The Phoenix and the Carpet, E. Nesbit [best summer reads .TXT] 📗

‘Then why—?’ asked the children, altogether.

‘I did tell you, you know,’ said the Phoenix, ‘only you are so fond of listening to the music of your own voices. It is, indeed, the most lovely music to each of us, and therefore—’

‘You did tell us WHAT?’ interrupted an Exasperated.

‘Why, that the carpet only gives you three wishes a day and YOU’VE HAD THEM.’

There was a heartfelt silence.

‘Then how are we going to get home?’ said Cyril, at last.

‘I haven’t any idea,’ replied the Phoenix, kindly. ‘Can I fly out and get you any little thing?’

‘How could you carry the money to pay for it?’

‘It isn’t necessary. Birds always take what they want. It is not regarded as stealing, except in the case of magpies.’

The children were glad to find they had been right in supposing this to be the case, on the day when they had wings, and had enjoyed somebody else’s ripe plums.

‘Yes; let the Phoenix get us something to eat, anyway,’ Robert urged—’ (‘If it will be so kind you mean,’ corrected Anthea, in a whisper); ‘if it will be so kind, and we can be thinking while it’s gone.’

So the Phoenix fluttered up through the grey space of the tower and vanished at the top, and it was not till it had quite gone that Jane said—

‘Suppose it never comes back.’

It was not a pleasant thought, and though Anthea at once said, ‘Of course it will come back; I’m certain it’s a bird of its word,’ a further gloom was cast by the idea. For, curiously enough, there was no door to the tower, and all the windows were far, far too high to be reached by the most adventurous climber. It was cold, too, and Anthea shivered.

‘Yes,’ said Cyril, ‘it’s like being at the bottom of a well.’

The children waited in a sad and hungry silence, and got little stiff necks with holding their little heads back to look up the inside of the tall grey tower, to see if the Phoenix were coming.

At last it came. It looked very big as it fluttered down between the walls, and as it neared them the children saw that its bigness was caused by a basket of boiled chestnuts which it carried in one claw. In the other it held a piece of bread. And in its beak was a very large pear. The pear was juicy, and as good as a very small drink. When the meal was over every one felt better, and the question of how to get home was discussed without any disagreeableness. But no one could think of any way out of the difficulty, or even out of the tower; for the Phoenix, though its beak and claws had fortunately been strong enough to carry food for them, was plainly not equal to flying through the air with four well-nourished children.

‘We must stay here, I suppose,’ said Robert at last, ‘and shout out every now and then, and some one will hear us and bring ropes and ladders, and rescue us like out of mines; and they’ll get up a subscription to send us home, like castaways.’

‘Yes; but we shan’t be home before mother is, and then father’ll take away the carpet and say it’s dangerous or something,’ said Cyril.

‘I DO wish we hadn’t come,’ said Jane.

And every one else said ‘Shut up,’ except Anthea, who suddenly awoke the Phoenix and said—

‘Look here, I believe YOU can help us. Oh, I do wish you would!’

‘I will help you as far as lies in my power,’ said the Phoenix, at once. ‘What is it you want now?’

‘Why, we want to get home,’ said every one.

‘Oh,’ said the Phoenix. ‘Ah, hum! Yes. Home, you said? Meaning?’

‘Where we live—where we slept last night—where the altar is that your egg was hatched on.’

‘Oh, there!’ said the Phoenix. ‘Well, I’ll do my best.’ It fluttered on to the carpet and walked up and down for a few minutes in deep thought. Then it drew itself up proudly.

‘I CAN help you,’ it said. ‘I am almost sure I can help you. Unless I am grossly deceived I can help you. You won’t mind my leaving you for an hour or two?’ and without waiting for a reply it soared up through the dimness of the tower into the brightness above.

‘Now,’ said Cyril, firmly, ‘it said an hour or two. But I’ve read about captives and people shut up in dungeons and catacombs and things awaiting release, and I know each moment is an eternity. Those people always do something to pass the desperate moments. It’s no use our trying to tame spiders, because we shan’t have time.’

‘I HOPE not,’ said Jane, doubtfully.

‘But we ought to scratch our names on the stones or something.’

‘I say, talking of stones,’ said Robert, ‘you see that heap of stones against the wall over in that corner. Well, I’m certain there’s a hole in the wall there—and I believe it’s a door. Yes, look here—the stones are round like an arch in the wall; and here’s the hole—it’s all black inside.’

He had walked over to the heap as he spoke and climbed up to it—dislodged the top stone of the heap and uncovered a little dark space.

Next moment every one was helping to pull down the heap of stones, and very soon every one threw off its jacket, for it was warm work.

‘It IS a door,’ said Cyril, wiping his face, ‘and not a bad thing either, if—’

He was going to add ‘if anything happens to the Phoenix,’ but he didn’t for fear of frightening Jane. He was not an unkind boy when he had leisure to think of such things.

The arched hole in the wall grew larger and larger. It was very, very black, even compared with the sort of twilight at the bottom of the tower; it grew larger because the children kept pulling off the stones and throwing them down into another heap. The stones must have been there a very long time, for they were covered with moss, and some of them were stuck together by it. So it was fairly hard work, as Robert pointed out.

When the hole reached to about halfway between the top of the arch and the tower, Robert and Cyril let themselves down cautiously on the inside, and lit matches. How thankful they felt then that they had a sensible father, who did not forbid them to carry matches, as some boys’ fathers do. The father of Robert and Cyril only insisted on the matches being of the kind that strike only on the box.

‘It’s not a door, it’s a sort of tunnel,’ Robert cried to the girls, after the first match had flared up, flickered,