The Magic City, E. Nesbit [top young adult novels TXT] 📗
- Author: E. Nesbit
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'Quick,' said the parrot, 'get the ship exactly under the hole, and next time the bucket comes down you can go up in it.'
'This is out of the Arabian Nights, I think,' said Lucy, when the yacht was directly under the hole in the roof. 'But who is it that keeps on opening the books? Somebody must be pulling Polistopolis down.'
'The Pretenderette, I shouldn't wonder,' said Philip gloomily. 'She isn't the Deliverer, so she must be the Destroyer. Nobody else can get into Polistarchia, you know.'[279]
'There's me.'
'Oh, you're Deliverer too.'
'Thank you,' said Lucy gratefully. 'But there's Helen.'
'She was only on the Island, you know; she couldn't come to Polistarchia. Look out!'
The bucket was descending again, and instead of splashing in the water it bumped on the deck.
'You go first,' said Philip to Lucy.
'And you,' said Max to Brenda.
'Oh, I'll go first if you like,' said Philip.
'Yes,' said Max, 'I'll go first if you like, Brenda.'
You see Philip felt that he ought to give Lucy the first chance of escaping from the poor Lightning Loose. Yet he could not be at all sure what it was that she would be escaping to. And if there was danger overhead, of course he ought to be the one to go first to face it. And the worthy Max felt the same about Brenda.
And Lucy felt just the same as they did. I don't know what Brenda felt. She whined a little. Then for one moment Lucy and Philip stood on the deck each grasping the handle of the bucket and looking at each other, and the dogs looked at them, and the parrot looked at every one in turn. An impatient jerk and[280] shake of the rope from above reminded them that there was no time to lose.
Lucy decided that it was more dangerous to go than to stay, just at the same moment when Philip decided that it was more dangerous to stay than to go, so when Lucy stepped into the bucket Philip helped her eagerly. Max thought the same as Philip, and I am afraid Brenda agreed with them. At any rate she leaped into Lucy's lap and curled her long length round just as the rope tightened and the bucket began to go up. Brenda screamed faintly, but her scream was stifled at once.
'I'll send the bucket down again the moment I get up,' Lucy called out; and a moment later, 'it feels awfully jolly, like a swing.'
And so saying she was drawn up into the hole in the roof of the dome. Then a sound of voices came down the shaft, a confused sound; the anxious little party on the Lightning Loose could not make out any distinct words. They all stood staring up, expecting, waiting for the bucket to come down again.
'I hate leaving the ship,' said Philip.
'You shall be the last to leave her,' said the parrot consolingly; 'that is if we can manage about Max without your having to sit on him in the bucket if he gets in first.'
'But how about you?' said Philip.[281]
The bucket began to go up.
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[283]
A little arrogantly the parrot unfolded half a bright wing.
'Oh!' said Philip enlightened and reminded. 'Of course! And you might have flown away at any time. And yet you stuck to us. I say, you know, that was jolly decent of you.'
'Not at all,' said the parrot with conscious modesty.
'But it was,' Philip insisted. 'You might have—— hullo!' cried Philip. The bucket came down again with a horrible rush. They held their breaths and looked to see the form of Lucy hurtling through the air. But no, the bucket swung loose a moment in mid-air, then it was hastily drawn up, and a hollow metallic clang echoed through the cavern.
'Brenda!' the cry was wrung from the heart of the sober self-contained Max.
'My wings and claws!' exclaimed the parrot.
'Oh, bother!' said Philip.
There was some excuse for these expressions of emotion. The white disk overhead had suddenly disappeared. Some one up above had banged the lid down. And all the manly hearts were below in the cave, and brave Lucy and helpless Brenda were above in a strange place, whose dangers those below could only imagine.[284]
'I wish I'd gone,' said Philip. 'Oh, I wish I'd gone.'
'Yes, indeed,' said Max, with a deep sigh.
'I feel a little faint,' said the parrot; 'if some one would make a cup of cocoa.'
Thus did the excellent bird seek to occupy their minds in that first moment of disaster. And it was well that the captain and crew were thus saved from despair. For before the kettle boiled, the lid of the shaft opened about a foot and something largeish, roundish and lumpish fell heavily and bounced upon the deck of the Lightning Loose.
It was a pine-apple, fresh, ripe and juicy. On its side was carved in large letters of uncertain shape the one word 'WAIT.'
It was good advice and they took it. Really I do not see what else they could have done in any case. And they ate the pine-apple. And presently every one felt extremely sleepy.
'Waiting is one of those things that you can do as well asleep as awake, or even better,' said the parrot. 'Forty winks will do us all the good in the world.' He put his head under his wing where he sat on the binnacle.
'May I turn in alongside you, sir?' Max asked. 'I shan't feel the dreadful loneliness so much then.'
So Philip and Max curled up together on[285] the deck, warmly covered with the spare flags of all nations, and the forty winks lasted for the space of a good night's rest—about ten hours, in fact. So ten hours' waiting was got through quite easily. But there was more waiting to do after they woke up, and that was not so easy.
When Lucy, sitting in the bucket with Brenda in her lap, felt the bucket lifted from the deck and swung loose in the air, it was as much as she could do to refrain from screaming. Brenda did scream, as you know, but Lucy stifled the sound in the folds of her frock.
Lucy bit her lips, made a great effort and called out that remark about the bucket-swing, just as though she were quite comfortable. It was very brave of her and helped her to go on being brave.
The bucket drew slowly up and up and up and passed from the silver dome into the dark shaft above. Lucy looked up. Yes, it was daylight that showed at the top of the shaft, and the rope was drawing her up towards it. Suppose the rope broke? Brenda was quite quiet now. She said afterwards that she must have fainted. And now the light was nearer and nearer. Now Lucy was in it, for the bucket had been drawn right up, and hands were reached out to draw it over the side of what[286] seemed like a well. At that moment Lucy saw in a flash what might happen if the owners of the hands, in their surprise, let go the bucket and the windlass. She caught Brenda in her hands and threw the dog out on to the dry ground, and threw herself across the well parapet. Just in time, for a shout of surprise went up and the bucket went down, clanging against the well sides. The hands had let go.
Lucy clambered over the well side slowly, and when her feet stood on firm ground she saw that the hands were winding up the bucket again, and that it came very easily.
'Oh, don't!' she said. 'Let it go right down! There are some more people down there.'
'Sorry, but it's against the rules. The bucket only goes down this well forty times a day. And that was the fortieth time.'
They pulled the bucket in and banged down the lid of the well. Some one padlocked it and put the key in his pocket. And Lucy and he stood facing each other. He was a little round-headed man in a curious stiff red tunic, and there was something about the general shape of him and his tunic which reminded Lucy of something, only she could not remember what. Behind him stood two others, also red-tunicked and round-headed.[287]
Lucy threw herself across the well parapet.
Brenda crouched at Lucy's feet and whined[289] softly, and Lucy waited for the strangers to speak.
'You shouldn't do that,' said the red-tunicked man at last, 'it was a great shock to us, your bobbing up as you did. It will keep us awake at night, just remembering it.'
'I'm sorry,' said Lucy.
'You should always come into strange towns by the front gate,' said the man; 'try to remember that, will you? Good-night.'
'But you're not going off like this,' said Lucy. 'Let me write a note and drop it down to the others. Have you a bit of pencil, and paper?'
'No,' said the strange people, staring at her.
'Haven't you anything I can write on?' Lucy asked them.
'There's nothing here but pine-apples,' said one of them at last.
So she cut a pine-apple from among the hundreds that grew among the rocks near by, and carved 'WAIT' on it with her penknife.
'Now,' she said, 'open that well lid.'
'It's as much as our lives are worth,' said the leader.
'No it isn't,' said Lucy; 'there's no law against dropping pine-apples into the well. You know there isn't. It isn't like drawing water. And if you don't I shall set my little dog at you. She is very fierce.'[290]
Brenda was so flattered that she showed her teeth and growled.
'Oh, very well,' said the stranger; 'anything to avoid fuss.'
When the well lid was padlocked down again, Lucy said:
'What country is this?' though she was almost sure, because of the pine-apples, that it was Somnolentia. And when they had said that word she said:
'Now I'll tell you something. The Deliverer is coming up that well next time you draw water. He is coming to deliver you from the bondage of the Great Sloth.'
'It is true,' said the red round-headed leader, 'that we are in bondage. And the Great Sloth wearies us with the singing of choric songs when we long to be asleep. But none can deliver us. There is no hope. There is nothing good but sleep. And of that we have never enough.'
'Oh, dear,' said Lucy despairingly, 'aren't there any women here? They always have more sense than men.'
'What you say is rude as well as untrue,' said the red leader; 'but to avoid fuss we will lead you and your fierce dog to the huts of the women. And then perhaps you will allow us to go to sleep.'
The huts were poor and mean, little fenced-[291]in corners in the ruins of what had once been a great and beautiful city, with gardens and streams; but now the streams were dry and nothing grew in the gardens but weeds and pine-apples.
But the women—who all wore green tunics of the same stiff shape as the men's—were not quite so sleepy as their husbands. They brought Lucy fresh pine-apples to eat, and were dreamily interested in the cut of her clothes and the begging accomplishments of Brenda. And from the women she learned several things about the Somnolentians. They all wore the same shaped tunics, only the colours differed. The women's were green, the drawers of water wore red, the attendants of the Great Sloth wore black, and the pine-apple gatherers wore yellow.
And as Lucy sat at the door of the hut and watched the people in these four colours going lazily about among the ruins she suddenly knew what they were, and she exclaimed:
'I know what you are; you're Halma
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