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THE MAGIC CITY

BY
E. NESBIT

AUTHOR OF
'THE WOULD-BE-GOODS,' 'THE AMULET,' ETC. ETC.

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY H. R. MILLAR

          MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
          ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON
          1910

[Illustration: _Page 328_        _Frontispiece_

Three days later Mr. Noah arrived by elephant.]

                          TO

                   BARBARA, MAURICE,

                         AND

                    STEPHEN CHANT

                THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED

                          BY

                      E. NESBIT

          WELL HALL,
          ELTHAM, KENT, 1910.

CONTENTS

          CHAPTER I                                      PAGE
          THE BEGINNING                                     1

          CHAPTER II
          DELIVERER OR DESTROYER                           30

          LOST                                             65

          CHAPTER IV
          THE DRAGON-SLAYER                                94

          CHAPTER V
          ON THE CARPET                                   131

          CHAPTER VI
          THE LIONS IN THE DESERT                         160

          CHAPTER VII
          THE DWELLERS BY THE SEA                         187

          CHAPTER VIII
          UPS AND DOWNS                                   218

          CHAPTER IX
          ON THE 'LIGHTNING LOOSE'                        245

          CHAPTER X
          THE GREAT SLOTH                                 272

          CHAPTER XI
          THE NIGHT ATTACK                                302

          CHAPTER XII
          THE END                                         318

ILLUSTRATIONS

                                                                       PAGE

  Three days later Mr. Noah arrived by elephant      _Frontispiece_

  'Lor', ain't it pretty!' said the parlour-maid                17

  Beyond it he could see dim piles that looked like
    churches and houses                                         27

  'Here--I say, wake up, can't you?'                            33

  'Top floor, if you please,' said the gaoler politely          49

  And behind him the clatter of hot pursuit                     61

  He heard quite a loud, strong, big voice say, 'That's
    better'                                                     85

  The gigantic porch lowered frowningly above him               91

  He walked on and on and on                                    97

  'Silence, trespasser,' said Mr. Noah, with cold dignity      115

  Then something hard and heavy knocked him over               127

  Mr. Noah whispered ardently, 'Don't!'                        139

  So, all down the wide clear floor, Lucy danced               157

  On the top of a very large and wobbly camel                  169

  It was heavy work turning the lions over                     179

  Slowly they came to the great gate of the castle             193

  'If your camel's not quite fresh I can mount you both'       199

  They loved looking on                                        211

  A long procession toiled slowly up it of animals in
    pairs                                                      223

  Walked straight into the arms of Helen                       243

  He induced them to build him a temple of solid gold          261

  Plunged headlong over the edge                               269

  The bucket began to go up                                    281

  Lucy threw herself across the well parapet                   287

  And all the while it had to go on turning that handle        299

  Philip felt that it was best to stop the car among the
    suburban groves of southernwood                            307

  They leapt in and disappeared                                321

CHAPTER I

THE BEGINNING

Philip Haldane and his sister lived in a little red-roofed house in a
little red-roofed town. They had a little garden and a little balcony,
and a little stable with a little pony in it--and a little cart for the
pony to draw; a little canary hung in a little cage in the little
bow-window, and the neat little servant kept everything as bright and
clean as a little new pin.

Philip had no one but his sister, and she had no one but Philip. Their
parents were dead, and Helen, who was twenty years older than Philip and
was really his half-sister, was all the mother he had ever known. And he
had never envied other boys their mothers, because Helen was so kind and
clever and dear. She gave up almost all her time to him; she taught him
all the lessons he learned; she played with him, inventing the most
wonderful new games and adventures. So that every morning when Philip
woke he knew that he was waking to a new day of joyous and interesting
happenings. And this went on till Philip was ten years old, and he had
no least shadow of a doubt that it would go on for ever. The beginning
of the change came one day when he and Helen had gone for a picnic to
the wood where the waterfall was, and as they were driving back behind
the stout old pony, who was so good and quiet that Philip was allowed to
drive it. They were coming up the last lane before the turning where
their house was, and Helen said:

'To-morrow we'll weed the aster bed and have tea in the garden.'

'Jolly,' said Philip, and they turned the corner and came in sight of
their white little garden gate. And a man was coming out of it--a man
who was not one of the friends they both knew. He turned and came to
meet them. Helen put her hand on the reins--a thing which she had always
taught Philip was _never_ done--and the pony stopped. The man, who was,
as Philip put it to himself, 'tall and tweedy,' came across in front of
the pony's nose and stood close by the wheel on the side where Helen
sat. She shook hands with him, and said, 'How do you do?' in quite the
usual way. But after that they whispered. Whispered! And Philip knew
how rude it is to whisper, because Helen had often told him this. He
heard one or two words, 'at last,' and 'over now,' and 'this evening,
then.'

After that Helen said, 'This is my brother Philip,' and the man shook
hands with him--across Helen, another thing which Philip knew was not
manners, and said, 'I hope we shall be the best of friends.' Pip said,
'How do you do?' because that is the polite thing to say. But inside
himself he said, 'I don't want to be friends with _you_.'

Then the man took off his hat and walked away, and Philip and his sister
went home. She seemed different, somehow, and he was sent to bed a
little earlier than usual, but he could not go to sleep for a long time,
because he heard the front-door bell ring and afterwards a man's voice
and Helen's going on and on in the little drawing-room under the room
which was his bedroom. He went to sleep at last, and when he woke up in
the morning it was raining, and the sky was grey and miserable. He lost
his collar-stud, he tore one of his stockings as he pulled it on, he
pinched his finger in the door, and he dropped his tooth-mug, with water
in it too, and the mug was broken and the water went into his boots.
There are mornings, you know, when things happen like that. This was
one of them.

Then he went down to breakfast, which tasted not quite so nice as usual.
He was late, of course. The bacon fat was growing grey with waiting for
him, as Helen said, in the cheerful voice that had always said all the
things he liked best to hear. But Philip didn't smile. It did not seem
the sort of morning for smiling, and the grey rain beat against the
window.

After breakfast Helen said, 'Tea in the garden is indefinitely
postponed, and it's too wet for lessons.'

That was one of her charming ideas--that wet days should not be made
worse by lessons.

'What shall we do?' she said; 'shall we talk about the island? Shall I
make another map of it? And put in all the gardens and fountains and
swings?'

The island was a favourite play. Somewhere in the warm seas where palm
trees are, and rainbow-coloured sands, the island was said to be--their
own island, beautified by their fancy with everything they liked and
wanted, and Philip was never tired of talking about it. There were times
when he almost believed that the island was real. He was king of the
island and Helen was queen, and no one else was to be allowed on it.
Only these two.

But this morning even the thought of the island failed to charm. Philip
straggled away to the window and looked out dismally at the soaked lawn
and the dripping laburnum trees, and the row of raindrops hanging fat
and full on the iron gate.

'What is it, Pippin?' Helen asked. 'Don't tell me you're going to have
horrid measles, or red-hot scarlet fever, or noisy whooping-cough.'

She came across and laid her hand on his forehead.

'Why, you're quite hot, boy of my heart. Tell sister, what is it?'

'_You_ tell _me_,' said Philip slowly.

'Tell you what, Pip?'

'You think you ought to bear it alone, like in books, and be noble and
all that. But you _must_ tell me; you promised you'd never have any
secrets from me, Helen, you know you did.'

Helen put her arm round him and said nothing. And from her silence Pip
drew the most desperate and harrowing conclusions. The silence lasted.
The rain gurgled in the water-pipe and dripped on the ivy. The canary in
the green cage that hung in the window put its head on one side and
tweaked a seed husk out into Philip's face, then twittered defiantly.
But his sister said nothing.

'Don't,' said Philip suddenly, 'don't break it to me; tell me straight
out.'

'Tell you what?' she said again.

'What is it?' he said. '_I_ know how these unforetold misfortunes
happen. Some one always comes--and then it's broken to the family.'

'_What_ is?' she asked.

'The misfortune,' said Philip breathlessly. 'Oh, Helen, I'm not a baby.
Do tell me! Have we lost our money in a burst bank? Or is the landlord
going to put bailiffs into our furniture? Or are we going to be falsely
accused about forgery, or being burglars?'

All the books Philip had ever read worked together in his mind to
produce these melancholy suggestions. Helen laughed, and instantly felt
a stiffening withdrawal of her brother from her arm.

'No, no, my Pippin, dear,' she made haste to say. 'Nothing horrid like
that has happened.'

'Then what is it?' he asked, with a growing impatience that felt like a
wolf gnawing inside him.

'I didn't want to tell you all in a hurry like this,' she said
anxiously; 'but don't you worry, my boy of boys. It's something that
makes me very happy. I hope it will you, too.'

He swung round in the circling of her arm and looked at her with sudden
ecstasy.

'Oh, Helen, dear--I know! Some one has left you a hundred thousand
pounds a year--some one you once opened a railway-carriage door for--and
now I can have a pony of my very own to ride. Can't I?'

'Yes,' said Helen slowly, 'you can have a pony; but nobody's left me
anything. Look here, my Pippin,' she added, very quickly, 'don't ask any
more questions. I'll tell you. When I was quite little like you I had a
dear friend I used to play with all day long, and when we grew up we
were friends still. He lived quite near us. And then he married some one
else. And then the some one died. And now he wants me to marry him. And
he's got lots of horses and a beautiful house and park,' she added.

'And where shall I be?' he asked.

'With me, of course, wherever I am.'

'It won't be just us two any more, though,' said Philip, 'and you said
it should be, for ever and ever.'

'But I didn't know then, Pip, dear. He's been wanting me so long----'

'Don't _I_ want you?' said Pip to himself.

'And he's got a little girl that you'll like so to play with,' she went
on. 'Her name's Lucy, and she's just a year younger than you. And
you'll be the greatest friends with her. And you'll both have ponies to
ride, and----'

'I hate her,' cried Philip, very loud, 'and I hate him, and I hate their
beastly ponies. And I hate _you_!' And with these dreadful words he
flung off her arm and rushed out of the room, banging the door after
him--on purpose.

Well, she found him in the boot-cupboard, among the gaiters and goloshes
and cricket-stumps and old rackets, and they kissed and cried and hugged
each other, and he said he was sorry he had been naughty. But in his
heart that was the only thing he was sorry for. He was sorry that he had
made Helen unhappy. He still hated 'that man,' and most of all he hated
Lucy.

He had to be polite to that man. His sister was very fond of that man,
and this made Philip hate him still more, while at the same time it made
him careful not to show how he hated him. Also it made him feel that
hating that man was not quite fair to his sister, whom he loved. But
there were no feelings of that kind to come in the way of the
detestation he felt for Lucy. Helen had told him that Lucy had fair hair
and wore it in two plaits; and he pictured her to himself as a fat,
stumpy little girl, exactly like the little girl in the story of 'The
Sugar Bread' in the old oblong 'Shock-Headed Peter' book that had
belonged to Helen when she was little.

Helen was quite happy. She divided her love between the boy she loved
and the man she was going to marry, and she believed that they were both
as happy as she was. The man, whose name was Peter Graham, was happy
enough; the boy, who was Philip, was amused--for she kept him so--but
under the amusement he was miserable.

And the wedding-day came and went. And Philip travelled on a very hot
afternoon by strange trains and a strange carriage to a strange house,
where he was welcomed by a strange nurse and--Lucy.

'You won't mind going to stay at Peter's beautiful house without me,
will you, dear?' Helen had asked. 'Every one will be kind to you, and
you'll have Lucy to play with.'

And Philip said he didn't mind. What else could he say, without being
naughty and making Helen cry again?

Lucy was not a bit like the Sugar-Bread child. She had fair hair, it is
true, and it was plaited in two braids, but they were very long and
straight; she herself was long and lean and had a freckled face and
bright, jolly eyes.

'I'm so glad you've come,' she said, meeting him on the steps of the
most beautiful house he had ever seen; 'we can play all sort of things
now that you can't play when you're only one. I'm an only child,' she
added, with a sort of melancholy pride. Then she laughed. '"Only" rhymes
with "lonely," doesn't it?' she said.

'I don't know,' said Philip, with deliberate falseness, for he knew
quite well.

He said no more.

Lucy tried two or three other beginnings of conversation, but Philip
contradicted everything she said.

'I'm afraid he's very very stupid,' she said to her nurse, an extremely
trained nurse, who firmly agreed with her. And when her aunt came to see
her next day, Lucy said that the little new boy was stupid, and
disagreeable as well as stupid, and Philip confirmed this opinion of his
behaviour to such a degree that the aunt, who was young and
affectionate, had Lucy's clothes packed at once and carried her off for
a few days' visit.

So Philip and the nurse were left at the Grange. There was nobody else
in the house but servants. And now Philip began to know what loneliness
meant. The letters and the picture post-cards which his sister sent
every day from the odd towns on the continent of Europe, which she
visited on her honeymoon, did not cheer the boy. They merely
exasperated him, reminding him of the time when she was all his own, and
was too near to him to need to send him post-cards and letters.

The extremely trained nurse, who wore a grey uniform and white cap and
apron, disapproved of Philip to the depths of her well-disciplined
nature. 'Cantankerous little pig,' she called him to herself.

To the housekeeper she said, 'He is an unusually difficult and
disagreeable child. I should imagine that his education has been much
neglected. He wants a tight hand.'

She did not use a tight hand to him, however. She treated him with an
indifference more annoying than tyranny. He had immense liberty of a
desolate, empty sort. The great house was his to go to and fro in. But
he was not allowed to touch anything in it. The garden was his--to
wander through, but he must not pluck flowers or fruit. He had no
lessons, it is true; but, then, he had no games either. There was a
nursery, but he was not imprisoned in it--was not even encouraged to
spend his time there. He was sent out for walks, and alone, for the park
was large and safe. And the nursery was the room of all that great house
that attracted him most, for it was full of toys of the most fascinating
kind. A rocking-horse as big as a pony, the finest dolls' house you
ever saw, boxes of tea-things, boxes of bricks--both the wooden and the
terra-cotta sorts--puzzle maps, dominoes, chessmen, draughts, every kind
of toy or game that you have ever had or ever wished to have.

And Pip was not allowed to play with any of them.

'You mustn't touch anything, if you please,' the nurse said, with that
icy politeness which goes with a uniform. 'The toys are Miss Lucy's. No;
I couldn't be responsible for giving you permission to play with them.
No; I couldn't think of troubling Miss Lucy by writing to ask her if you
may play with them. No; I couldn't take upon myself to give you Miss
Lucy's address.'

For Philip's boredom and his desire had humbled him even to the asking
for this.

For two whole days he lived at the Grange, hating it and every one in
it; for the servants took their cue from the nurse, and the child felt
that in the whole house he had not a friend. Somehow he had got the idea
firmly in his head that this was a time when Helen was not to be
bothered about anything; so he wrote to her that he was quite well,
thank you, and the park was very pretty and Lucy had lots of nice toys.
He felt very brave and noble, and like a martyr. And he set his teeth
to bear it all. It was like spending a few days at the dentist's.

And then suddenly everything changed. The nurse got a telegram. A
brother who had been thought to be drowned at sea had abruptly come
home. She must go to see him. 'If it costs me the situation,' she said
to the housekeeper, who answered:

'Oh, well--go, then. I'll be responsible for the boy--sulky little
brat.'

And the nurse went. In a happy bustle she packed her boxes and went. At
the last moment Philip, on the doorstep watching her climb into the
dog-cart, suddenly sprang forward.

'Oh, Nurse!' he cried, blundering against the almost moving wheel, and
it was the first time he had called her by any name. 'Nurse, do--do say
I may take Lucy's toys to play with; it _is_ so lonely here. I may,
mayn't I? I may take them?'

Perhaps the nurse's heart was softened by her own happiness and the
thought of the brother who was not drowned. Perhaps she was only in such
a hurry that she did not know what she was saying. At any rate, when
Philip said for the third time, 'May I take them?' she hastily
answered:

'Bless the child! Take anything you like. Mind the wheel, for goodness'
sake. Good-bye, everybody!' waved her hand to the servants assembled at
the top of the wide steps, and was whirled off to joyous reunion with
the undrowned brother.

Philip drew a deep breath of satisfaction, went straight up to the
nursery, took out all the toys, and examined every single one of them.
It took him all the afternoon.

The next day he looked at all the things again and longed to make
something with them. He was accustomed to the joy that comes of making
things. He and Helen had built many a city for the dream island out of
his own two boxes of bricks and certain other things in the house--her
Japanese cabinet, the dominoes and chessmen, cardboard boxes, books, the
lids of kettles and teapots. But they had never had enough bricks. Lucy
had enough bricks for anything.

He began to build a city on the nursery table. But to build with bricks
alone is poor work when you have been used to building with all sorts of
other things.

'It looks like a factory,' said Philip discontentedly. He swept the
building down and replaced the bricks in their different boxes.

'There must be something downstairs that would come in useful,' he told
himself, 'and she did say, "Take what you like."'

By armfuls, two and three at a time, he carried down the boxes of bricks
and the boxes of blocks, the draughts, the chessmen, and the box of
dominoes. He took them into the long drawing-room where the crystal
chandeliers were, and the chairs covered in brown holland--and the many
long, light windows, and the cabinets and tables covered with the most
interesting things.

He cleared a big writing-table of such useless and unimportant objects
as blotting-pad, silver inkstand, and red-backed books, and there was a
clear space for his city.

He began to build.

A bronze Egyptian god on a black and gold cabinet seemed to be looking
at him from across the room.

'All right,' said Philip. 'I'll build you a temple. You wait a bit.'

The bronze god waited and the temple grew, and two silver candlesticks,
topped by chessmen, served admirably as pillars for the portico. He made
a journey to the nursery to fetch the Noah's Ark animals--the pair of
elephants, each standing on a brick, flanked the entrance. It looked
splendid, like an Assyrian temple in the pictures Helen had shown him.
But the bricks, wherever he built with them alone, looked mean, and like
factories or workhouses. Bricks alone always do.

Philip explored again. He found the library. He made several journeys.
He brought up twenty-seven volumes bound in white vellum with marbled
boards, a set of Shakespeare, ten volumes in green morocco. These made
pillars and cloisters, dark, mysterious, and attractive. More Noah's Ark
animals added an Egyptian-looking finish to the building.

'Lor', ain't it pretty!' said the parlour-maid, who came to call him to
tea. 'You are clever with your fingers, Master Philip, I will say that
for you. But you'll catch it, taking all them things.'

'That grey nurse said I might,' said Philip, 'and it doesn't hurt things
building with them. My sister and I always did it at home,' he added,
looking confidingly at the parlour-maid. She had praised his building.
And it was the first time he had mentioned his sister to any one in that
house.

'Well, it's as good as a peep-show,' said the parlour-maid; 'it's just
like them picture post-cards my brother in India sends me. All them
pillars and domes and things--and the animals too. I don't know how you
fare to think of such things, that I don't.'

[Illustration: 'Lor', ain't it pretty!' said the parlour-maid.]

Praise is sweet. He slipped his hand into that of the parlour-maid as
they went down the wide stairs to the hall, where tea awaited him--a
very little tray on a very big, dark table.

'He's not half a bad child,' said Susan at her tea in the servants'
quarters. 'That nurse frightened him out of his little wits with her
prim ways, you may depend. He's civil enough if you speak him civil.'

'But Miss Lucy didn't frighten him, I suppose,' said the cook; 'and look
how he behaved to her.'

'Well, he's quiet enough, anyhow. You don't hear a breath of him from
morning till night,' said the upper housemaid; 'seems silly-like to me.'

'You slip in and look what he's been building, that's all,' Susan told
them. 'You won't call him silly then. India an' pagodas ain't in it.'

They did slip in, all of them, when Philip had gone to bed. The building
had progressed, though it was not finished.

'I shan't touch a thing,' said Susan. 'Let him have it to play with
to-morrow. We'll clear it all away before that nurse comes back with her
caps and her collars and her stuck-up cheek.'

So next day Philip went on with his building. He put everything you can
think of into it: the dominoes, and the domino-box; bricks and books;
cotton-reels that he begged from Susan, and a collar-box and some
cake-tins contributed by the cook. He made steps of the dominoes and a
terrace of the domino-box. He got bits of southernwood out of the garden
and stuck them in cotton-reels, which made beautiful pots, and they
looked like bay trees in tubs. Brass finger-bowls served for domes, and
the lids of brass kettles and coffee-pots from the oak dresser in the
hall made minarets of dazzling splendour. Chessmen were useful for
minarets, too.

'I must have paved paths and a fountain,' said Philip thoughtfully. The
paths were paved with mother-of-pearl card counters, and the fountain
was a silver and glass ash-tray, with a needlecase of filigree silver
rising up from the middle of it; and the falling water was made quite
nicely out of narrow bits of the silver paper off the chocolate Helen
had given him at parting. Palm trees were easily made--Helen had shown
him how to do that--with bits of larch fastened to elder stems with
plasticine. There was plenty of plasticine among Lucy's toys; there was
plenty of everything.

And the city grew, till it covered the table. Philip, unwearied, set
about to make another city on another table. This had for chief feature
a great water-tower, with a fountain round its base; and now he stopped
at nothing. He unhooked the crystal drops from the great chandeliers to
make his fountains. This city was grander than the first. It had a grand
tower made of a waste-paper basket and an astrologer's tower that was a
photograph-enlarging machine.

The cities were really very beautiful. I wish I could describe them
thoroughly to you. But it would take pages and pages. Besides all the
things I have told of alone there were towers and turrets and grand
staircases, pagodas and pavilions, canals made bright and water-like by
strips of silver paper, and a lake with a boat on it. Philip put into
his buildings all the things out of the doll's house that seemed
suitable. The wooden things-to-eat and dishes. The leaden tea-cups and
goblets. He peopled the place with dominoes and pawns. The handsome
chessmen were used for minarets. He made forts and garrisoned them with
lead soldiers.

He worked hard and he worked cleverly, and as the cities grew in beauty
and interestingness he loved them more and more. He was happy now. There
was no time to be unhappy in.

'I will keep it as it is till Helen comes. How she will _love_ it!' he
said.

The two cities were connected by a bridge which was a yard-stick he had
found in the servants' sewing-room and taken without hindrance, for by
this time all the servants were his friends. Susan had been the
first--that was all.

He had just laid his bridge in place, and put Mr. and Mrs. Noah in the
chief square to represent the inhabitants, and was standing rapt in
admiration of his work, when a hard hand on each of his shoulders made
him start and scream.

It was the nurse. She had come back a day sooner than any one expected
her. The brother had brought home a wife, and she and the nurse had not
liked each other; so she was very cross, and she took Philip by the
shoulders and shook him, a thing which had never happened to him before.

'You naughty, wicked boy!' she said, still shaking.

'But I haven't hurt anything--I'll put everything back,' he said,
trembling and very pale.

'You'll not touch any of it again,' said the nurse. 'I'll see to that. I
shall put everything away myself in the morning. Taking what doesn't
belong to you!'

'But you said I might take anything I liked,' said Philip, 'so if it's
wrong it's your fault.'

'You untruthful child!' cried the nurse, and hit him over the knuckles.
Now, no one had ever hit Philip before. He grew paler than ever, but he
did not cry, though his hands hurt rather badly. For she had snatched up
the yard-stick to hit him with, and it was hard and cornery.

'You are a coward,' said Philip, 'and it is you who are untruthful and
not me.'

'Hold your tongue,' said the nurse, and whirled him off to bed.

'You'll get no supper, so there!' she said, angrily tucking him up.

'I don't want any,' said Philip, 'and I have to forgive you before the
sun goes down.'

'Forgive, indeed!' said she, flouncing out.

'When you get sorry you'll know I've forgiven you,' Philip called after
her, which, of course, made her angrier than ever.

Whether Philip cried when he was alone is not our business. Susan, who
had watched the shaking and the hitting without daring to interfere,
crept up later with milk and sponge-cakes. She found him asleep, and she
says his eyelashes were wet.

When he awoke he thought at first that it was morning, the room was so
light. But presently he saw that it was not yellow sunlight but white
moonshine which made the beautiful brightness.

He wondered at first why he felt so unhappy, then he remembered how
Helen had gone away and how hateful the nurse had been. And now she
would pull down the city and Helen would never see it. And he would
never be able to build such a beautiful one again. In the morning it
would be gone, and he would not be able even to remember how it was
built.

The moonlight was very bright.

'I wonder how my city looks by moonlight?' he said.

And then, all in a thrilling instant, he made up his mind to go down and
see for himself how it did look.

He slipped on his dressing-gown, opened his door softly, and crept along
the corridor and down the broad staircase, then along the gallery and
into the drawing-room. It was very dark, but he felt his way to a window
and undid the shutter, and there lay his city, flooded with moonlight,
just as he had imagined it.

He gazed on it for a moment in ecstasy and then turned to shut the door.
As he did so he felt a slight strange giddiness and stood a moment with
his hand to his head. He turned and went again towards the city, and
when he was close to it he gave a little cry, hastily stifled, for fear
some one should hear him and come down and send him to bed. He stood and
gazed about him bewildered and, once more, rather giddy. For the city
had, in a quick blink of light, followed by darkness, disappeared. So
had the drawing-room. So had the chair that stood close to the table. He
could see mountainous shapes raising enormous heights in the distance,
and the moonlight shone on the tops of them. But he himself seemed to be
in a vast, flat plain. There was the softness of long grass round his
feet, but there were no trees, no houses, no hedges or fences to break
the expanse of grass. It seemed darker in some parts than others. That
was all. It reminded him of the illimitable prairie of which he had read
in books of adventure.

'I suppose I'm dreaming,' said Philip, 'though I don't see how I can
have gone to sleep just while I was turning the door handle.
However----'

He stood still expecting that something would happen. In dreams
something always does happen, if it's only that the dream comes to an
end. But nothing happened now--Philip just stood there quite quietly and
felt the warm soft grass round his ankles.

Then, as his eyes became used to the darkness of the plain, he saw some
way off a very steep bridge leading up to a dark height on whose summit
the moon shone whitely. He walked towards it, and as he approached he
saw that it was less like a bridge than a sort of ladder, and that it
rose to a giddy height above him. It seemed to rest on a rock far up
against dark sky, and the inside of the rock seemed hollowed out in one
vast dark cave.

[Illustration: Beyond it he could see dim piles that looked like
churches and houses.]

And now he was close to the foot of the ladder. It had no rungs, but
narrow ledges made hold for feet and hands. Philip remembered Jack and
the Beanstalk, and looked up longingly; but the ladder was a very very
long one. On the other hand, it was the only thing that seemed to lead
anywhere, and he had had enough of standing lonely in the grassy
prairie, where he seemed to have been for a very long time indeed. So he
put his hands and feet to the ladder and began to go up. It was a very
long climb. There were three hundred and eight steps, for he counted
them. And the steps were only on one side of the ladder, so he had to
be extremely careful. On he went, up and on, on and up, till his feet
ached and his hands felt as though they would drop off for tiredness. He
could not look up far, and he dared not look down at all. There was
nothing for it but to climb and climb and climb, and at last he saw the
ground on which the ladder rested--a terrace hewn in regular lines, and,
as it seemed, hewn from the solid rock. His head was level with the
ground, now his hands, now his feet. He leaped sideways from the ladder
and threw himself face down on the ground, which was cold and smooth
like marble. There he lay, drawing deep breaths of weariness and relief.

There was a great silence all about, which rested and soothed, and
presently he rose and looked around him. He was close to an archway with
very thick pillars, and he went towards it and peeped cautiously in. It
seemed to be a great gate leading to an open space, and beyond it he
could see dim piles that looked like churches and houses. But all was
deserted; the moonlight and he had the place, whatever it was, to
themselves.

'I suppose every one's in bed,' said Philip, and stood there trembling a
little, but very curious and interested, in the black shadow of the
strange arch.

CHAPTER II

DELIVERER OR DESTROYER

Philip stood in the shadow of the dark arch and looked out. He saw
before him a great square surrounded by tall irregular buildings. In the
middle was a fountain whose waters, silver in the moonlight, rose and
fell with gentle plashing sound. A tall tree, close to the archway, cast
the shadow of its trunk across the path--a broad black bar. He listened,
listened, listened, but there was nothing to listen to, except the deep
night silence and the changing soft sound the fountain made.

His eyes, growing accustomed to the dimness, showed him that he was
under a heavy domed roof supported on large square pillars--to the right
and left stood dark doors, shut fast.

'I will explore these doors by daylight,' he said. He did not feel
exactly frightened. But he did not feel exactly brave either. But he
wished and intended to be brave, so he said, 'I will explore these
doors. At least I think I will,' he added, for one must not only be
brave but truthful.

And then suddenly he felt very sleepy. He leaned against the wall, and
presently it seemed that sitting down would be less trouble, and then
that lying down would be more truly comfortable. A bell from very very
far away sounded the hour, twelve. Philip counted up to nine, but he
missed the tenth bell-beat, and the eleventh and the twelfth as well,
because he was fast asleep cuddled up warmly in the thick quilted
dressing-gown that Helen had made him last winter. He dreamed that
everything was as it used to be before That Man came and changed
everything and took Helen away. He was in his own little bed in his own
little room in their own little house, and Helen had come to call him.
He could see the sunlight through his closed eyelids--he was keeping
them closed just for the fun of hearing her try to wake him, and
presently he would tell her he had been awake all the time, and they
would laugh together about it. And then he awoke, and he was not in his
soft bed at home but on the hard floor of a big, strange gate-house, and
it was not Helen who was shaking him and saying, 'Here--I say, wake up,
can't you,' but a tall man in a red coat; and the light that dazzled his
eyes was not from the sun at all, but from a horn lantern which the man
was holding close to his face.

'What's the matter?' said Philip sleepily.

'That's the question,' said the man in red. 'Come along to the
guard-room and give an account of yourself, you young shaver.'

He took Philip's ear gently but firmly between a very hard finger and
thumb.

'Leave go,' said Philip, 'I'm not going to run away.' And he stood up
feeling very brave.

The man shifted his hold from ear to shoulder and led Philip through one
of those doors which he had thought of exploring by daylight. It was not
daylight yet, and the room, large and bare, with an arch at each end and
narrow little windows at the sides, was lighted by horn lanterns and
tall tapers in pewter candlesticks. It seemed to Philip that the room
was full of soldiers.

Their captain, with a good deal of gold about him and a very smart black
moustache, got up from a bench.

'Look what I've caught, sir,' said the man who owned the hand on
Philip's shoulder.

'Humph,' said the captain, 'so it's really happened at last.'

[Illustration: 'Here--I say, wake up, can't you?']

'What has?' said Philip.

'Why, you have,' said the captain. 'Don't be frightened, little man.'

'I'm not frightened,' said Philip, and added politely, 'I should be so
much obliged if you'd tell me what you mean.' He added something which
he had heard people say when they asked the way to the market or the
public gardens, 'I'm quite a stranger here,' he said.

A jolly roar of laughter went up from the red-coats.

'It isn't manners to laugh at strangers,' said Philip.

'Mind your own manners,' said the captain sharply; 'in this country
little boys speak when they're spoken to. Stranger, eh? Well, we knew
that, you know!'

Philip, though he felt snubbed, yet felt grand too. Here he was in the
middle of an adventure with grown-up soldiers. He threw out his chest
and tried to look manly.

The captain sat down in a chair at the end of a long table, drew a black
book to him--a black book covered with dust--and began to rub a rusty
pen-nib on his sword, which was not rusty.

'Come now,' he said, opening the book, 'tell me how you came here. And
mind you speak the truth.'

'I _always_ speak the truth,' said Philip proudly.

All the soldiers rose and saluted him with looks of deep surprise and
respect.

'Well, nearly always,' said Philip, hot to the ears, and the soldiers
clattered stiffly down again on to the benches, laughing once more.
Philip had imagined there to be more discipline in the army.

'How did you come here?' said the captain.

'Up the great bridge staircase,' said Philip.

The captain wrote busily in the book.

'What did you come for?'

'I didn't know what else to do. There was nothing but illimitable
prairie--and so I came up.'

'You are a very bold boy,' said the captain.

'Thank you,' said Philip. 'I do _want_ to be.'

'What was your purpose in coming?'

'I didn't do it on purpose--I just happened to come.'

The captain wrote that down too. And then he and Philip and the soldiers
looked at each other in silence.

'Well?' said the boy.

'Well?' said the captain.

'I do wish,' said the boy, 'you'd tell me what you meant by my really
happening after all. And then I wish you'd tell me the way home.'

'Where do you want to get to?' asked the captain.

'The _address_,' said Philip, 'is The Grange, Ravelsham, Sussex.'

'Don't know it,' said the captain briefly, 'and anyhow you can't go back
there now. Didn't you read the notice at the top of the ladder?
Trespassers will be prosecuted. You've got to be prosecuted before
you can go back anywhere.'

'I'd rather be persecuted than go down that ladder again,' he said.
'I suppose it won't be very bad--being persecuted, I mean?'

His idea of persecution was derived from books. He thought it
to be something vaguely unpleasant from which one escaped in
disguise--adventurous and always successful.

'That's for the judges to decide,' said the captain, 'it's a serious
thing trespassing in our city. This guard is put here expressly to
prevent it.'

'Do you have many trespassers?' Philip asked. The captain seemed kind,
and Philip had a great-uncle who was a judge, so the word judges made
him think of tips and good advice, rather than of justice and
punishment.

'Many trespassers indeed!' the captain almost snorted his answer.
'That's just it. There's never been one before. You're the first. For
years and years and years there's been a guard here, because when the
town was first built the astrologers foretold that some day there would
be a trespasser who would do untold mischief. So it's our
privilege--we're the Polistopolitan guards--to keep watch over the only
way by which a trespasser could come in.'

'May I sit down?' said Philip suddenly, and the soldiers made room for
him on the bench.

'My father and my grandfather and all my ancestors were in the guards,'
said the captain proudly. 'It's a very great honour.'

'I wonder,' said Philip, 'why you don't cut off the end of your
ladder--the top end I mean; then nobody could come up.'

'That would never do,' said the captain, 'because, you see, there's
another prophecy. The great deliverer is to come that way.'

'Couldn't I,' suggested Philip shyly, 'couldn't I be the deliverer
instead of the trespasser? I'd much rather, you know.'

'I daresay you would,' said the captain; 'but people can't be deliverers
just because they'd much rather, you know.'

'And isn't any one to come up the ladder bridge except just those two?'

'We don't know; that's just it. You know what prophecies are.'

'I'm afraid I don't--exactly.'

'So vague and mixed up, I mean. The one I'm telling you about goes
something like this.

          Who comes up the ladder stair?
            Beware, beware,
          Steely eyes and copper hair
          Strife and grief and pain to bear
          All come up the ladder stair.

You see we can't tell whether that means one person or a lot of people
with steely eyes and copper hair.'

'My hair's just plain boy-colour,' said Philip; 'my sister says so, and
my eyes are blue, I believe.'

'I can't see in this light;' the captain leaned his elbows on the table
and looked earnestly in the boy's eyes. 'No, I can't see. The other
prophecy goes:

          From down and down and very far down
          The king shall come to take his own;
          He shall deliver the Magic town,
          And all that he made shall be his own.
          Beware, take care. Beware, prepare,
          The king shall come by the ladder stair.

'How jolly,' said Philip; 'I love poetry. Do you know any more?'

'There are heaps of prophecies of course,' said the captain; 'the
astrologers must do _something_ to earn their pay. There's rather a nice
one:

          Every night when the bright stars blink
          The guards shall turn out, and have a drink
          As the clock strikes two.
          And every night when no stars are seen
          The guards shall drink in their own canteen
          When the clock strikes two.

To-night there aren't any stars, so we have the drinks served here. It's
less trouble than going across the square to the canteen, and the
principle's the same. Principle is the great thing with a prophecy, my
boy.'

'Yes,' said Philip. And then the far-away bell beat again. One, two. And
outside was a light patter of feet.

A soldier rose--saluted his officer and threw open the door. There was a
moment's pause; Philip expected some one to come in with a tray and
glasses, as they did at his great-uncle's when gentlemen were suddenly
thirsty at times that were not meal-times.

But instead, after a moment's pause, a dozen greyhounds stepped daintily
in on their padded cat-like feet; and round the neck of each dog was
slung a roundish thing that looked like one of the little barrels which
St. Bernard dogs wear round their necks in the pictures. And when these
were loosened and laid on the table Philip was charmed to see that the
roundish things were not barrels but cocoa-nuts.

The soldiers reached down some pewter pots from a high shelf--pierced
the cocoa-nuts with their bayonets and poured out the cocoa-nut milk.
They all had drinks, so the prophecy came true, and what is more they
gave Philip a drink as well. It was delicious, and there was as much of
it as he wanted. I have never had as much cocoa-nut milk as I wanted.
Have you?

Then the hollow cocoa-nuts were tied on to the dogs' necks again and out
they went, slim and beautiful, two by two, wagging their slender tails,
in the most amiable and orderly way.

'They take the cocoa-nuts to the town kitchen,' said the captain, 'to be
made into cocoa-nut ice for the army breakfast; waste not want not, you
know. We don't waste anything here, my boy.' Philip had quite got over
his snubbing. He now felt that the captain was talking with him as man
to man. Helen had gone away and left him; well, he was learning to do
without Helen. And he had got away from the Grange, and Lucy, and that
nurse. He was a man among men. And then, just as he was feeling most
manly and important, and quite equal to facing any number of judges,
there came a little tap at the door of the guard-room, and a very little
voice said:

'Oh, do please let me come in.'

Then the door opened slowly.

'Well, come in, whoever you are,' said the captain. And the person who
came in was--Lucy. Lucy, whom Philip thought he had got rid of--Lucy,
who stood for the new hateful life to which Helen had left him. Lucy, in
her serge skirt and jersey, with her little sleek fair pig-tails, and
that anxious 'I-wish-we-could-be-friends' smile of hers. Philip was
furious. It was too bad.

'And who is this?' the captain was saying kindly.

'It's me--it's Lucy,' she said. 'I came up with _him_.'

She pointed to Philip. 'No manners,' thought Philip in bitterness.

'No, you didn't,' he said shortly.

'I did--I was close behind you when you were climbing the ladder bridge.
And I've been waiting alone ever since, when you were asleep and all. I
_knew_ he'd be cross when he knew I'd come,' she explained to the
soldiers.

'I'm _not_ cross,' said Philip very crossly indeed, but the captain
signed to him to be silent. Then Lucy was questioned and her answers
written in the book, and when that was done the captain said:

'So this little girl is a friend of yours?'

'No, she isn't,' said Philip violently; 'she's not my friend, and she
never will be. I've seen her, that's all, and I don't want to see her
again.'

'You _are_ unkind,' said Lucy.

And then there was a grave silence, most unpleasant to Philip. The
soldiers, he perceived, now looked coldly at him. It was all Lucy's
fault. What did she want to come shoving in for, spoiling everything?
Any one but a girl would have known that a guard-room wasn't the right
place for a girl. He frowned and said nothing. Lucy had smuggled up
against the captain's knee, and he was stroking her hair.

'Poor little woman,' he said. 'You must go to sleep now, so as to be
rested before you go to the Hall of Justice in the morning.'

They made Lucy a bed of soldiers' cloaks laid on a bench; and bearskins
are the best of pillows. Philip had a soldier's cloak and a bench, and a
bearskin too--but what was the good? Everything was spoiled. If Lucy had
not come the guard-room as a sleeping-place would have been almost as
good as the tented field. But she _had_ come, and the guard-room was no
better now than any old night-nursery. And how had she known? How had
she come? How had she made her way to that illimitable prairie where he
had found the mysterious beginning of the ladder bridge? He went to
sleep a bunched-up lump of prickly discontent and suppressed fury.

When he woke it was bright daylight, and a soldier was saying, 'Wake up,
Trespassers. Breakfast----'

'How jolly,' thought Philip, 'to be having military breakfast.' Then he
remembered Lucy, and hated her being there, and felt once more that she
had spoiled everything.

I should not, myself, care for a breakfast of cocoa-nut ice, peppermint
creams, apples, bread and butter and sweet milk. But the soldiers seemed
to enjoy it. And it would have exactly suited Philip if he had not seen
that Lucy was enjoying it too.

'I do hate greedy girls,' he told himself, for he was now in that state
of black rage when you hate everything the person you are angry with
does or says or is.

And now it was time to start for the Hall of Justice. The guard formed
outside, and Philip noticed that each soldier stood on a sort of green
mat. When the order to march was given, each soldier quickly and
expertly rolled up his green mat and put it under his arm. And whenever
they stopped, because of the crowd, each soldier unrolled his green mat,
and stood on it till it was time to go on again. And they had to stop
several times, for the crowd was very thick in the great squares and in
the narrow streets of the city. It was a wonderful crowd. There were men
and women and children in every sort of dress. Italian, Spanish,
Russian; French peasants in blue blouses and wooden shoes, workmen in
the dress English working people wore a hundred years ago. Norwegians,
Swedes, Swiss, Turks, Greeks, Indians, Arabians, Chinese, Japanese,
besides Red Indians in dresses of skins, and Scots in kilts and
sporrans. Philip did not know what nation most of the dresses belonged
to--to him it was a brilliant patchwork of gold and gay colours. It
reminded him of the fancy-dress party he had once been to with Helen,
when he wore a Pierrot's dress and felt very silly in it. He noticed
that not a single boy in all that crowd was dressed as he was--in what
he thought was the only correct dress for boys. Lucy walked beside him.
Once, just after they started, she said, 'Aren't you frightened,
Philip?' and he would not answer, though he longed to say, 'Of course
not. It's only girls who are afraid.' But he thought it would be more
disagreeable to say nothing, so he said it.

When they got to the Hall of Justice, she caught hold of his hand, and
said:

'Oh!' very loud and sudden, 'doesn't it remind you of anything?' she
asked.

Philip pulled his hand away and said 'No' before he remembered that he
had decided not to speak to her. And the 'No' was quite untrue, for the
building did remind him of something, though he couldn't have told you
what.

The prisoners and their guard passed through a great arch between
magnificent silver pillars, and along a vast corridor, lined with
soldiers who all saluted.

'Do all sorts of soldiers salute you?' he asked the captain, 'or only
just your own ones?'

'It's _you_ they're saluting,' the captain said; 'our laws tell us to
salute all prisoners out of respect for their misfortunes.'

The judge sat on a high bronze throne with colossal bronze dragons on
each side of it, and wide shallow steps of ivory, black and white.

Two attendants spread a round mat on the top of the steps in front of
the judge--a yellow mat it was, and very thick, and he stood up and
saluted the prisoners. ('Because of your misfortunes,' the captain
whispered.)

The judge wore a bright yellow robe with a green girdle, and he had no
wig, but a very odd-shaped hat, which he kept on all the time.

The trial did not last long, and the captain said very little, and the
judge still less, while the prisoners were not allowed to speak at all.
The judge looked up something in a book, and consulted in a low voice
with the crown lawyer and a sour-faced person in black. Then he put on
his spectacles and said:

'Prisoners at the bar, you are found guilty of trespass. The punishment
is Death--if the judge does not like the prisoners. If he does not
dislike them it is imprisonment for life, or until the judge has had
time to think it over. Remove the prisoners.'

'Oh, _don't_!' cried Philip, almost weeping.

'I thought you weren't afraid,' whispered Lucy.

'Silence in court,' said the judge.

Then Philip and Lucy were removed.

They were marched by streets quite different from those they had come
by, and at last in the corner of a square they came to a large house
that was quite black.

'Here we are,' said the captain kindly. 'Good-bye. Better luck next
time.'

The gaoler, a gentleman in black velvet, with a ruff and a pointed
beard, came out and welcomed them cordially.

'How do you do, my dears?' he said. 'I hope you'll be comfortable here.
First-class misdemeanants, I suppose?' he asked.

'Of course,' said the captain.

'Top floor, if you please,' said the gaoler politely, and stood back to
let the children pass. 'Turn to the left and up the stairs.'

[Illustration: 'Top floor, if you please,' said the gaoler politely.]

The stairs were dark and went on and on, and round and round, and up and
up. At the very top was a big room, simply furnished with a table,
chairs, and a rocking-horse. Who wants more furniture than that?

'You've got the best view in the whole city,' said the gaoler, 'and
you'll be company for me. What? They gave me the post of gaoler because
it's nice, light, gentlemanly work, and leaves me time for my writing.
I'm a literary man, you know. But I've sometimes found it a trifle
lonely. You're the first prisoners I've ever had, you see. If you'll
excuse me I'll go and order some dinner for you. You'll be contented
with the feast of reason and the flow of soul, I feel certain.'

The moment the door had closed on the gaoler's black back Philip turned
on Lucy.

'I hope you're satisfied,' he said bitterly. 'This is all _your_ doing.
They'd have let me off if you hadn't been here. What on earth did you
want to come here for? Why did you come running after me like that?
You know I don't like you?'

'You're the hatefullest, disagreeablest, horridest boy in all the
world,' said Lucy firmly--'there!'

Philip had not expected this. He met it as well as he could.

'I'm not a little sneak of a white mouse squeezing in where I'm not
wanted, anyhow,' he said.

And then they stood looking at each other, breathing quickly, both of
them.

'I'd rather be a white mouse than a cruel bully,' said Lucy at last.

'I'm not a bully,' said Philip.

Then there was another silence. Lucy sniffed. Philip looked round the
bare room, and suddenly it came to him that he and Lucy were companions
in misfortune, no matter whose fault it was that they were imprisoned.
So he said:

'Look here, I don't like you and I shan't pretend I do. But I'll call it
Pax for the present if you like. We've got to escape from this place
somehow, and I'll help you if you like, and you may help me if you can.'

'Thank you,' said Lucy, in a tone which might have meant anything.

'So we'll call it Pax and see if we can escape by the window. There
might be ivy--or a faithful page with a rope ladder. Have you a page at
the Grange?'

'There's two stable-boys,' said Lucy, 'but I don't think they're
faithful, and I say, I think all this is much more magic than you
think.'

'Of course I know it's magic,' said he impatiently; 'but it's quite real
too.'

'Oh, it's real enough,' said she.

They leaned out of the window. Alas, there was no ivy. Their window was
very high up, and the wall outside, when they touched it with their
hand, felt smooth as glass.

'_That's_ no go,' said he, and the two leaned still farther out of the
window looking down on the town. There were strong towers and fine
minarets and palaces, the palm trees and fountains and gardens. A white
building across the square looked strangely familiar. Could it be like
St. Paul's which Philip had been taken to see when he was very little,
and which he had never been able to remember? No, he could not remember
it even now. The two prisoners looked out in a long silence. Far below
lay the city, its trees softly waving in the breeze, flowers shining in
a bright many-coloured patchwork, the canals that intersected the big
squares gleamed in the sunlight, and crossing and recrossing the
squares and streets were the people of the town, coming and going about
their business.

'Look here!' said Lucy suddenly, 'do you mean to say you don't know?'

'Know what?' he asked impatiently.

'Where we are. What it is. Don't you?'

'No. No more do you.'

'Haven't you seen it all before?'

'No, of course I haven't. No more have you.'

'All right. I _have_ seen it before though,' said Lucy, 'and so have
you. But I shan't tell you what it is unless you'll be nice to me.' Her
tone was a little sad, but quite firm.

'I _am_ nice to you. I told you it was Pax,' said Philip. 'Tell me what
you think it is.'

'I don't mean that sort of grandish standoffish Pax, but real Pax. Oh,
don't be so horrid, Philip. I'm dying to tell you--but I won't if you go
on being like you are.'

'_I'm_ all right,' said Philip; 'out with it.'

'No. You've got to say it's Pax, and I will stand by you till we get out
of this, and I'll always act like a noble friend to you, and I'll try my
best to like you. Of course if you can't like me you can't, but you
ought to try. Say it after me, won't you?'

Her tone was so kind and persuading that he found himself saying after
her, 'I, Philip, agree to try and like you, Lucy, and to stand by you
till we're out of this, and always to act the part of a noble friend to
you. And it's real Pax. Shake hands.'

'Now then,' said he when they had shaken hands, and Lucy uttered these
words:

'Don't you see? It's your own city that we're in, your own city that you
built on the tables in the drawing-room? It's all got big by magic, so
that we could get in. Look,' she pointed out of the window, 'see that
great golden dome, that's one of the brass finger-bowls, and that white
building's my old model of St. Paul's. And there's Buckingham Palace
over there, with the carved squirrel on the top, and the chessmen, and
the blue and white china pepper-pots; and the building we're in is the
black Japanese cabinet.'

Philip looked and he saw that what she said was true. It _was_ his city.

'But I didn't build insides to my buildings,' said he; 'and when did
_you_ see what I built anyway?'

'The insides are part of the magic, I suppose,' Lucy said; 'and I saw
the cities you built when Auntie brought me home last night, after you'd
been sent to bed. And I did love them. And oh, Philip, I'm so glad it's
Pax because I do think you're so _frightfully_ clever, and Auntie
thought so too, building those beautiful things. And I knew nurse was
going to pull it all down. I begged her not to, but she was addymant,
and so I got up and dressed and came down to have another look by
moonlight. And one or two of the bricks and chessmen had fallen down. I
expect nurse knocked them down. So I built them up again as well as I
could--and I was loving it all like anything; and then the door opened
and I hid under the table, and you came in.'

'Then you were there--did you notice how the magic began?'

'No, but it all changed to grass; and then I saw you a long way off,
going up a ladder. And so I went after you. But I didn't let you see me.
I knew you'd be so cross. And then I looked in at the guard-room door,
and I did so want some of the cocoa-nut milk.'

'When did you find out it was _my_ city?'

'I thought the soldiers looked like my lead ones somehow. But I wasn't
sure till I saw the judge. Why he's just old Noah, out of the Ark.'

'So he is,' cried Philip; 'how wonderful! How perfectly wonderful! I
wish we weren't prisoners. Wouldn't it be jolly to go all over it--into
all the buildings, to see what the insides of them have turned into?
And all the other people. I didn't put _them_ in.'

'That's more magic, I expect. But--Oh, we shall find it all out in
time.'

She clapped her hands. And on the instant the door opened and the gaoler
appeared.

'A visitor for you,' he said, and stood aside to let some one else come
in, some one tall and thin, with a black hooded cloak and a black
half-mask, such as people wear at carnival time.

When the gaoler had shut the door and gone away the tall figure took off
its mask and let fall its cloak, showing to the surprised but
recognising eyes of the children the well-known shape of Mr. Noah--the
judge.

'How do you do?' he said. 'This is a little unofficial visit. I hope I
haven't come at an inconvenient time.'

'We're very glad,' said Lucy, 'because you can tell us----'

'I won't answer questions,' said Mr. Noah, sitting down stiffly on his
yellow mat, 'but I will tell you something. We don't know who you are.
But I myself think that you may be the Deliverer.'

'Both of us,' said Philip jealously.

'One or both. You see the prophecy says that the Destroyer's hair is
red. And your hair is not red. But before I could get the populace to
feel sure of, that my own hair would be grey with thought and argument.
Some people are so wooden-headed. And I am not used to thinking. I don't
often have to do it. It distresses me.'

The children said they were sorry. Philip added:

'Do tell us a little about your city. It isn't a question. We want to
know if it's magic. That isn't a question either.'

'I was about to tell you,' said Mr. Noah, 'and I will not answer
questions. Of course it is magic. Everything in the world is magic,
until you understand it.

'And as to the city. I will just tell you a little of our history. Many
thousand years ago all the cities of our country were built by a great
and powerful giant, who brought the materials from far and wide. The
place was peopled partly by persons of his choice, and partly by a sort
of self-acting magic rather difficult to explain. As soon as the cities
were built and the inhabitants placed here the life of the city began,
and it was, to those who lived it, as though it had always been. The
artisans toiled, the musicians played, and the poets sang. The
astrologers, finding themselves in a tall tower evidently designed for
such a purpose, began to observe the stars and to prophesy.'

'I know that part,' said Philip.

'Very well,' said the judge. 'Then you know quite enough. Now I want to
ask a little favour of you both. Would you mind escaping?'

'If we only could,' Lucy sighed.

'The strain on my nerves is too much,' said Mr. Noah feelingly. 'Escape,
my dear children, to please me, a very old man in indifferent health and
poor spirits.'

'But how----'

'Oh, you just walk out. You, my boy, can disguise yourself in your
dressing-gown which I see has been placed on yonder chair, and I will
leave my cloak for you, little girl.'

They both said 'Thank you,' and Lucy added: 'But _how_?'

'Through the door,' said the judge. 'There is a rule about putting
prisoners on their honour not to escape, but there have not been any
prisoners for so long that I don't suppose they put you on honour. No?
You can just walk out of the door. There are many charitable persons in
the city who will help to conceal you. The front-door key turns easily,
and I myself will oil it as I go out. Good-bye--thank you so much for
falling in with my little idea. Accept an old man's blessing. Only
don't tell the gaoler. He would never forgive me.'

He got off his mat, rolled it up and went.

'Well!' said Lucy.

'Well!' said Philip.

'I suppose we go?' he said. But Lucy said, 'What about the gaoler? Won't
he catch it if we bolt?'

Philip felt this might be true. It was annoying, and as bad as being put
on one's honour.

'Bother!' was what he said.

And then the gaoler came in. He looked pale and worried.

'I am so awfully sorry,' he began. 'I thought I should enjoy having you
here, but my nerves are all anyhow. The very sound of your voices. I
can't write a line. My brain reels. I wonder whether you'd be good
enough to do a little thing for me? Would you mind escaping?'

'But won't you get into trouble?'

'Nothing could be worse than this,' said the gaoler, with feeling. 'I
had no idea that children's voices were so penetrating. Go, go. I
implore you to escape. Only don't tell the judge. I am sure he would
never forgive me.'

After that, what prisoner would not immediately have escaped?

The two children only waited till the sound of the gaoler's keys had
died away on the stairs, to open their door, run down the many steps and
slip out of the prison gate. They walked a little way in silence. There
were plenty of people about, but no one seemed to notice them.

'Which way shall we go?' Lucy asked. 'I wish we'd asked him where the
Charitables live.'

'I think,' Philip began; but Lucy was not destined to know what he
thought.

There was a sudden shout, a clattering of horses' hoofs, and all the
faces in the square turned their way.

'They've seen us,' cried Philip. 'Run, run, run!'

He himself ran, and he ran toward the gate-house that stood at the top
of the ladder stairs by which they had come up, and behind him came the
shouting and clatter of hot pursuit. The captain stood in the gateway
alone, and just as Philip reached the gate the captain turned into the
guard-room and pretended not to see anything. Philip had never run so
far or so fast. His breath came in deep sobs; but he reached the ladder
and began quickly to go down. It was easier than going up.

[Illustration: And behind him the clatter of hot pursuit.]

He was nearly at the bottom when the whole ladder bridge leapt wildly
into the air, and he fell from it and rolled in the thick grass of that
illimitable prairie.

All about him the air was filled with great sounds, like the noise of
the earthquakes that destroy beautiful big palaces, and factories which
are big but not beautiful. It was deafening, it was endless, it was
unbearable.

Yet he had to bear that, and more. And now he felt a curious swelling
sensation in his hands, then in his head--then all over. It was
extremely painful. He rolled over in his agony, and saw the foot of an
enormous giant quite close to him. The foot had a large, flat, ugly
shoe, and seemed to come out of grey, low-hanging, swaying curtains.
There was a gigantic column too, black against the grey. The ladder
bridge, cast down, lay on the ground not far from him.

Pain and fear overcame Philip, and he ceased to hear or feel or know
anything.

When he recovered consciousness he found himself under the table in the
drawing-room. The swelling feeling was over, and he did not seem to be
more than his proper size.

He could see the flat feet of the nurse and the lower part of her grey
skirt, and a rattling and rumbling on the table above told him that she
was doing as she had said she would, and destroying his city. He saw
also a black column which was the leg of the table. Every now and then
the nurse walked away to put back into its proper place something he had
used in the building. And once she stood on a chair, and he heard the
tinkling of the lustre-drops as she hooked them into their places on the
chandelier.

'If I lie very still,' said he, 'perhaps she won't see me. But I do
wonder how I got here. And what a dream to tell Helen about!'

He lay very still. The nurse did not see him. And when she had gone to
her breakfast Philip crawled out.

Yes, the city was gone. Not a trace of it. The very tables were back in
their proper places.

Philip went back to his proper place, which, of course, was bed.

'What a splendid dream,' he said, as he cuddled down between the sheets,
'and now it's all over!'

Of course he was quite wrong.

LOST

Philip went to sleep, and dreamed that he was at home again and that
Helen had come to his bedside to call him, leading a white pony that was
to be his very own. It was a pony that looked clever enough for
anything, and he was not surprised when it shook hands with him; but
when it said, 'Well, we must be moving,' and began to try to put on
Philip's shoes and stockings, Philip called out, 'Here, I say, stop
that,' and awoke to a room full of sunshine, but empty of ponies.

'Oh, well,' said Philip, 'I suppose I'd better get up.' He looked at his
new silver watch, one of Helen's parting presents, and saw that it
marked ten o'clock.

'I say, you know,' said he to the watch, 'you can't be right.' And he
shook it to encourage it to think over the matter. But the watch still
said 'ten' quite plainly and unmistakably.

Now the Grange breakfast time was at eight. And Philip was certain he
had not been called.

'This is jolly rum,' he remarked. 'It must be the watch. Perhaps it's
stopped.'

But it hadn't stopped. Therefore it must be two hours past breakfast
time. The moment he had thought this he became extremely hungry. He got
out of bed as soon as he knew exactly how hungry he was.

There was no one about, so he made his way to the bath-room and spent a
happy hour with the hot water and the cold water, and the brown Windsor
soap and the shaving soap and the nail brush and the flesh brush and the
loofahs and the shower bath and the three sponges. He had not, so far,
been able thoroughly to investigate and enjoy all these things. But now
there was no one to interfere, and he enjoyed himself to that degree
that he quite forgot to wonder why he hadn't been called. He thought of
a piece of poetry that Helen had made for him, about the bath; and when
he had done playing he lay on his back in water that was very hot
indeed, trying to remember the poetry. The water was very nearly cold by
the time he had remembered the poetry. It was called Dreams of a Giant
Life, and this was it.

DREAMS OF A GIANT LIFE

          What was I once--in ages long ago?
          I look back, and I see myself. We grow
          So changed through changing years, I hardly see
          How that which I look back on could be me?[1]

          Glorious and splendid, giant-like I stood
          On a white cliff, topped by a darkling wood.
          Below me, placid, bright and sparkling, lay
          The equal waters of a lovely bay.
          White cliffs surrounded it--and calm and fair
          It lay asleep, in warm and silent air.

          I stood alone--naked and strong, upright
          My limbs gleamed in the clear pure golden light.
          I saw below me all the water lie
          Expecting something, and that thing was I.[2]

          I leaned, I plunged, the waves splashed over me.
          I lay, a giant in a little sea.

          White cliffs all round, wood-crowned, and as I lay
          I saw the glories of the dying day;
          No wind disturbed my sea; the sunlight was
          As though it came through windows of gold glass.
          The white cliffs rose above me, and around
          The clear sea lay, pure, perfect and profound;
          And I was master of the cliffs, the sea,
          And the gold light that brightened over me.

          Far miles away my giant feet showed plain,
          Rising, like rocks out of the quiet main.
          On them a lighthouse could be built, to show
          Wayfaring ships the way they must not go.

          I was the master of that cliff-girt sea.
          I splashed my hands, the waves went over me,
          And in the dimples of my body lay
          Little rock-pools, where small sea-beasts might play.

          I found a boat, its deck was perforate;
          I launched it, and it dared the storms of fate.
          Its woollen sail stood out against the sky,
          Supported by a mast of ivory.

          Another boat rode proudly to my hand,
          Upon its deck a thousand spears did stand;
          I launched it, and it sped full fierce and fast
          Against the boat that had the ivory mast
          And woollen sail and perforated deck.
          The two went down in one stupendous wreck!

          Beneath the waves I chased with joyous hand
          Upon the bed of an imagined sand
          The slippery brown sea mouse, that still escaped,
          Where the deep cave beneath my knee was shaped.
          Caught it at last and caged it into rest
          Upon the shallows of my submerged breast.

          Then, as I lay, wrapped as in some kind arm
          By the sweet world of waters soft and warm,
          A great voice cried, from some far unseen shore,
          And I was not a giant any more.

          'Come out, come out,' cried out the voice of power,
          'You've been in for a quarter of an hour.
          The water's cold--come, Master Pip--your head
          'S all wet, and it is time you were in bed.'

          I rose all dripping from the magic sea
          And left the ships that had been slaves to me--
          The soap-dish, with its perforated deck,
          The nail-brush, that had rushed to loss and wreck,
          The flannel sail, the tooth-brush that was mast,
          The sleek soap-mouse--I left them all at last.

          I went out of that magic sea and cried
          Because the time came when I must be dried
          And leave the splendour of a giant's joy
          And go to bed--a little well-washed boy.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Never mind grammar.

[2] This is correct grammar, but never mind.

When he had quite remembered the poetry he had another shower-bath, and
then when he had enjoyed the hot rough towels out of the hot cupboard he
went back to his room to dress. He now felt how deeply he wanted his
breakfast, so he dressed himself with all possible speed, even
forgetting to fasten his bootlaces properly. He was in such a hurry that
he dropped his collar-stud, and it was as he stooped to pick it up that
he remembered his dream. Do you know that was really the first time he
had thought of it. The dream--that indeed would be something to think
about.

Breakfast was the really important thing. He went down very hungry
indeed. 'I shall ask for my breakfast directly I get down,' he said. 'I
shall ask the first person I meet.' And he met no one.

There was no one on the stairs, or in the hall, or in the dining-room,
or in the drawing-room. The library and billiard-room were empty of
living people, and the door of the nursery was locked. So then Philip
made his way into the regions beyond the baize door, where the servants'
quarters were. And there was no one in the kitchen, or in the servants'
hall, or in the butler's pantry, or in the scullery, or the washhouse,
or the larder. In all that big house, and it was much bigger than it
looked from the front because of the long wings that ran out on each
side of its back--in all that big house there was no one but Philip. He
felt certain of this before he ran upstairs and looked in all the
bedrooms and in the little picture gallery and the music-room, and then
in the servants' bedrooms and the very attics. There were interesting
things in those attics, but Philip only remembered that afterwards. Now
he tore down the stairs three at a time. All the room doors were open as
he had left them, and somehow those open doors frightened him more than
anything else. He ran along the corridors, down more stairs, past more
open doors and out through the back kitchen, along the moss-grown walk
by the brick wall and so round by the three yew trees and the mounting
block to the stable-yard. And there was no one there. Neither coachman
nor groom nor stable-boys. And there was no one in the stables, or the
coach-house, or the harness-room, or the loft.

Philip felt that he could not go back into the house. Something terrible
must have happened. Was it possible that any one could want the Grange
servants enough to kidnap them? Philip thought of the nurse and felt
that, at least as far as she was concerned, it was _not_ possible. Or
perhaps it was magic! A sort of Sleeping-Beauty happening! Only every
one had vanished instead of just being put to sleep for a hundred years.

He was alone in the middle of the stable-yard when the thought came to
him.

'Perhaps they're only made invisible. Perhaps they're all here and
watching me and making fun of me.'

He stood still to think this. It was not a pleasant thought.

Suddenly he straightened his little back, and threw back his head.

'They shan't see I'm frightened anyway,' he told himself. And then he
remembered the larder.

'I haven't had any breakfast,' he explained aloud, so as to be plainly
heard by any invisible people who might be about. 'I ought to have my
breakfast. If nobody gives it to me I shall take my breakfast.'

He waited for an answer. But none came. It was very quiet in the
stable-yard. Only the rattle of a halter ring against a manger, the
sound of a hoof on stable stones, the cooing of pigeons and the rustle
of straw in the loose-box broke the silence.

'Very well,' said Philip. 'I don't know what _you_ think I ought to have
for breakfast, so I shall take what _I_ think.'

He drew a long breath, trying to draw courage in with it, threw back his
shoulders more soldierly than ever, and marched in through the back door
and straight to the larder. Then he took what he thought he ought to
have for breakfast. This is what he thought:

          1 cherry pie,
          2 custards in cups,
          1 cold sausage,
          2 pieces of cold toast,
          1 piece of cheese,
          2 lemon cheese-cakes,
          1 small jam tart (there was only one left),
          Butter, 1 pat.

'What jolly things the servants have to eat,' he said. 'I never knew. I
thought that nothing but mutton and rice grew here.'

He put all the food on a silver tray and carried it out on to the
terrace, which lies between the two wings at the back of the house. Then
he went back for milk, but there was none to be seen so he got a white
jug full of water. The spoons he couldn't find, but he found a
carving-fork and a fish-slice. Did you ever try to eat cherry pie with a
fish-slice?

'Whatever's happened,' said Philip to himself, through the cherry pie,
'and whatever happens it's as well to have had your breakfast.' And he
bit a generous inch off the cold sausage which he had speared with the
carving-fork.

And now, sitting out in the good sunshine, and growing less and less
hungry as he plied fish-slice and carving-fork, his mind went back to
his dream, which began to seem more and more real. Suppose it really
_had_ happened? It might have; magic things did happen, it seemed. Look
how all the people had vanished out of the house--out of the world too,
perhaps.

'Suppose every one's vanished,' said Philip. 'Suppose I'm the only
person left in the world who hasn't vanished. Then everything in the
world would belong to me. Then I could have everything that's in all the
toy shops.' And his mind for a moment dwelt fondly on this beautiful
idea.

Then he went on. 'But suppose I vanished too? Perhaps if I were to
vanish I could see the other people who have. I wonder how it's done.'

He held his breath and tried hard to vanish. Have you ever tried this?
It is not at all easy to do. Philip could not do it at all. He held his
breath and he tried and he tried, but he only felt fatter and fatter and
more and more as though in one more moment he should burst. So he let
his breath go.

'No,' he said, looking at his hands; 'I'm not any more invisible than I
was before. Not so much I think,' he added thoughtfully, looking at what
was left of the cherry pie. 'But that dream----'

He plunged deep in the remembrance of it that was, to him, like swimming
in the waters of a fairy lake.

He was hooked out of his lake suddenly by voices. It was like waking up.
There, away across the green park beyond the sunk fence, were people
coming.

'So every one hasn't vanished,' he said, caught up the tray and took it
in. He hid it under the pantry shelf. He didn't know who the people were
who were coming and you can't be too careful. Then he went out and made
himself small in the shadow of a red buttress, heard their voices coming
nearer and nearer. They were all talking at once, in that quick
interested way that makes you certain something unusual has happened.

He could not hear exactly what they were saying, but he caught the
words: 'No.'

'Of course I've asked.'

'Police.'

'Telegram.'

'Yes, of course.'

'Better make quite sure.'

Then every one began speaking all at once, and you could not hear
anything that anybody said. Philip was too busy keeping behind the
buttress to see who they were who were talking. He was glad _something_
had happened.

'Now I shall have something to think about besides the nurse and my
beautiful city that she has pulled down.'

But what was it that had happened? He hoped nobody was hurt--or had done
anything wrong. The word police had always made him uncomfortable ever
since he had seen a boy no bigger than himself pulled along the road by
a very large policeman. The boy had stolen a loaf, Philip was told.
Philip could never forget that boy's face; he always thought of it in
church when it said 'prisoners and captives,' and still more when it
said 'desolate and oppressed.'

'I do hope it's not _that_,' he said.

And slowly he got himself to leave the shelter of the red-brick buttress
and to follow to the house those voices and those footsteps that had
gone by him.

He followed the sound of them to the kitchen. The cook was there in
tears and a Windsor arm-chair. The kitchenmaid, her cap all on one side,
was crying down most dirty cheeks. The coachman was there, very red in
the face, and the groom, without his gaiters. The nurse was there, neat
as ever she seemed at first, but Philip was delighted when a more
careful inspection showed him that there was mud on her large shoes and
on the bottom of her skirt, and that her dress had a large
three-cornered tear in it.

'I wouldn't have had it happen for a twenty-pun note,' the coachman was
saying.

'George,' said the nurse to the groom, 'you go and get a horse ready.
I'll write the telegram.'

'You'd best take Peppermint,' said the coachman. 'She's the fastest.'

The groom went out, saying under his breath, 'Teach your grandmother,'
which Philip thought rude and unmeaning.

Philip was standing unnoticed by the door. He felt that thrill--if it
isn't pleasure it is more like it than anything else--which we all feel
when something real has happened.

But what _had_ happened. What?

'I wish I'd never come back,' said the nurse. 'Then nobody could pretend
it was _my_ fault.'

'It don't matter what they pretend,' the cook stopped crying to say.
'The thing is what's happened. Oh, my goodness. I'd rather have been
turned away without a character than have had this happen.'

'And I'd rather _any_thing,' said the nurse. 'Oh, my goodness me. I wish
I'd never been born.'

And then and there, before the astonished eyes of Philip, she began to
behave as any nice person might--she began to cry.

'It wouldn't have happened,' said the cook, 'if the master hadn't been
away. He's a Justice of the Peace, he is, and a terror to gipsies. It
wouldn't never have happened if----'

Philip could not bear it any longer.

'_What_ wouldn't have happened if?' he asked, startling everybody to a
quick jump of surprise.

The nurse stopped crying and turned to look at him.

'Oh, _you_!' she said slowly. 'I forgot _you_. You want your breakfast,
I suppose, no matter what's happened?'

'No, I don't,' said Philip, with extreme truth. 'I want to know what
_has_ happened?'

'Miss Lucy's lost,' said the cook heavily, 'that's what's happened. So
now you know. You run along and play, like a good little boy, and don't
make extry trouble for us in the trouble we're in.'

'Lost?' repeated Philip.

'Yes, lost. I expect you're glad,' said the nurse, 'the way you treated
her. You hold your tongue and don't let me so much as hear you breathe
the next twenty-four hours. I'll go and write that telegram.'

Philip thought it best not to let any one hear him breathe. By this
means he heard the telegram when nurse read it aloud to the cook.

          'Peter Graham, Esq.,
                      Hotel Wagram,
                               Brussels.

          Miss Lucy lost. Please come home immediately.

                                               PHILKINS.

That's all right, isn't it?'

'I don't see why you sign it Philkins. You're only the nurse--I'm the
head of the house when the family's away, and my name's Bobson,' the
cook said.

There was a sound of torn paper.

'There--the paper's tore. I'd just as soon your name went to it,' said
the nurse. 'I don't want to be the one to tell such news.'

'Oh, my good gracious, what a thing to happen,' sighed the cook. 'Poor
little darling!'

Then somebody wrote the telegram again, and the nurse took it out to
the stable-yard, where Peppermint was already saddled.

'I thought,' said Philip, bold in the nurse's absence, 'I thought Lucy
was with her aunt.'

'She came back yesterday,' said the cook. 'Yes, after you'd gone to bed.
And this morning that nurse went into the night nursery and she wasn't
there. Her bed all empty and cold, and her clothes gone. Though how the
gipsies could have got in without waking that nurse is a mystery to me
and ever will be. She must sleep like a pig.'

'Or the seven sleepers,' said the coachman.

'But what would gipsies want her _for_?' Philip asked.

'What do they ever want anybody for?' retorted the cook. 'Look at the
heirs that's been stolen. I don't suppose there's a titled family in
England but what's had its heir stolen, one time and another.'

'I suppose you've looked all over the house,' said Philip.

'I suppose we ain't deaf and dumb and blind and silly,' said the cook.
'Here's that nurse. You be off, Mr. Philip, without you want a flea in
your ear.'

And Philip, at the word, _was_ off. He went into the long drawing-room,
and shut the door. Then he got the ivory chessmen out of the Buhl
cabinet, and set them out on that delightful chess-table whose chequers
are of mother-of-pearl and ivory, and tried to play a game, right hand
against left. But right hand, who was white, and so moved first, always
won. He gave up after awhile, and put the chessmen away in their proper
places. Then he got out the big book of photographs of pictures, but
they did not seem interesting, so he tried the ivory spellicans. But his
hand shook, and you know spellicans is a game you can't play when your
hand shakes. And all the time, behind the chess and the pictures and the
spellicans, he was trying not to think about his dream, about how he had
climbed that ladder stair, which was really the yard-stick, and gone
into the cities that he had built on the tables. Somehow he did not want
to remember it. The very idea of remembering made him feel guilty and
wretched.

He went and looked out of the window, and as he stood there his wish not
to remember the dream made his boots restless, and in their shuffling
his right boot kicked against something hard that lay in the folds of
the blue brocade curtain.

He looked down, stooped, and picked up little Mr. Noah. The nurse must
have dropt it there when she cleared away the city.

And as he looked upon those wooden features it suddenly became
impossible not to think of the dream. He let the remembrance of it come,
and it came in a flood. And with it the remembrance of what he had done.
He had promised to be Lucy's noble friend, and they had run together to
escape from the galloping soldiers. And he had run faster than she. And
at the top of the ladder--the ladder of safety--_he had not waited for
her_.

'Any old hero would have waited for her, and let her go first,' he told
himself. 'Any gentleman would--even any _man_--let alone a hero. And I
just bunked down the ladder and forgot her. I _left_ her there.'

Remorse stirred his boots more ungently than before.

'But it was only a dream,' he said. And then remorse said, as he had
felt all along that it would if he only gave it a chance:

'But suppose it wasn't a dream--suppose it was real. Suppose you _did_
leave her there, my noble friend, and that's why she's lost.'

Suddenly Philip felt very small, very forlorn, very much alone in the
world. But Helen would come back. That telegram would bring her.

Yes. And he would have to tell her that perhaps it was his fault.

It was in vain that Philip told himself that Helen would never believe
about the city. He felt that she would. Why shouldn't she? She knew
about the fairy tales and the Arabian Nights. And she would know that
these things _did_ happen.

'Oh, what shall I do? What shall I do?' he said, quite loud. And there
was no one but himself to give the answer.

'If I could only get back into the city,' he said. 'But that hateful
nurse has pulled it all down and locked up the nursery. So I can't even
build it again. Oh, what _shall_ I do?'

And with that he began to cry. For now he felt quite sure that the dream
wasn't a dream--that he really _had_ got into the magic city, had
promised to stand by Lucy, and had been false to his promise and to her.

He rubbed his eyes with his knuckles and also--rather painfully--with
Mr. Noah, whom he still held. 'What shall I do?' he sobbed.

And a very very teeny tiny voice said:

'~Put me down.~'

'Eh?' said Philip.

'~Put me down~,' said the voice again. It was such a teeny tiny voice
that he could only just hear it. It was unlikely, of course, that the
voice could have been Mr. Noah's; but then whose else could it be? On
the bare chance that it _might_ have been Mr. Noah who spoke--more
unlikely things had happened before, as you know--Philip set the little
wooden figure down on the chess-table. It stood there, wooden as ever.

'Put _who_ down?' Philip asked. And then, before his eyes, the little
wooden figure grew alive, stooped to pick up the yellow disc of wood on
which Noah's Ark people stand, rolled it up like a mat, put it under his
arm and began to walk towards the side of the table where Philip stood.

He knelt down to bring his ears nearer the little live moving thing.

'_What_ did you say?' he asked, for he fancied that Mr. Noah had again
spoken.

'~I said, what's the matter?~' said the little voice.

'It's Lucy. She's lost and it's my fault. And I can only just hear you.
It hurts my ears hearing you,' complained Philip.

'~There's an ear-trumpet in a box on the middle of the cabinet~,' he
could just hear the teeny tiny voice say; '~it belonged to a great-aunt.
Get it out and listen through it~.'

Philip got it out. It was an odd curly thing, and at first he could not
be sure which end he ought to put to his ear. But he tried both ends,
and on the second trial he heard quite a loud, strong, big voice say:

'That's better.'

'Then it wasn't a dream last night,' said Philip.

'Of course it wasn't,' said Mr. Noah.

'Then where is Lucy?'

'In the city, of course. Where you left her.'

'But she _can't_ be,' said Philip desperately. 'The city's all pulled
down and gone for ever.'

'The city you built in this room is pulled down,' said Mr. Noah, 'but
the city you went to wasn't in this room. Now I put it to you--how could
it be?'

'But it _was_,' said Philip, 'or else how could I have got into it.'

'It's a little difficult, I own,' said Mr. Noah. 'But, you see, you
built those cities in two worlds. It's pulled down in _this_ world. But
in the other world it's going on.'

'I don't understand,' said Philip.

'I thought you wouldn't,' said Mr. Noah; 'but it's true, for all that.
Everything people make in that world goes on for ever.'

'But how was it that I got in?'

'Because you belong to both worlds. And you built the cities. So they
were yours.'

'But Lucy got in.'

'She built up a corner of your city that the nurse had knocked down.'

[Illustration: He heard quite a loud, strong, big voice say, 'That's
better.']

'But _you_,' said Philip, more and more bewildered. 'You're here. So you
can't be there.'

'But I _am_ there,' said Mr. Noah.

'But you're here. And you're alive here. What made you come alive?'

'Your tears,' said Mr. Noah. 'Tears are very strong magic. No, don't
begin to cry again. What's the matter?'

'I want to get back into the city.'

'It's dangerous.'

'I don't care.'

'You were glad enough to get away,' said Mr. Noah.

'I know: that's the worst of it,' said Philip. 'Oh, isn't there any way
to get back? If I climbed in at the nursery windows and got the bricks
and built it all up and----'

'Quite unnecessary, I assure you. There are a thousand doors to that
city.'

'I wish I could find _one_,' said Philip; 'but, I say, I thought time
was all different there. How is it Lucy is lost all this time if time
doesn't count?'

'It does count, now,' said Mr. Noah; 'you made it count when you ran
away and left Lucy. That set the clocks of the city to the time of this
world.'

'I don't understand,' said Philip; 'but it doesn't matter. Show me the
door and I'll go back and find Lucy.'

'Build something and go through it,' said Mr. Noah. 'That's all. Your
tears are dry on me now. Good-bye.' And he laid down his yellow mat,
stepped on to it and was just a little wooden figure again.

Philip dropped the ear-trumpet and looked at Mr. Noah.

'I _don't_ understand,' he said. But this at least he understood. That
Helen would come back when she got that telegram, and that before she
came he must go into the other world and find the lost Lucy.

'But oh,' he said, 'suppose I _don't_ find her. I wish I hadn't built
those cities so big! And time will go on. And, perhaps, when Helen comes
back she'll find _me_ lost _too_--as well as Lucy.'

But he dried his eyes and told himself that this was not how heroes
behaved. He must build again. Whichever way you looked at it there was
no time to be lost. And besides the nurse might occur at any moment.

He looked round for building materials. There was the chess-table. It
had long narrow legs set round it, rather like arches. Something might
be done with it, with books and candlesticks and Japanese vases.

Something _was_ done. Philip built with earnest care, but also with
considerable speed. If the nurse should come in before he had made a
door and got through it--come in and find him building again--she was
quite capable of putting him to bed, where, of course, building is
impossible. In a very little time there was a building. But how to get
in. He was, alas, the wrong size. He stood helpless, and once more tears
pricked and swelled behind his eyelids. One tear fell on his hand.

'Tears are a strong magic,' Mr. Noah had said. And at the thought the
tears stopped. Still there _was_ a tear, the one on his hand. He rubbed
it on the pillar of the porch.

And instantly a queer tight thin feeling swept through him. He felt
giddy and shut his eyes. His boots, ever sympathetic, shuffled on the
carpet. Or was it the carpet? It was very thick and---- He opened his
eyes. His feet were once more on the long grass of the illimitable
prairie. And in front of him towered the gigantic porch of a vast
building and a domino path leading up to it.

'Oh, I am so glad,' cried Philip among the grass. 'I couldn't have borne
it if she'd been lost for ever, and all my fault.'

The gigantic porch lowered frowningly above him. What would he find on
the other side of it?

[Illustration: The gigantic porch lowered frowningly above him.]

'I don't care. I've simply got to go,' he said, and stepped out bravely.
'If I can't _be_ a hero I'll try to behave like one.'

And with that he stepped out, stumbling a little in the thick grass, and
the dark shadow of the porch received him.

      .       .       .       .       .       .       .

'Bother the child,' said the nurse, coming into the drawing-room a
little later; 'if he hasn't been at his precious building game again! I
shall have to give him a lesson over this--I can see that. And I will
too--a lesson he won't forget in a hurry.'

She went through the house, looking for the too bold builder that she
might give him that lesson. Then she went through the garden, still on
the same errand.

Half an hour later she burst into the servants' hall and threw herself
into a chair.

'I don't care what happens now,' she said. 'The house is bewitched, I
think. I shall go the very minute I've had my dinner.'

'What's up now?' the cook came to the door to say.

'Up?' said the nurse. 'Oh, nothing's _up_. What should there be?
Everything's all right and beautiful, and just as it should be, of
course.'

'Miss Lucy's not found yet, of course, but that's all, isn't it?'

'All? And enough too, I should have thought,' said the nurse. 'But as it
happens it's _not_ all. The boy's lost now. Oh, I'm not joking. He's
lost I tell you, the same as the other one--and I'm off out of this by
the two thirty-seven train, and I don't care who knows it.'

'Lor!' said the cook.

      .       .       .       .       .       .       .

Before starting for the two thirty-seven train the nurse went back to
the drawing-room to destroy Philip's new building, to restore to their
proper places its books, candlesticks, vases, and chessmen.

There we will leave her.

CHAPTER IV

THE DRAGON-SLAYER

When Philip walked up the domino path and under the vast arch into the
darkness beyond, his heart felt strong with high resolve. His legs,
however, felt weak; strangely weak, especially about the knees. The
doorway was so enormous, that which lay beyond was so dark, and he
himself so very very small. As he passed under the little gateway which
he had built of three dominoes with the little silver knight in armour
on the top, he noticed that he was only as high as a domino, and you
know how very little that is.

Philip went along the domino path. He had to walk carefully, for to him
the spots on the dominoes were quite deep hollows. But as they were
black they were easy to see. He had made three arches, one beyond
another, of two pairs of silver candlesticks with silver inkstands on
the top of them. The third pair of silver candlesticks had a book on
the top of them because there were no more inkstands. And when he had
passed through the three silver arches, he stopped.

Beyond lay a sort of velvety darkness with white gleams in it. And as
his eyes became accustomed to the darkness, he saw that he was in a
great hall of silver pillars, gigantic silver candlesticks they seemed
to be, and they went in long vistas this way and that way and every way,
like the hop-poles in a hop-field, so that whichever way you turned, a
long pillared corridor lay in front of you.

Philip had no idea which way he ought to go. It seemed most unlikely
that he would find Lucy in a dark hall with silver pillars.

'All the same,' he said, 'it's not so dark as it was, by long chalks.'

It was not. The silver pillars had begun to give out a faint soft glow
like the silver phosphorescence that lies in sea pools in summer time.

'It's lucky too,' he said, 'because of the holes in the floor.'

The holes were the spots on the dominoes with which the pillared hall
was paved.

'I wonder what part of the city where Lucy is I shall come out at?'
Philip asked himself. But he need not have troubled. He did not come
out at all. He walked on and on and on and on and on. He thought he was
walking straight, but really he was turning first this way and then
that, and then the other way among the avenues of silver pillars which
all looked just alike.

He was getting very tired, and he had been walking a long time, before
he came to anything that was not silver pillars and velvet black under
invisible roofs, and floor paved with dominoes laid very close together.

'Oh, I am glad!' he said at last, when he saw the pavement narrow to a
single line of dominoes just like the path he had come in by. There was
an arch too, like the arch by which he had come in. And then he
perceived in a shock of miserable surprise that it was, in fact, the
same arch and the same domino path. He had come back, after all that
walking, to the point from which he had started. It was most mortifying.
So silly! Philip sat down on the edge of the domino path to rest and
think.

'Suppose I just walk out and don't believe in magic any more?' he said
to himself. 'Helen says magic can only happen to people who believe in
magic. So if I just walked out and didn't believe as hard as ever I
could, I should be my own right size again, and Lucy would be back, and
there wouldn't _be_ any magic.'

[Illustration: He walked on and on and on.]

'Yes, but,' said that voice that always would come and join in whenever
Philip was talking to himself, 'suppose Lucy _does_ believe it? Then
it'll all go on for her, whatever _you_ believe, and she _won't_ be
back. Besides, you know you've _got_ to believe it, because it's true.'

'Oh, bother!' said Philip; 'I'm tired. I don't want to go on.'

'You shouldn't have deserted Lucy,' said the tiresome voice, 'then you
wouldn't have had to go back to look for her.'

'But I can't find my way. How can I find my way?'

'You know well enough. Fix your eyes on a far-off pillar and walk
straight to it, and when you're nearly there fix your eyes a little
farther. You're bound to come out somewhere.'

'But I'm tired and it's so lonely,' said Philip.

'Lucy's lonely too,' said the voice.

'Drop it!' said Philip. And he got up and began to walk again. Also he
took the advice of that worrying voice and fixed his eyes on a distant
pillar.

'But why should I bother?' he said; 'this is a sort of dream.'

'Even if it _were_ a dream,' said the voice, 'there are adventures in
it. So you may as well be adventurous.'

'Oh, all right,' said Philip, and on he went.

And by walking very carefully and fixing his eyes a long way off, he did
at last come right through the hall of silver pillars, and saw beyond
the faint glow of the pillars the blue light of day. It shone very
brightly through a very little door, and when Philip came to that door
he went through it without hesitation. And there he was in a big field.
It was rather like the illimitable prairie, only there were great
patches of different-coloured flowers. Also there was a path across it,
and he followed the path.

'Because,' he said, 'I'm more likely to meet Lucy. Girls always keep to
paths. They never explore.'

Which just shows how little he knew about girls.

He looked back after a while, to see what the hall of pillars looked
like from outside, but it was already dim in the mists of distance.

But ahead of him he saw a great rough building, rather like Stonehenge.

'I wish I'd come into the other city where the people are, and the
soldiers, and the greyhounds, and the cocoa-nuts,' he told himself.
'There's nobody here at all, not even Lucy.'

The loneliness of the place grew more and more unpleasing to Philip.
But he went on. It seemed more reasonable than to go back.

'I ought to be very hungry,' he said; 'I must have been walking for
hours.' But he wasn't hungry. It may have been the magic, or it may have
been the odd breakfast he had had. I don't know. He spoke aloud because
it was so quiet in that strange open country with no one in it but
himself. And no sound but the clump, clump of his boots on the path. And
it seemed to him that everything grew quieter and quieter till he could
almost hear himself think. Loneliness, real loneliness is a dreadful
thing. I hope you will never feel it. Philip looked to right and left,
and before him, and on all the wide plain nothing moved. There were the
grass and flowers, but no wind stirred them. And there was no sign that
any living person had ever trodden that path--except that there _was_ a
path to tread, and that the path led to the Stonehenge building, and
even that seemed to be only a ruin.

'I'll go as far as that anyhow,' said Philip; 'perhaps there'll be a
signboard there or something.'

There was something. Something most unexpected. Philip reached the
building; it was really very like Stonehenge, only the pillars were
taller and closer together and there was one high solid towering wall;
turned the corner of a massive upright and ran almost into the arms, and
quite on to the feet of a man in a white apron and a square paper cap,
who sat on a fallen column, eating bread and cheese with a clasp-knife.

'I beg your pardon!' Philip gasped.

'Granted, I'm sure,' said the man; 'but it's a dangerous thing to do,
Master Philip, running sheer on to chaps' clasp-knives.'

He set Philip on his feet, and waved the knife, which had been so often
sharpened that the blade was half worn away.

'Set you down and get your breath,' he said kindly.

'Why, it's _you_!' said Philip.

'Course it is. Who should I be if I wasn't me? That's poetry.'

'But how did you get here?'

'Ah!' said the man going on with his bread and cheese, while he talked
quite in the friendliest way, 'that's telling.'

'Well, tell then,' said Philip impatiently. But he sat down.

'Well, you say it's me. Who be it? Give it a name.'

'You're old Perrin,' said Pip; 'I mean, of course, I beg your pardon,
you're Mr. Perrin, the carpenter.'

'And what does carpenters do?'

'Carp, I suppose,' said Philip. 'That means they make things, doesn't
it?'

'That's it,' said the man encouragingly; 'what sort of things now might
old Perrin have made for you?'

'You made my wheelbarrow, I know,' said Philip, 'and my bricks.'

'Ah!' said Mr. Perrin, 'now you've got it. I made your bricks, seasoned
oak, and true to the thousandth of an inch, they was. And that's how I
got here. So now you know.'

'But what are you doing here?' said Philip, wriggling restlessly on the
fallen column.

'Waiting for you. Them as knows sent me out to meet you, and give you a
hint of what's expected of you.'

'Well. What _is_?' said Philip. 'I mean I think it's very kind of you.
What _is_ expected?'

'Plenty of time,' said the carpenter, 'plenty. Nothing ain't expected of
you till towards sundown.'

'I do think it was most awfully kind of you,' said Philip, who had now
thought this over.

'You was kind to old Perrin once,' said that person.

'Was I?' said Philip, much surprised.

'Yes; when my little girl was ailing you brought her a lot of pears off
your own tree. Not one of 'em you didn't 'ave yourself that year, Miss
Helen told me. And you brought back our kitten--the sandy and white one
with black spots--when it strayed. So I was quite willing to come and
meet you when so told. And knowing something of young gentlemen's
peckers, owing to being in business once next door to a boys' school, I
made so bold as to bring you a snack.'

He reached a hand down behind the fallen pillar on which they sat and
brought up a basket.

'Here,' he said. And Philip, raising the lid, was delighted to find that
he was hungry. It was a pleasant basketful. Meat pasties, red hairy
gooseberries, a stone bottle of ginger-beer, a blue mug with Philip on
it in gold letters, a slice of soda cake and two farthing sugar-sticks.

'I'm sure I've seen that basket before,' said the boy as he ate.

'Like enough. It's the one you brought them pears down in.'

'Now look here,' said Philip, through his seventh bite of pasty, 'you
_must_ tell me how you got here. And tell me where you've got to. You've
simply no idea how muddling it all is to me. Do tell me _everything_.
Where are we, I mean, and why? And what I've got to do. And why? And
when? Tell me every single thing.' And he took the eighth bite.

'You really don't know, sir?'

'No,' said Philip, contemplating the ninth or last bite but one. It was
a large pasty.

'Well then. Here goes. But I was always a poor speaker, and so
considered even by friends at cricket dinners and what not.'

'But I don't want you to speak,' said Philip; 'just tell me.'

'Well, then. How did I get here? I got here through having made them
bricks what you built this tumble-down old ancient place with.'

'_I_ built?'

'Yes, with them bricks I made you. I understand as this was the first
building you ever put up. That's why it's first on the road to where you
want to get to!'

Philip looked round at the Stonehenge building and saw that it was
indeed built of enormous oak bricks.

'Of course,' he said, 'only I've grown smaller.'

'Or they've grown bigger,' said Mr. Perrin; 'it's the same thing. You
see it's like this. All the cities and things you ever built is in this
country. I don't know how it's managed, no more'n what you do. But so it
is. And as you made 'em, you've the right to come to them--if you can
get there. And you have got there. It isn't every one has the luck, I'm
told. Well, then, you made the cities, but you made 'em out of what
other folks had made, things like bricks and chessmen and books and
candlesticks and dominoes and brass basins and every sort of kind of
thing. An' all the people who helped to make all them things you used to
build with, they're all here too. D'you see? _Making's_ the thing. If it
was no more than the lad that turned the handle of the grindstone to
sharp the knife that carved a bit of a cabinet or what not, or a child
that picked a teazle to finish a bit of the cloth that's glued on to the
bottom of a chessman--they're all here. They're what's called the
population of your cities.'

'I see. They've got small, like I have,' said Philip.

'Or the cities has got big,' said the carpenter; 'it comes to the same
thing. I wish you wouldn't interrupt, Master Philip. You put me out.'

'I won't again,' said Philip. 'Only do tell me just one thing. How can
you be here and at Amblehurst too?'

'We come here,' said the carpenter slowly, 'when we're asleep.'

'Oh!' said Philip, deeply disappointed; 'it's just a dream then?'

'Not it. We come here when we're too sound asleep to dream. You go
through the dreams and come out on the other side where everything's
real. That's _here_.'

'Go on,' said Philip.

'I dunno where I was. You do put me out so.'

'Pop you something or other,' said Philip.

'Population. Yes. Well, all those people as made the things you made the
cities of, they live in the cities and they've made the insides to the
houses.'

'What do they do?'

'Oh, they just live here. And they buy and sell and plant gardens and
work and play like everybody does in other cities. And when they go to
sleep they go slap through their dreams and into the other world, and
work and play there, see? That's how it goes on. There's a lot more, but
that's enough for one time. You get on with your gooseberries.'

'But they aren't all real people, are they? There's Mr. Noah?'

'Ah, those is aristocracy, the ones you put in when you built the
cities. They're our old families. Very much respected. They're all very
high up in the world. Came over with the Conker, as the saying is.
There's the Noah family. They're the oldest of all, of course. And the
dolls you've put in different times and the tin soldiers, and of course
all the Noah's ark animals is alive except when you used them for
building, and then they're statues.'

'But I don't see,' said Philip, 'I really don't see how all these cities
that I built at different times can still be here, all together and all
going on at once, when I know they've all been pulled down.'

'Well, I'm no scholard. But I did hear Mr. Noah say once in a
lecture--_he's_ a speaker, if you like--I heard him say it was like when
you take a person's photo. The person is so many inches thick through
and so many feet high and he's round and he's solid. But in the photo
he's _flat_. Because everything's flat in photos. But all the same it's
him right enough. You get him into the photo. Then all you've got to do
is to get 'im out again into where everything's thick and tall and round
and solid. And it's quite easy, I believe, once you know the trick.'

'Stop,' said Philip suddenly. 'I think my head's going to burst.'

'Ah!' said the carpenter kindly. 'I felt like that at first. Lie down
and try to sleep it off a bit. Eddication does go to your head something
crool. I've often noticed it.'

And indeed Philip was quite glad to lie down among the long grass and be
covered up with the carpenter's coat. He fell asleep at once.

An hour later he woke again, looked at the wrinkled-apple face of Mr.
Perrin and began to remember.

'I'm glad _you're_ here anyhow,' he said to the carpenter; 'it was
horribly lonely. You don't know.'

'That's why I was sent to meet you,' said Mr. Perrin simply.

'But how did you know?'

'Mr. Noah sent for me early this morning. Bless you, he knows all about
everything. Says he, "You go and meet 'im and tell 'im all you can. If
he wants to be a Deliverer, let 'im," says Mr. Noah.'

'But how do you begin being a Deliverer?' Philip asked, sitting up and
feeling suddenly very grand and manly, and very glad that Lucy was not
there to interfere.

'There's lots of different ways,' said Mr. Perrin. 'Your particular
way's simple. You just got to kill the dragon.'

'A _live_ dragon?'

'Live!' said Mr. Perrin. 'Why he's all over the place and as green as
grass he is. Lively as a kitten. He's got a broken spear sticking out of
his side, so some one must have had a try at baggin' him, some time or
another.'

'Don't you think,' said Philip, a little overcome by this vivid picture,
'that perhaps I'd better look for Lucy first, and be a Deliverer
afterwards?'

'If you're _afraid_,' said Mr. Perrin.

'I'm not,' said Philip doubtfully.

'You see,' said the carpenter, 'what you've got to consider is: are you
going to be the hero of this 'ere adventure or ain't you? You can't 'ave
it both ways. An' if you are, you may's well make up your mind, cause
killing a dragon ain't the end of it, not by no means.'

'Do you mean there are more dragons?'

'Not dragons,' said the carpenter soothingly; 'not dragons exactly. But
there. I don't want to lower your heart. If you kills the dragon, then
afterwards there's six more hard things you've got to do. And then they
make you king. Take it or leave it. Only, if you take it we'd best be
starting. And anyhow we may as well get a move on us, because at sundown
the dragon comes out to drink and exercise of himself. You can hear him
rattling all night among these 'ere ruins; miles off you can 'ear 'im
of a still night.'

'Suppose I don't want to be a Deliverer,' said Philip slowly.

'Then you'll be a Destroyer,' said the carpenter; 'there's only these
two situations vacant here at present. Come, Master Philip, sir, don't
talk as if you wasn't going to be a man and do your duty for England,
Home and Beauty, like it says in the song. Let's be starting, shall us?'

'You think I ought to be the Deliverer?'

'Ought stands for nothing,' said Mr. Perrin. 'I think you're a going to
_be_ the Deliverer; that's what I think. Come on!'

As they rose to go, Philip had a brief fleeting vision of a very smart
lady in a motor veil, disappearing round the corner of a pillar.

'Are there many motors about here?' he asked, not wishing to talk any
more about dragons just then.

'Not a single one,' said Mr. Perrin unexpectedly. 'Nor yet phonographs,
nor railways, nor factory chimneys, nor none of them loud ugly things.
Nor yet advertisements, nor newspapers, nor barbed wire.'

After that the two walked silently away from the ruin. Philip was trying
to feel as brave and confident as a Deliverer should. He reminded
himself of St. George. And he remembered that the hero _never_ fails to
kill the dragon. But he still felt a little uneasy. It takes some time
to accustom yourself to being a hero. But he could not help looking over
his shoulder every now and then to see if the dragon was coming. So far
it wasn't.

'Well,' said Mr. Perrin as they drew near a square tower with a long
flight of steps leading up to it, 'what do you say?'

'I wasn't saying anything,' said Philip.

'I mean are you going to be the Deliverer?'

Then something in Philip's heart seemed to swell, and a choking feeling
came into his throat, and he felt more frightened than he had ever felt
before, as he said, looking as brave as he could:

'Yes. I am.'

Perrin clapped his hands.

And instantly from the doors of the tower and from behind it came dozens
of people, and down the long steps, alone, came Mr. Noah, moving with
careful dignity and carrying his yellow mat neatly rolled under his arm.
All the people clapped their hands, till Mr. Noah, standing on the third
step, raised his hands to command silence.

'Friends,' he said, 'and fellow-citizens of Polistopolis, you see before
you one who says that he is the Deliverer. He was yesterday arrested
and tried as a trespasser, and condemned to imprisonment. He escaped and
you all assumed that he was the Destroyer in disguise. But now he has
returned and of his own free will he chooses to attempt the
accomplishment of the seven great deeds. And the first of these is the
killing of the great green dragon.'

The people, who were a mixed crowd of all nations, cheered loudly.

'So now,' said Mr. Noah, 'we will make him our knight.'

'Kneel,' said Mr. Noah, 'in token of fealty to the Kingdom of Cities.'

Philip knelt.

'You shall now speak after me,' said Mr. Noah solemnly. 'Say what I
say,' he whispered, and Philip said it.

This was it. 'I, Philip, claim to be the Deliverer of this great nation,
and I pledge myself to carry out the seven great deeds that shall prove
my claim to the Deliverership and the throne. I pledge my honour to be
the champion of this city, and the enemy of its Destroyer.'

When Philip had said this, Mr. Noah drew forth a bright silver-hilted
sword and held it over him.

'You must be knighted,' he said; 'those among my audience who have read
any history will be aware that no mere commoner can expect to conquer a
dragon. We must give our would-be Deliverer every chance. So I will make
him a knight.' He tapped Philip lightly on the shoulder and said, 'Rise
up, Sir Philip!'

This was really grand, and Philip felt new courage as Mr. Noah handed
him the silver sword, and all the people cheered.

But as the cheers died down, a thin and disagreeable voice suddenly
said:

'But _I_ claim to be the Deliverer too.'

It was like a thunderbolt. Every one stopped cheering and stood with
mouth open and head turned towards the person who had spoken. And the
person who had spoken was the smartly dressed lady in the motor veil,
whom Philip had seen among the ruins.

'A trespasser! a trespasser!' cried the crowd; 'to prison with it!' and
angry, threatening voices began to arise.

'I'm no more a trespasser than he is,' said the voice, 'and if I say I
am the Deliverer, you can't stop me. I can kill dragons or do anything
_he_ can do.'

'Silence, trespasser,' said Mr. Noah, with cold dignity. 'You should
have spoken earlier. At present Sir Philip occupies the position of
candidate to the post of King-Deliverer. There is no other position open
to you except that of Destroyer.'

[Illustration: 'Silence, trespasser,' said Mr. Noah, with cold dignity.]

'But suppose the boy doesn't do it?' said the voice behind the veil.

'True,' said Mr. Noah. 'You may if you choose, occupy for the present
the position of Pretender-in-Chief to the Claimancy of the
Deliverership, an office now and here created expressly for you. The
position of Claimant to the Destroyership is also,' he added
reflectively, 'open to you.'

'Then if he doesn't do it,' said the veiled lady, 'I can be the
Deliverer.'

'You can try,' said Mr. Noah. 'There are a special set of tasks to be
performed if the claimant to the Deliverership be a woman.'

'What are they?' said the veiled lady.

'If Sir Philip fails you will be duly instructed in the deeds required
of a Deliverer who is a woman. And now, my friends, let us retire and
leave Sir Philip to deal with the dragon. We shall watch anxiously from
yonder ramparts,' he added encouragingly.

'But isn't any one to help me?' said Philip, deeply uneasy.

'It is not usual,' said Mr. Noah, 'for champions to require assistance
with dragons.'

'I should think not indeed,' said the veiled lady; 'but you're not going
the usual way about it at all. Where's the princess, I should like to
know?'

'There isn't any princess,' said Mr. Noah.

'Then it won't be a proper dragon-killing,' she said, with an angry
shaking of skirts; 'that's all I can say.'

'I wish it _was_ all,' said Mr. Noah to himself.

'If there isn't a princess it isn't fair,' said the veiled one; 'and I
shall consider it's my turn to be Deliverer.'

'Be silent, woman,' said Mr. Noah.

'Woman, indeed,' said the lady. 'I ought to have a proper title.'

'Your title is the Pretender to the----'

'I know,' she interrupted; 'but you forget you're speaking to a lady.
You can call me the Pretenderette.'

Mr. Noah turned coldly from her and pressed two Roman candles and a box
of matches into Philip's hand.

'When you have arranged your plans and are quite sure that you will be
able to kill the dragon, light one of these. We will then have a
princess in readiness, and on observing your signal will tie her to a
tree, or, since this is a district where trees are rare and buildings
frequent, to a pillar. She will be perfectly safe if you make your plans
correctly. And in any case you must not attempt to deal with the dragon
without first lighting the Roman candle.'

'And the dragon will see it and go away.'

'Exactly,' said Mr. Noah. 'Or perhaps he will see it and not go away.
Time alone will show. The task that is without difficulties can never
really appeal to a hero. You will find weapons, cords, nets, shields and
various first aids to the young dragon-catcher in the vaults below this
tower. Good evening, Sir Philip,' he ended warmly. 'We wish you every
success.'

And with that the whole crowd began to go away.

'_I_ know who you ought to have for princess,' the Pretenderette said as
they went. And Mr. Noah said:

'Silence in court.'

'This isn't a court,' said the Pretenderette aggravatingly.

'Wherever justice is, is a court,' said Mr. Noah, 'and I accuse you of
contempt of it. Guards, arrest this person and take her to prison at
once.'

There was a scuffling and a shrieking and then the voices withdrew
gradually, the angry voice of even the Pretenderette growing fainter
and fainter till it died away altogether.

Philip was left alone.

His first act was to go up to the top of the tower and look out to see
if he could see the dragon. He looked east and north and south and west,
and he saw the ramparts of the fort where Mr. Noah and the others were
now safely bestowed. He saw also other towers and cities in the
distance, and he saw the ruins where he had met Mr. Perrin.

And among those ruins something was moving. Something long and jointed
and green. It could be nothing but the dragon.

'Oh, Crikey!' said Philip to himself; 'whatever shall I do? Perhaps I'd
better see what weapons there are.'

So he ran down the stairs and down and down till he came to the vaults
of the castle, and there he found everything a dragon-killer could
possibly need, even to a little red book called the _Young
Dragon-Catcher's Vade Mecum, or a Complete Guide to the Good Sport of
Dragon-Slaying_; and a pair of excellent field-glasses.

The top of the tower seemed the safest place. It was there that he tried
to read the book. The words were very long and most difficultly spelt.
But he did manage to make out that all dragons sleep for one hour after
sunset. Then he heard a loud rattling sound from the ruin, and he knew
it was the dragon who was making that sound, so he looked through the
field-glasses, frowning with anxiety to see what the dragon was doing.

And as he looked he started and almost dropped the glasses, and the
frown cleared away from his forehead and he gave a sigh that was almost
a sob and almost a laugh, and then he said

'That old thing!'

Then he looked again, and this is what he saw. An enormous green dragon,
very long and fierce-looking, that rattled as it moved, going in and out
among the ruins, rubbing itself against the fallen pillars. And the
reason Philip laughed and sighed was that he knew that dragon very well
indeed. He had known it long ago. It was the clockwork lizard that had
been given him the Christmas before last. And he remembered that he had
put it into one of the cities he and Helen had built together. Only now,
of course, it had grown big and had come alive like all the other images
of live things he had put in his cities. But he saw that it was still a
clockwork creature. And its key was sticking out of its side. And it was
rubbing itself against the pillars so as to turn the key and wind itself
up. But this was a slow business and the winding was not half done when
the sun set. The dragon instantly lay down and went to sleep.

'Well,' said Philip, 'now I've got to think.'

He did think, harder than he had ever done before. And when he had
finished thinking he went down into the vault and got a long rope. Then
he stood still a moment, wondering if he really were brave enough. And
then he remembered 'Rise up, Sir Philip,' and he knew that a knight
simply _mustn't_ be afraid.

So he went out in the dusk towards the dragon.

He knew it would sleep for an hour. But all the same---- And the
twilight was growing deeper and deeper. Still there was plenty of light
to find the ruin, and also to find the dragon. There it lay--about ten
or twelve yards of solid dark dragon-flesh. Its metal claws gleamed in
the last of the daylight. Its great mouth was open, and its breathing,
as it slept, was like the sound of the sea on a rough night.

'Rise up, Sir Philip,' he said to himself, and walked along close to the
dragon till he came to the middle part where the key was sticking
out--which Mr. Perrin had thought was a piece of an old spear with which
some one had once tried to kill the monster.

Philip fastened one end of his rope very securely to the key--how
thankful he was that Helen had taught him to tie knots that were not
granny-knots. The dragon lay quite still, and went on breathing like a
stormy sea. Then the dragon-slayer fastened the other end of the rope to
the main wall of the ruin which was very strong and firm, and then he
went back to his tower as fast as he could and struck a match and
lighted his Roman candle.

You see the idea? It was really rather a clever one. When the dragon
woke it would find that it was held prisoner by the ropes. It would be
furious and try to get free. And in its struggles it would be certain to
get free, but this it could only do by detaching itself from its key.
When once the key was out the dragon would be unable to wind itself up
any more, and would be as good as dead. Of course Sir Philip could cut
off its head with the silver-hilted sword if Mr. Noah really wished it.

It was, as you see, an excellent plan, as far as it went. Philip sat on
the top of his tower quite free from anxiety, and ate a few hairy red
gooseberries that happened to be loose in his pocket. Within three
minutes of his lighting his Roman candle a shower of golden rain went up
in the south, some immense Catherine-wheels appeared in the east, and in
the north a long line of rockets presented almost the appearance of an
aurora borealis. Red fire, green fire, then rockets again. The whole of
the plain was lit by more fireworks than Philip had ever seen, even at
the Crystal Palace. By their light he saw a procession come out of the
fort, cross to a pillar that stood solitary on the plain, and tie to it
a white figure.

'The Princess, I suppose,' said Philip; 'well, _she's_ all right
anyway.'

Then the procession went back to the fort, and then the dragon awoke.
Philip could see the great creature stretching itself and shaking its
vast head as a dog does when it comes out of the water.

'I expect it doesn't like the fireworks,' said Philip. And he was quite
right.

And now the dragon saw the Princess who had been placed at a convenient
spot about half-way between the ruins and Philip's tower.

It threw up its snout and uttered a devastating howl, and Philip felt
with a thrill of horror that, clockwork or no clockwork, the brute was
alive, and desperately dangerous.

And now it had perceived that it was bound. With great heavings and
throes, with snortings and bellowings, with scratchings and tearings of
its great claws and lashings of its terrible tail, it writhed and
fought to be free, and the light of thousands of fireworks illuminated
the gigantic struggle.

Then what Philip had known would happen, did happen. The great wall held
fast, the rope held fast, the dragon held fast. It was the key that gave
way. With an echoing grinding rusty sound like a goods train shunting on
a siding, the key was drawn from the keyhole in the dragon's side and
left still fast to its rope like an anchor to a cable.

_Left._ For now that happened which Philip had not foreseen. He had
forgotten that before it fell asleep the dragon had partly wound itself
up. And its struggles had not used up all the winding. There was go in