The Magic City - E. Nesbit (top ten ebook reader txt) 📗

/> 'Do you mean my next deed of valour?' Philip asked.

'We have decided that all your deeds need not be deeds of valour,' said Mr. Noah, fiddling with a pen. 'The strange labours of Hercules, you remember, were some of them dangerous and some merely difficult. I have decided that difficult things shall count. There are several things that really _need_ doing,' he went on half to himself. 'There's the fruit supply, and the Dwellers by the sea, and---- But that must wait. We try to give you as much variety as possible. Yesterday's was an out-door adventure. To-day's shall be an indoor amusement. I say to-day's but I confess that I think it not unlikely that the task I am now about to set the candidate for the post of King-Deliverer, the task, I say, which I am now about to set you, may, quite possibly, occupy some days, if not weeks of your valuable time.'

'But our people at home,' said Philip. 'It isn't that I'm afraid, really and truly it isn't, but they'll go out of their minds, not knowing what's become of us. Oh, Mr. Noah! do let us go back.'

'It's all right,' said Mr. Noah. 'However long you stay here time won't move with them. I thought I'd explained that to you.'

'But you said----'

'I said you'd set our clocks to the time of _your_ world when you deserted your little friend. But when you had come back for her, and rescued her from the dragon, the clocks went their own time again. There's only just that time missing that happened between your coming here the second time and your killing the dragon.'

'I see,' said Philip. But he didn't. I only hope _you_ do.

'You can take your time about this new job,' said Mr. Noah, 'and you may get any help you like. I shan't consider you've failed till you've been at it three months. After that the Pretenderette would be entitled to _her_ chance.'

'If you're quite sure that the time here doesn't count at home,' said Philip, 'what is it, please, that we've got to do?'

'The greatest intellects of our country have for many ages occupied themselves with the problem which you are now asked to solve,' said Mr. Noah. 'Your late gaoler, Mr. Bacon-Shakespeare, has written no less than twenty-seven volumes, all in cypher, on this very subject. But as he has forgotten what cypher he used, and no one else ever knew it, his volumes are of but little use to us.'

'I see,' said Philip. And again he didn't.

Mr. Noah rose to his full height, and when he stood up the children looked very small beside him.

'Now,' he said, 'I will tell you what it is that you must do. I should like to decree that your second labour should be the tidying up of this room--_all_ these papers are prophecies relating to the Deliverer--but it is one of our laws that the judge must not use any public matter for his own personal benefit. So I have decided that the next labour shall be the disentangling of the Mazy Carpet. It is in the Pillared Hall of Public Amusements. I will get my hat and we will go there at once. I can tell you about it as we go.'

And as they went down streets and past houses and palaces all of which Philip could now dimly remember to have built at some time or other, Mr. Noah went on:

'It is a very beautiful hall, but we have never been able to use it for public amusement or anything else. The giant who originally built this city placed in this hall a carpet so thick that it rises to your knees, and so intricately woven that none can disentangle it. It is far too thick to pass through any of the doors. It is your task to remove it.'

'Why that's as easy as easy,' said Philip. 'I'll cut it in bits and bring out a bit at a time.'

'That would be most unfortunate for you,' said Mr. Noah. 'I filed only this morning a very ancient prophecy:

'He who shall the carpet sever,
By fire or flint or steel, Shall be fed on orange pips for ever,
And dressed in orange peel.

You wouldn't like that, you know.'

'No,' said Philip grimly, 'I certainly shouldn't.'

'The carpet must be _unravelled_, unwoven, so that not a thread is broken. Here is the hall.'

They went up steps--Philip sometimes wished he had not been so fond of building steps--and through a dark vestibule to an arched door. Looking through it they saw a great hall and at its end a raised space, more steps, and two enormous pillars of bronze wrought in relief with figures of flying birds.

'Father's Japanese vases,' Lucy whispered.

The floor of the room was covered by the carpet. It was loosely but difficultly woven of very thick soft rope of a red colour. When I say difficultly, I mean that it wasn't just straight-forward in the weaving, but the threads went over and under and round about in such a determined and bewildering way that Philip felt--and said--that he would rather untie the string of a hundred of the most difficult parcels than tackle this.

'Well,' said Mr. Noah, 'I leave you to it. Board and lodging will be provided at the Provisional Palace where you slept last night. All citizens are bound to assist when called upon. Dinner is at one. _Good_-morning!'

Philip sat down in the dark archway and gazed helplessly at the twisted strands of the carpet. After a moment of hesitation Lucy sat down too, clasped her arms round her knees, and she also gazed at the carpet. They had all the appearance of shipwrecked mariners looking out over a great sea and longing for a sail.

'Ha ha--tee hee!' said a laugh close behind them. They turned. And it was the motor-veiled lady, the hateful Pretenderette, who had crept up close behind them, and was looking down at them through her veil.

'What do you want?' said Philip severely.

'I want to laugh,' said the motor lady. 'I want to laugh at _you_. And I'm going to.'

'Well go and laugh somewhere else then,' Philip suggested.

'Ah! but this is where I want to laugh. You and your carpet! You'll never do it. You don't know how. But _I_ do.'

'Come away,' whispered Lucy, and they went. The Pretenderette followed slowly. Outside, a couple of Dutch dolls in check suits were passing, arm in arm.

'Help!' cried Lucy suddenly, and the Dutch dolls paused and took their hats off.

'What is it?' the taller doll asked, stroking his black painted moustache.

'Mr. Noah said all citizens were bound to help us,' said Lucy a little breathlessly.

'But of course,' said the shorter doll, bowing with stiff courtesy.

'Then,' said Lucy, 'will you _please_ take that motor person away and put her somewhere where she can't bother till we've done the carpet?'

'Delighted,' exclaimed the agreeable Dutch strangers, darted up the steps and next moment emerged with the form of the Pretenderette between them, struggling indeed, but struggling vainly.

'You need not have the slightest further anxiety,' the taller Dutchman said; 'dismiss the incident from your mind. We will take her to the hall of justice. Her offence is bothering people in pursuit of their duty. The sentence is imprisonment for as long as the botheree chooses. Good-morning.'

'Oh, _thank you_!' said both the children together.

When they were alone, Philip said--and it was not easy to say it:

'That was jolly clever of you, Lucy. I should never have thought of it.'

'Oh, that's nothing,' said Lucy, looking down. 'I could do more than that.'

'What?' he asked.

'I could unravel the carpet,' said Lucy, with deep solemnity.

'But it's me that's got to do it,' Philip urged.

'Every citizen is bound to help, if called in,' Lucy reminded him. 'And I suppose a princess _is_ a citizen.'

'Perhaps I can do it by myself,' said Philip.

'Try,' said Lucy, and sat down on the steps, her fairy skirts spreading out round her like a white double hollyhock.

He tried. He went back and looked at the great coarse cables of the carpet. He could see no end to the cables, no beginning to his task. And Lucy just went on sitting there like a white hollyhock. And time went on, and presently became, rather urgently, dinner-time.

So he went back to Lucy and said:

'All right, you can show me how to do it, if you like.'

But Lucy replied:

'Not much! If you want me to help you with _this_, you'll have to promise to let me help in all the other things. And you'll have to _ask_ me to help--ask me politely too.'

'I shan't then,' said Philip. But in the end he had to--politely also.

'With pleasure,' said Lucy, the moment he asked her, and he could see she had been making up what she should answer, while he was making up his mind to ask. 'I shall be delighted to help you in this and all the other tasks. Say yes.'

'Yes,' said Philip, who was very hungry.

'"In this and all the other tasks" say.'

'In this and all the other tasks,' he said. 'Go on. How can we do it?'

'It's _crochet_,' Lucy giggled. 'It's a little crochet mat I'd made of red wool; and I put it in the hall that night. You've just got to find the end and pull, and it all comes undone. You just want to find the end and pull.'

'It's too heavy for us to pull.'

'Well,' said Lucy, who had certainly had time to think everything out, 'you get one of those twisty round things they pull boats out of the sea with, and I'll find the end while you're getting it.'

She ran up the steps and Philip looked round the buildings on the other three sides of the square, to see if any one of them looked like a capstan shop, for he understood, as of course you also have done, that a capstan was what Lucy meant.

On a building almost opposite he read, 'Naval Necessaries Supply Company,' and he ran across to it.

'Rather,' said the secretary of the company, a plump sailor-doll, when Philip had explained his needs. 'I'll send a dozen men over at once. Only too proud to help, Sir Philip. The navy is always keen on helping valour and beauty.'

'I want to be brave,' said Philip, 'but I'd rather not be beautiful.'

'Of course not,' said the secretary; and added surprisingly, 'I meant the Lady Lucy.'

'Oh!' said Philip.

So twelve bluejackets and a capstan outside the Hall of Public Amusements were soon the centre of a cheering crowd. Lucy had found the end of the rope, and two sailors dragged it out and attached it to the capstan, and then--round and round with a will and a breathless chanty--the carpet was swiftly unravelled. Dozens of eager helpers stood on the parts of the carpet which were not being unravelled, to keep it steady while the pulling went on.

The news of Philip's success spread like wild-fire through the city, and the crowds gathered thicker and thicker. The great doors beyond the pillars with the birds