The Brass Bottle, F. Anstey [e book reader for pc TXT] 📗

rival into an ape. "Between this fellow and old Fakrash," he reflected ruefully, at this point, "I seem likely to have a fairly lively time of it!"

He read on till he reached the memorable encounter between the King's daughter and Jarjarees, who presented himself "in a most hideous shape, with hands like winnowing forks, and legs like masts, and eyes like burning torches"—which was calculated to unnerve the stoutest novice. The Efreet began by transforming himself from a lion to a scorpion, upon which the Princess became a serpent; then he changed to an eagle, and she to a vulture; he to a black cat, and she to a cock; he to a fish, and she to a larger fish still.

"If Fakrash can shove me through all that without a fatal hitch somewhere," Ventimore told himself, "I shall be agreeably disappointed in him," But, after reading a few more lines, he cheered up. For the Efreet finished as a flame, and the Princess as a "body of fire." "And when we looked towards him," continued the narrator, "we perceived that he had become a heap of ashes."

"Come," said Horace to himself, "that puts Jarjarees out of action, any way! The odd thing is that Fakrash should never have heard of it."

But, as he saw on reflection, it was not so very odd, after all, as the incident had probably happened after the Jinnee had been consigned to his brass bottle, where intelligence of any kind would be most unlikely to reach him.

He worked steadily through the whole of the second[Pg 172] volume and part of the third; but, although he picked up a certain amount of information upon Oriental habits and modes of thought and speech which might come in useful later, it was not until he arrived at the 24th Chapter of the third volume that his interest really revived.

For the 24th Chapter contained "The Story of Seyf-el-Mulook and Bedeea-el-Jemal," and it was only natural that he should be anxious to know all that there was to know concerning the antecedents of one who might be his fiancée before long. He read eagerly.

Bedeea, it appeared, was the lovely daughter of Shahyal, one of the Kings of the Believing Jann; her father—not Fakrash himself, as the Jinnee had incorrectly represented—had offered her in marriage to no less a personage than King Solomon himself, who, however, had preferred the Queen of Sheba. Seyf, the son of the King of Egypt, afterwards fell desperately in love with Bedeea, but she and her grandmother both declared that between mankind and the Jann there could be no agreement.

"And Seyf was a King's son!" commented Horace. "I needn't alarm myself. She wouldn't be likely to have anything to say to me. It's just as I told Fakrash."

His heart grew lighter still as he came to the end, for he learnt that, after many adventures which need not be mentioned here, the devoted Seyf did actually succeed in gaining the proud Bedeea as his wife. "Even Fakrash could not propose to marry me to some one who has a husband already," he thought. "Still, she may be a widow!"

To his relief, however, the conclusion ran thus; "Seyf-el-Mulook lived with Bedeea-el-Jemal a most pleasant and agreeable life ... until they were visited by the terminator of delights and the separator of companions."

"If that means anything at all," he reasoned, "it means that Seyf and Bedeea are both deceased. Even[Pg 173] Jinneeyeh seem to be mortal. Or perhaps she became so by marrying a mortal; I dare say that Fakrash himself wouldn't have lasted all this time if he hadn't been bottled, like a tinned tomato. But I'm glad I found this out, because Fakrash is evidently unaware of it, and, if he should persist in any more of this nonsense, I think I see my way now to getting the better of him."

So, with renewed hope and in vastly improved spirits, he went to bed and was soon sound asleep.

[Pg 174]

CHAPTER XV BLUSHING HONOURS

It was rather late the next morning when Ventimore opened his eyes, to discover the Jinnee standing by the foot of his bed. "Oh, it's you, is it?" he said sleepily. "How did you—a—get on last night?"

"I gained such information as I desired," said Fakrash, guardedly; "and now, for the last time, I am come to ask thee whether thou wilt still persist in refusing to wed the illustrious Bedeea-el-Jemal? And have a care how thou answerest."

"So you haven't given up the idea?" said Horace. "Well, since you make such a point of it, I'll meet you as far as this. If you produce the lady, and she consents to marry me, I won't decline the honour. But there's one condition I really must insist on."

"It is not for thee to make stipulations. Still, yet this once I will hear thee."

"I'm sure you'll see that it's only fair. Supposing, for any reason, you can't persuade the Princess to meet me within a reasonable time—shall we say a week?——"

"Thou shalt be admitted to her presence within twenty-four hours," said the Jinnee.

"That's better still. Then, if I don't see her within twenty-four hours, I am to be at liberty to infer that the negotiations are off, and I may marry anybody else I please, without any opposition from you? Is that understood?"

"It is agreed," said Fakrash, "for I am confident that Bedeea will accept thee joyfully."

"We shall see," said Horace. "But it might be as well if you went and prepared her a little. I suppose[Pg 175] you know where to find her—and you've only twenty-four hours, you know."

"More than is needed," answered the Jinnee, with such childlike confidence, that Horace felt almost ashamed of so easy a victory. "But the sun is already high. Arise, my son, put on these robes"—and with this he flung on the bed the magnificent raiment which Ventimore had last worn on the night of his disastrous entertainment—"and when thou hast broken thy fast, prepare to accompany me."

"Before I agree to that," said Horace, sitting up in bed, "I should like to know where you're taking me to."

"Obey me without demur," said Fakrash, "or thou knowest the consequences."

It seemed to Horace that it was as well to humour him, and he got up accordingly, washed and shaved, and, putting on his dazzling robe of cloth-of-gold thickly sewn with gems, he joined Fakrash—who, by the way, was similarly, if less gorgeously, arrayed—in the sitting-room, in a state of some mystification.

"Eat quickly," commanded the Jinnee, "for the time is short." And Horace, after hastily disposing of a cold poached egg and a cup of coffee, happened to go to the windows.

"Good Heavens!" he cried. "What does all this mean?"

He might well ask. On the opposite side of the road, by the railings of the square, a large crowd had collected, all staring at the house in eager expectation. As they caught sight of him they raised a cheer, which caused him to retreat in confusion, but not before he had seen a great golden chariot with six magnificent coal-black horses, and a suite of swarthy attendants in barbaric liveries, standing by the pavement below. "Whose carriage is that?" he asked.

"It belongs to thee," said the Jinnee; "descend then, and make thy progress in it through the City."

"I will not," said Horace. "Even to oblige you I[Pg 176] simply can't drive along the streets in a thing like the band-chariot of a travelling circus."

"It is necessary," declared Fakrash. "Must I again recall to thee the penalty of disobedience?"

"Oh, very well," said Horace, irritably. "If you insist on my making a fool of myself, I suppose I must. But where am I to drive, and why?"

"That," replied Fakrash, "thou shalt discover at the fitting moment." And so, amidst the shouts of the spectators, Ventimore climbed up into the strange-looking vehicle, while the Jinnee took his seat by his side. Horace had a parting glimpse of Mr. and Mrs. Rapkin's respective noses flattened against the basement window, and then two dusky slaves mounted to a seat at the back of the chariot, and the horses started off at a stately trot in the direction of Rochester Row.

"I think you might tell me what all this means," he said. "You've no conception what an ass I feel, stuck up here like this!"

"Dismiss bashfulness from thee, since all this is designed to render thee more acceptable in the eyes of the Princess Bedeea," said the Jinnee.

Horace said no more, though he could not but think that this parade would be thrown away.

But as they turned into Victoria Street and seemed to be heading straight for the Abbey, a horrible thought occurred to him. After all, his only authority for the marriage and decease of Bedeea was the "Arabian Nights," which was not unimpeachable evidence. What if she were alive and waiting for the arrival of the bridegroom? No one but Fakrash would have conceived such an idea as marrying him to a Jinneeyeh in Westminster Abbey; but he was capable of any extravagance, and there were apparently no limits to his power.

"Mr. Fakrash," he said hoarsely, "surely this isn't my—my wedding day? You're not going to have the ceremony there?"

[Pg 177]

"Nay," said the Jinnee, "be not impatient. For this edifice would be totally unfitted for the celebration of such nuptials as thine."

As he spoke, the chariot left the Abbey on the right and turned down the Embankment. The relief was so intense that Horace's spirits rose irrepressibly. It was absurd to suppose that even Fakrash could have arranged the ceremony in so short a time. He was merely being taken for a drive, and fortunately his best friends could not recognise him in his Oriental disguise. And it was a glorious morning, with a touch of frost in the air and a sky of streaky turquoise and pale golden clouds; the broad river glittered in the sunshine; the pavements were lined with admiring crowds, and the carriage rolled on amidst frantic enthusiasm, like some triumphal car.

"How they're cheering us!" said Horace. "Why, they couldn't make more row for the Lord Mayor himself."

"What is this Lord Mayor of whom thou speakest?" inquired Fakrash.

"The Lord Mayor?" said Horace. "Oh, he's unique. There's nobody in the world quite like him. He administers the law, and if there's any distress in any part of the earth he relieves it. He entertains monarchs and Princes and all kinds of potentates at his banquets, and altogether he's a tremendous swell."

"Hath he dominion over the earth and the air and all that is therein?"

"Within his own precincts, I believe he has," said Horace, rather lazily, "but I really don't know precisely how wide his powers are." He was vainly trying to recollect whether such matters as sky-signs, telephones, and telegraphs in the City were within the Lord Mayor's jurisdiction or the County Council's.

Fakrash remained silent just as they were driving underneath Charing Cross Railway Bridge, when he started perceptibly at the thunder of the trains overhead[Pg 178] and the piercing whistles of the engines. "Tell me," he said, clutching Horace by the arm, "what meaneth this?"

"You don't mean to say," said Horace, "that you have been about London all these days, and never noticed things like these before?"

"Till now," said the Jinnee, "I have had no leisure to observe them and discover their nature."

"Well," said Horace, anxious to let the Jinnee see that he had not the monopoly of miracles, "since your days we have discovered how to tame or chain the great forces of Nature and compel them to do our will. We control the Spirits of Earth, Air, Fire, and Water, and make them give us light and heat, carry our messages, fight our quarrels for us, transport us wherever we wish to go, with a certainty and precision that throw even your performances, my dear sir, entirely into the shade."

Considering what a very large majority of civilised persons would be as powerless to construct the most elementary machine as to create the humblest kind of horse, it is not a little odd how complacently we credit ourselves with all the latest achievements of our generation. Most of us accept the amazement of the simple-minded barbarian on his first introduction to modern inventions as a gratifying personal tribute: we feel a certain superiority, even if we magnanimously refrain from boastfulness. And yet our own particular share in these discoveries is limited to making use of them under expert guidance, which any barbarian, after overcoming his first terror, is quite as competent to do as we are.

It is a harmless vanity enough, and especially pardonable in Ventimore's case, when it was so desirable to correct any tendency to "uppishness" on the part of the Jinnee.

"And