Wet Magic - E. Nesbit (read novels website TXT) 📗

the sound of their heavy feet shaking the flow of ocean we must make sallies, and fix our shell shields in their feet. Major, rally your men.”

A tall Merchild in the Crustacean uniform blew a clear note, and the soldiers of the Crustacean Brigade, who having nothing particular to do had been helping anyone and everyone as best they could, which is the way in Merland, though not in Europe, gathered about their officers.

When they were all drawn up before her, the Princess addressed her troops.

“My men,” she said, “we have been suddenly plunged into war. But it has not found us unprepared. I am proud to think that my regiments are ready to the last pearl button. And I know that every man among you will be as proud as I am that our post is, as tradition tells us it has always been, the post of danger. We shall go out into the depths of the sea to fight the enemies of our dear country, and to lay down our lives, if need be, for that country’s sake.”

The soldiers answered by cheers, and the Princess led the way to one of those little buildings, like Temples of Flora in old pictures, which the children had noticed in the gardens. At the order given a sergeant raised a great stone by a golden ring embedded in it and disclosed a dark passage leading underground.

A splendid captain of Cockles, six feet high if he was an inch, with a sergeant and six men, led the way. Three Oyster officers followed, then a company of Oysters, the advance guard. At the head of the main body following were the Princess and her Staff. As they went the Princess explained why the tunnel was so long and sloped so steeply.

“You see,” she said, “the inside of our wall is only about ten feet high, but it goes down on the other side for forty feet or more. It is built on a hill. Now, I don’t want you to feel obliged to come out and fight. You can stay inside and get the shields ready for us to take. We shall keep on rushing back for fresh weapons. Of course the tunnel’s much too narrow for the Under Folk to get in, but they have their regiment of highly trained Sea Serpents, who, of course, can make themselves thin and worm through anything.”

“Cathay doesn’t like serpents,” said Mavis anxiously.

“You needn’t be afraid,” said the Princess. “They’re dreadful cowards. They know the passage is guarded by our Lobsters. They won’t come within a mile of the entrance. But the main body of the enemy will have to pass quite close. There’s a great sea mountain, and the only way to our North Tower is in the narrow ravine between that mountain and Merland.”

The tunnel ended in a large rocky hall with the armory, hung with ten thousand gleaming shields, on the one side, and the guardroom crowded with enthusiastic Lobsters on the other. The entrance from the sea was a short, narrow passage, in which stood two Lobsters in their beautiful dark coats of mail.

Since the moment when the blue sky that looked first so like sky and then so like painted tin had, touched, confessed itself to be a bubble⁠—confessed, too, in the most practical way, by bursting and letting the water into Merland⁠—the children had been carried along by the breathless rush of preparations for the invasion, and the world they were now in had rapidly increased in reality, while their own world, in which till today they had always lived, had been losing reality at exactly the same rate as that by which the new world gained it. So it was that when the Princess said:

“You needn’t go out and attack the enemy unless you like,” they all answered, in some astonishment:

“But we want to.”

“That’s all right,” said the Princess. “I only wanted to see if they were in working order.”

“If what were?”

“Your coats. They’re coats of valor, of course.”

“I think I could be brave without a coat,” said Bernard, and began to undo his pearl buttons.

“Of course you could,” said the Princess. “In fact, you must be brave to begin with, or the coat couldn’t work. It would be no good to a coward. It just keeps your natural valor warm and your wits cool.”

“It makes you braver,” said Kathleen suddenly. “At least I hope it’s me⁠—but I expect it’s the coat. Anyhow, I’m glad it does. Because I do want to be brave. Oh, Princess!”

“Well?” said the Princess, gravely, but not unkindly, “what is it?”

Kathleen stood a moment, her hands twisting in each other and her eyes downcast. Then in an instant she had unbuttoned and pulled off her coat of pearly mail and thrown it at the Princess’s feet.

“I’ll do it without the coat,” she said, and drew a long breath.

The others looked on in silence, longing to help her, but knowing that no one could help her now but herself.

“It was me,” said Kathleen suddenly, and let go a deep breath of relief. “It was me that touched the sky and let in the water; and I am most frightfully sorry, and I know you’ll never forgive me. But⁠—”

“Quick,” said the Princess, picking up the coat, “get into your armor; it’ll prevent your crying.” She hustled Kathleen into the coat and kept her arms around her. “Brave girl,” she whispered. “I’m glad you did it without the coat.” The other three thought it polite to turn away. “Of course,” the Princess added, “I knew⁠—but you didn’t know I knew.”

“How did you know?” said Kathleen.

“By your eyes,” said the Princess, with one last hug; “they’re quite different now. Come, let us go to the gate and see if any of our Scouts are signaling.”

The two Lobster sentries presented claws as the Princess passed with her Staff through the narrow arch and onto the sandy plain of the sea bottom. The children were astonished to find that they