiers understood French! - -As the five were invisible and intangible and as the soldiers were -neither, it was easy to avoid them and to get to the arched doorway. -The Princess got there first. There was no enemy near—all the soldiers -were crowding around the rifled Museum case, talking and wondering, the -soldier who had seized Ulfin explaining again and again how he had had -the caitiff by the arm, “as solid as solid, and then, all in a minute, -there was nothing—nothing at all,” and his comrades trying their best -to believe him. The Princess just waited, saying, “Are you there?” -every three seconds, as though she had been at the telephone. - -“Are you there?” said the Princess for the twenty-seventh time. And -then Ulfin said, “I am here, Princess.” - -“We must have connecting links,” she said—“bits of seaweed would do. If -you hold a piece of seaweed in your hand I will take hold of the other -end of it. We cannot feel the touch of each other’s hands, but we shall -feel the seaweed, and you will know, by its being drawn tight that I -have hold of the other end. Get some pieces for the children, too. Good -stout seaweed, such as you made the nets of with which you captured us.” - -“Ah, Princess,” he said, “how can I regret that enough? And yet how -can I regret it at all since it has brought you to me.” - -“Peace, foolish child,” said the Princess, and Ulfin’s heart leaped for -joy because, when a Princess calls a grown-up man “child,” it means -that she likes him more than a little, or else, of course, she would -not take such a liberty. “But the seaweed,” she added, “there is no -time to lose.” - -“I have some in my pocket,” said Ulfin, blushing, only she could not -see that. “They keep me busy making nets in my spare time—I always have -some string in my pocket.” - -A piece of stringy seaweed suddenly became visible as Ulfin took it out -of his invisible pocket, which, of course, had the property of making -its contents invisible too, so long as they remained in it. It floated -toward the Princess, who caught the end nearest to her and held it fast. - -“Where are you?” said a small voice. - -It was Mavis—and almost at once Francis and Bernard were there too. The -seaweed chain was explained to them, and they each held fast to their -ends of the seaweed links. So that when the soldiers, a little late in -the day, owing to the careful management of Ulfin’s friend, reached -the front door, there was nothing to be seen but four bits of seaweed -floating down the street, which, of course, was the sort of thing that -nobody could possibly notice unless they _knew_. - -The bits of seaweed went drifting to the Barracks, and no one noticed -that they floated on to the stables and that invisible hands loosed -the halters of five Sea Horses. The soldier who ought to have been -looking after the horses was deeply engaged in a game of Animal Grab -with a comrade. The cards were of narwhal ivory, very fine, indeed, and -jeweled on every pip. The invisible hands saddled the Sea Horses and -invisible forms sprang to the saddles, and urged the horses forward. - -The unfortunate Animal Grabber was roused from his game by the sight -of five retreating steeds—saddled and bridled indeed, but, as far as -he could see, riderless, and long before other horses could be got out -and saddled the fugitives were out of sight and pursuit was vain. Just -as before they went across country to the rock cut and then swam up, -holding by the linking seaweed. - -Because it was Tuesday and nearly two o’clock, the Professor of -Conchology was making ready to receive pupils, which he did in an arbor -of coral of various shades of pink, surrounded by specimen shells of -all the simpler species. He was alone in the garden, and as they neared -him, the Princess, the three children and Ulfin touched the necessary -buttons and became once more visible and tangible. - -“Ha,” said the Professor, but without surprise. “Magic. A very neat -trick, my dears, and excellently done.” - -“You need not remove your jacket,” he added to Ulfin, who was pulling -off his pearly coat. “The mental exercises in which we propose to -engage do not require gymnasium costume.” - -But Ulfin went on taking off his coat, and when it was off he handed -it to the Princess, who at once felt in its inner pocket, pulled out -a little golden case and held it toward the Professor. It has been -well said that no charm on earth—I mean underwater—is strong enough to -make one forget one’s antidote. The moment the Professor’s eye fell on -the little golden case, he held out his hand for it, and the Princess -gave it to him. He opened it, and without hesitation as without haste, -swallowed the charm. - -Next moment the Princess was clasped in his arms, and the moment after -that, still clasped there, was beginning a hurried explanation; but he -stopped her. - -“I know, my child, I know,” he said. “You have brought me the charm -which gives back to me my memory and makes a King of Merland out of -a Professor of Conchology. But why, oh why, did you not bring me my -coat—my pearly coat?” said the King, “it was in the case with the -others.” - -No one had thought of it, and everyone felt and looked exceedingly -silly, and no one spoke till Ulfin said, holding out the coat which the -Princess had given back to him— - -“You will have this coat, Majesty. I have no right to the magic -garments of your country.” - -“But,” said Francis, “you need the coat more than anybody. The King -shall have mine—I shan’t want it if you’ll let me go and ask for an -interview with the King of the Under Folk.” - -“No, have mine,” said Mavis—and “have mine,” said Bernard, and the -Princess said, “Of course my Father will have mine.” So they all -protested at once. But the King raised his hand, and there was silence, -and they saw that he no longer looked only a noble and learned -gentleman, but that he looked every inch a King. - -“Silence,” he said, “if anyone speaks with the King and Queen of this -land it is fitting that it should be I. See, we will go out by the back -door, so as to avoid the other pupils who will soon be arriving in -their thousands, for my Conchology Course is very popular. And as we -go, tell me who is this man of the Under Folk who seems to be one of -you”—(“I am the Princess’ servant,” Ulfin put in)—“and why you desire -to speak with the King of this land.” - -So they made great haste to go out by the back way so as not to meet -the Conchology students, and cautiously crept up to their horses—and, -of course, the biggest and best horse was given to the King to ride. -But when he saw how awkwardly their false tails adapted themselves to -the saddle he said, “My daughter, you can remove these fetters.” - -“How?” said she. “My shell knife won’t cut them.” - -“Bite through the strings of them with your little sharp teeth,” -said the King, “nothing but Princess teeth is sharp enough to cut -through them. No, my son—it is not degrading. A true Princess cannot -be degraded by anything that is for the good of her subjects and her -friends.” - -So the Mer Princess willingly bit through the strings of the false -tails—and everybody put on his or her proper tail again, with great -comfort and enjoyment—and they all swam toward the town. - -And as they went they heard a great noise of shouting, and saw parties -of Under Folk flying as if in fear. - -“I must make haste,” said the King, “and see to it that our Peace -Conference be not too late”—so they hurried on. - -And the noise grew louder and louder, and the crowds of flying Under -Folk thicker and fleeter, and by and by Ulfin made them stand back -under the arch of the Astrologers’ Tower to see what it was from which -they fled. And there, along the streets of the great city of the Under -Folk, came the flash of swords and the swirl of banners and the army of -the Mer Folk came along between the great buildings of their foes, and -on their helmets was the light of victory, and at their head, proud and -splendid, rode the Princess Maia and—Reuben. - -“Oh—Reuben, Reuben! We’re saved,” called Mavis, and would have darted -out, but Francis put his hand over her mouth. - -“Stop!” he said, “don’t you remember we promised not to escape without -the Queen’s permission? Quick, quick to the Palace, to make peace -before our armies can attack it.” - -“You speak well,” said the Mer King. And Ulfin said, “This is no time -for ceremony. Quick, quick, I will take you in by the tradesmen’s -entrance.” And, turning their backs on that splendid and victorious -procession, they marched to the back entrance of the royal Palace. - - - - -CHAPTER TWELVE - -_The End_ - - -THE QUEEN of the Under Folk sat with her husband on their second-best -throne, which was much more comfortable than their State one, though -not so handsome. Their sad faces were lighted up with pleasure as they -watched the gambols of their new pet, Fido, a dear little earth-child, -who was playing with a ball of soft pink seaweed, patting it, and -tossing it and running after it as prettily as any kitten. - -“Dear little Fido,” said the Queen, “come here then,” and Fido, who had -once been Cathay, came willingly to lean against the Queen’s knee and -be stroked and petted. - -“I have curious dreams sometimes,” said the Queen to the King, “dreams -so vivid that they are more like memories.” - -“Has it ever occurred to you,” said the King, “that we have no memories -of our childhood, of our youth—?” - -“I believe,” said the Queen slowly, “that we have tasted in our time of -the oblivion-cup. There is no one like us in this land. If we were born -here, why can we not remember our parents who must have been like us? -And dearest—the dream that comes to me most often is that we once had -a child and lost it—and that it was a child like us—” - -“Fido,” said the King in a low voice, “is like us.” And he, too, -stroked the head of Cathay, who had forgotten everything except that -she was Fido and bore the Queen’s name on her collar. “But if you -remember that we had a child it cannot be true—if we drank of the -oblivion-cup, that is, because, of course, that would make us forget -everything.” - -“It could not make a mother forget her child,” said the Queen, and with -the word caught up Fido-which-was-Cathay and kissed her. - -“Nice Queen,” purred Cathay-which-was-Fido, “I do love you.” - -“I am sure we had a child once,” said the Queen, hugging her, “and that -we have been made to forget.” - -Even as she spoke the hangings of cloth of gold, pieced together from -the spoil of lost galleons, rustled at the touch of someone outside. -The Queen dried her eyes, which needed it, and said, “Come in.” - -The arras was lifted and a tall figure entered. - -“Bless my soul,” said the King of the Under Folk, “it’s the Professor -of Conchology.” - -“No,” said the figure, advancing, “it is the King of the Mer-people. My -brother King, my sister Queen, I greet you.” - -“This is most irregular,” said the King. - -“Never mind, dear,” said the Queen, “let us hear what his Majesty has -to say.” - -“I say—Let there be peace between our people,” said the Mer-King. “For -countless ages these wars have been waged, for countless ages your -people and mine have suffered. Even the origin of the war is lost in -the mists of antiquity. Now I come to you, I, your prisoner—I was -given to drink of the cup of oblivion and forgot who I was and whence I -came. Now a counter-charm has given me back mind and memory. I come in -the name of my people. If we have wronged you, we ask your forgiveness. -If you have wronged us, we freely forgive you. Say: Shall it be -peace, and shall all the sons of the sea live as brothers in love and -kindliness for evermore? - -“Really,” said the King of the Under Folk, “I think it is not at all a -bad idea—but in confidence, and between Monarchs, I may tell you, sir, -that I suspect my mind is not what it was. You, sir, seem to possess a -truly royal grasp of your subject. My mind is so imperfect that I dare -not consult it. But my heart—” - -“Your heart says Yes,” said the Queen. “So does mine. But our troops -are besieging your city,” she said, “they will say that in asking for -peace you were paying the tribute of the vanquished.” - -“My people will not think this of me,” said the King of Merland, “nor -would your people think it of you. Let us join hands in peace and the -love of royal brethren.” - -“What a dreadful noise they are making outside,” said the King, and -indeed the noise of shouting and singing was now to be heard on every -side of the Palace. - -“If there was a balcony now where we could show ourselves,” suggested -the King of Merland. - -“The very thing,” said the Queen, catching up her pet -Fido-which-was-Cathay in her arms and leading the way to the great -curtained arch at the end of the hall. She drew back the swinging, -sweeping hangings of woven seaweed and stepped forth on the balcony—the -two Kings close behind her. But she stopped short and staggered back -a little, so that her husband had to put an arm about her to support -her, when her first glance showed her that the people who were shouting -outside the Palace were not, as she had supposed, Under Folk in some -unexpected though welcome transport of loyal enthusiasm, but ranks on -ranks of the enemy, the hated Mer Folk, all splendid and menacing in -the pomp and circumstance of glorious war. - -“It is the enemy!” gasped the Queen. - -“It is my people,” said the Mer King. “It is a beautiful thing in you, -dear Queen, that you agreed to peace, without terms, while you thought -you were victorious, and not because the legions of the Mer Folk were -thundering at your gates. May I speak for us?” - -They signed assent. And the Mer King stepped forward full into view of -the crowd in the street below. - -“My people,” he said in a voice loud, yet soft, and very, very -beautiful. And at the words the Mer Folk below looked up and recognized -their long-lost King, and a shout went up that you could have heard a -mile away. - -The King raised his hand for silence. - -“My people,” he said, “brave men of Merland—let there be peace, now and -forever, between us and our brave foes. The King and Queen of this land -agreed to make unconditional peace while they believed themselves to be -victorious. If victory has for today been with us, let us at least be -the equals of our foes in generosity as in valor.” - -Another shout rang out. And the King of the Under Folk stepped forward. - -“My people,” he said, and the Under Folk came quickly forward toward -him at the sound of his voice. “There shall be peace. Let these who -were your foes this morning be your guests tonight and your friends -and brothers for evermore. If we have wronged them, we beg them to -forgive us: if they have wronged us, we beg them to allow us to forgive -them.” (“Is that right?” he asked the Mer King in a hasty whisper, who -whispered back, “Admirable!”) “Now,” he went on, “cheer, Mer Folk and -Under Folk, for the splendid compact of Peace.” - -And they cheered. - -“Pardon, your Majesty”—it was Ulfin who spoke—“it was the stranger -Francis who first conceived the Peace Idea.” - -“True,” said the Mer King, “where is Francis?” - -But Francis was not to be found; it was only his name which was -presented to the people from the balcony. He himself kept his pearly -coat on and kept the invisibility button well pressed down, till the -crowd had dispersed to ring all the diving bells with which the towers -of the city were so handsomely fitted up, to hang the city with a -thousand seaweed flags, and to illuminate its every window and door and -pinnacle and buttress with more and more phosphorescent fish. In the -Palace was a banquet for the Kings and the Queen and the Princesses, -and the three children, and Cathay-who-was-Fido. Also Reuben was called -from the command of his Sea Urchins to be a guest at the royal table. -Princess Freia asked that an invitation might be sent to Ulfin—but -when the King’s Private Secretary, a very intelligent cuttlefish, had -got the invitation ready, handsomely written in his own ink, it was -discovered that no Ulfin was to be found to receive it. - -It was a glorious banquet. The only blot on its rapturous splendor was -the fact that Cathay still remained Fido, the Queen’s pet—and her eyes -were still those cold, unremembering eyes which her brothers and sister -could not bear to meet. Reuben sat at the right hand of the Queen, and -from the moment he took his place there he seemed to think of no one -else. He talked with her, sensibly and modestly, and Francis remarked -that during his stay in Merland Reuben had learned to talk as you do, -and not in the language of gypsy circus-people. The Commander-in-Chief -of the Forces of the Under Folk sat at the left hand of his King. -The King of the Mer Folk sat between his happy daughters, and the -children sat together between the Chief Astrologer and the Curator of -the Museum of Foreign Curiosities, who was more pleased to see them -again than he had ever expected to be, and much more friendly than -they had ever hoped to find him. Everyone was extremely happy, even -Fido-which-was-Cathay, who sat on the Queen’s lap and was fed with -delicacies from the Queen’s own plate. - -It was at about the middle of the feast, just after everybody had drunk -the health of the two Commanders-in-Chief, amid tempestuous applause, -that a serving-fish whispered behind his fin to the Under Folk Queen: - -“Certainly,” she said, “show him in.” - -And the person who was shown in was Ulfin, and he carried on his arm a -pearly coat and a scaly tail. He sank on one knee and held them up to -the Mer King, with only one doubtful deprecating glance at the Curator -of the Museum of Foreign Curiosities. - -The King took them, and feeling in the pocket of the coat drew out -three golden cases. - -“It is the royal prerogative to have three,” he said smilingly to the -Queen, “in case of accidents. May I ask your Majesty’s permission to -administer one of them to your Majesty’s little pet. I am sure you are -longing to restore her to her brothers and her sister.” - -The Queen could not but agree—though her heart was sore at losing -the little Fido-Kathleen, of whom she had grown so fond. But she was -hoping that Reuben would consent to let her adopt him, and be more -to her than many Fidos. She administered the charm herself, and the -moment Cathay had swallowed it the royal arms were loosened, and the -Queen expected her pet to fly to her brothers and sister. But to Cathay -it was as though only an instant had passed since she came into that -hall, a prisoner. So that when suddenly she saw her brothers and -sister honored guests at what was unmistakably a very grand and happy -festival, and found herself in the place of honor on the very lap of -the Queen, she only snuggled closer to that royal lady and called out -very loud and clear, “Hullo, Mavis! Here’s a jolly transformation -scene. That was a magic drink she gave us and it’s made everybody jolly -and friends—I am glad. You dear Queen,” she added, “it is nice of you -to nurse me.” - -So everybody was pleased: only Princess Freia looked sad and puzzled -and her eyes followed Ulfin as he bowed and made to retire from the -royal presence. He had almost reached the door when she spoke quickly -in the royal ear that was next to her. - -“Oh, Father,” she said, “don’t let him go like that. He ought to be at -the banquet. We couldn’t have done anything without him.” - -“True,” said the King, “but I thought he had been invited, and refused.” - -“Refused?” said the Princess, “oh, call him back!” - -“I’ll run if I may,” said Mavis, slipping out of her place and running -down the great hall. - -“If you’ll sit a little nearer to me, Father,” said Maia obligingly, -“the young man can sit between you and my sister.” - -So that is where Ulfin found himself, and that was where he had never -dared to hope to be. - -The banquet was a strange as well as a magnificent scene—because, of -course, the Mer-people were beautiful as the day, the five children -were quite as pretty as any five children have any need to be, and -the King and Queen of the Under Folk were as handsome as handsome. So -that all this handsomeness was a very curious contrast to the strange -heavy features of the Under Folk who now sat at table, so pleasant and -friendly, toasting their late enemies. - -The contrast between the Princess Freia and Ulfin was particularly -marked, for their heads bent near together as they talked. - -“Princess,” he was saying, “tomorrow you will go back to your kingdom, -and I shall never see you again.” - -The Princess could not think of anything to say, because it seemed to -her that what he said was true. - -“But,” he went on, “I shall be glad all my life to have known and loved -so dear and beautiful a Princess.” - -And again the Princess could think of nothing to say. - -“Princess,” he said, “tell me one thing. Do you know what I should say -to you if I were a Prince?” - -“Yes,” said Freia; “I know what you would say and I know what I should -answer, dear Ulfin, if you were only a commoner of Merland ... I mean, -you know, if your face were like ours. But since you are of the Under -Folk and I am a Mermaid, I can only say that I will never forget you, -and that I will never marry anyone else.” - -“Is it only my face then that prevents your marrying me?” he asked with -abrupt eagerness, and she answered gently, “Of course.” - -Then Ulfin sprang to his feet. “Your Majesties,” he cried, “and Lord -High Astrologer, has not the moment come when, since we are at a -banquet with friends, we may unmask?” - -The strangers exchanged wondering glances. - -The Sovereigns and the Astrologers made gestures of assent—then, with a -rustling and a rattling, helmets were unlaced and corselets unbuckled, -the Under Folk seemed to the Mer-people as though they were taking off -their very skins. But really what they took off was but their thick -scaly armor, and under it they were as softly and richly clad, and as -personable people as the Mer Folk themselves. - -“But,” said Maia, “how splendid! We thought you were always in -armor—that—that it grew on you, you know.” - -The Under Folk laughed jollily. “Of course it was always on -us—since—when you saw us, we were always at war.” - -“And you’re just like us!” said Freia to Ulfin. - -“There is no one like you,” he whispered back. Ulfin was now a handsome -dark-haired young man, and looked much more like a Prince than a great -many real Princes do. - -“Did you mean what you said just now?” the Princess whispered. And for -answer Ulfin dared to touch her hand with soft firm fingers. - -“Papa,” said Freia, “please may I marry Ulfin?” - -“By all means,” said the King, and immediately announced the -engagement, joining their hands and giving them his blessing in the -most businesslike way. - -Then said the Queen of the Under Folk: - -“Why should not these two reign over the Under Folk and let us two be -allowed to remember the things we have forgotten and go back to that -other life which I know we had somewhere—where we had a child.” - -“I think,” said Mavis, “that now everything’s settled so comfortably we -ought perhaps all of us to be thinking about getting home.” - -“I have only one charm left, unfortunately,” said the Mer King, “but if -your people will agree to your abdicating, I will divide it between you -with pleasure, dear King and Queen of the Under Folk; and I have reason -to believe that the half which you will each of you have, will be just -enough to counteract your memories of this place, and restore to you -all the memories of your other life.” - -“Could not Reuben go with us?” the Queen asked. - -“No,” said the Mer King, “but he shall follow you to earth, and that -speedily.” - -The Astrologer Royal, who had been whispering to Reuben, here -interposed. - -“It would be well, your Majesties,” he said, “if a small allowance of -the cup of oblivion were served out to these land children, so that -they may not remember their adventures here. It is not well for the -Earth People to know too much of the dwellers in the sea. There is a -sacred vessel which has long been preserved among the civic plate. I -propose that this vessel should be presented to our guests as a mark of -our esteem; that they shall bear it with them, and drink the contents -as soon as they set foot on their own shores.” - -He was at once sent to fetch the sacred vessel. It was a stone ginger -beer bottle. - -“I do really think we ought to go,” said Mavis again. - -There were farewells to be said—a very loving farewell to the -Princesses, a very friendly one to the fortunate Ulfin, and then a -little party left the Palace quietly and for the last time made the -journey to the quiet Iswater where the King of Merland had so long -professed Conchology. - -Arrived at this spot the King spoke to the King and Queen of the Under -Folk. - -“Swallow this charm,” he said, “in equal shares—then rise to the -surface of the lake and say the charm which I perceive the Earth -children have taught you as we came along. The rest will be easy and -beautiful. We shall never forget you, and your hearts will remember us, -though your minds must forget. Farewell.” - -The King and Queen rose through the waters and disappeared. - -Next moment a strong attraction like that which needles feel for -magnets drew the children from the side of the Mer King. They shut -their eyes, and when they opened them they were on dry land in a wood -by a lake—and Francis had a ginger beer bottle in his hand. The King -and Queen of the Under Folk must have said at once the charm to recall -the children to earth. - -“It works more slowly on land, the Astrologer said,” Reuben remarked. -“Before we drink and forget everything I want to tell you that I think -you’ve all been real bricks to me. And if you don’t mind, I’ll take off -these girls’ things.” - -He did, appearing in shirt and knickerbockers. - -“Good-bye,” he said, shaking hands with everyone. - -“But aren’t you coming home with us?” - -“No,” he said, “the Astrologer told me the first man and woman I should -see on land would be my long-lost Father and Mother, and I was to go -straight to them with my little shirt and my little shoe that I’ve kept -all this time, the ones that were mine when I was a stolen baby, and -they’d know me and I should belong to them. But I hope we’ll meet again -some day. Good-bye, and thank you. It was ripping being General of the -Sea Urchins.” - -With that they drank each a draught from the ginger beer bottle, and -then, making haste to act before the oblivion-cup should blot out with -other things the Astrologer’s advice, Reuben went out of the wood into -the sunshine and across a green turf. They saw him speak to a man and -a woman in blue bathing dresses who seemed to have been swimming in -the lake and now were resting on the marble steps that led down to it. -He held out the little shirt and the little shoe, and they held their -hands out to him. And as they turned the children saw that their faces -were the faces of the King and Queen of the Under Folk, only now not -sad anymore, but radiant with happiness, because they had found their -son again. - -“Of course,” said Francis, “there isn’t any time in the other world. I -expect they were swimming and just dived, and all that happened to them -just in the minute they were underwater.” - -“And Reuben is really their long-lost heir?” - -“They seemed to think so. I expect he’s exactly like an ancestor or -something, and you know how the Queen took to him from the first.” - -And then the oblivion-cup took effect—and they forgot, and forgot -forever, the wonderful world that they had known underseas, and Sabrina -fair and the circus and the Mermaid whom they had rescued. - -But Reuben, curiously enough, they did not forget: they went home to -tea with a pleasant story for their father and mother of a Spangled Boy -at the circus who had run away and found his father and mother. - -And two days after a motor stopped at their gate and Reuben got out. - -“I say,” he said, “I’ve found my father and mother, and we’ve come to -thank you for the plum pie and things. Did you ever get the plate and -spoon out of the bush? Come and see my father and mother,” he ended -proudly. - -The children went, and looked once more in the faces of the King and -Queen of the Under Folk, but now they did not know those faces, which -seemed to them only the faces of some very nice strangers. - -“I think Reuben’s jolly lucky, don’t you?” said Mavis. - -“Yes,” said Bernard. - -“So do I,” said Cathay. - -“I wish Aunt Enid had let me bring the aquarium,” said Francis. - -“Never mind,” said Mavis, “it will be something to live for when we -come back from the sea, and everything is beastly.” - -And it was. - - - _The End_ - - * * * * * - - - - -Transcriber’s Notes: - - -The first chapter’s words were ALL CAPPED to match the rest of the -book’s format. 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