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

They found it quite possible to move along slowly on hands and tails, though they looked rather like seals as they did so.

He led them through the strange streets of massive passages, pointing out the buildings, giving them their names as you might do if you were showing the marvels of your own city to a stranger.

“That’s the Astrologers’ Tower,” he said, pointing to a huge building high above the others. “The wise men sit there and observe the stars.”

“But you can’t see the stars down here.”

“Oh, yes, we can. The tower is fitted up with tubes and mirrors and water transparence apparatus. The wisest men in the country are there⁠—all but the Professor of Conchology. He’s the wisest of all. He invented the nets that caught you⁠—or rather, making nets was one of the things that he had learned and couldn’t forget.”

“But who thought of using them for catching prisoners?”

“I did,” said Ulfin proudly, “I’m to have a glass medal for it.”

“Do you have glass down here?”

“A little comes down, you know. It is very precious. We engrave it. That is the Library⁠—millions of tables of stone⁠—the Hall of Public Joy is next to it⁠—that garden is the mothers’ garden where they go to rest while their children are at school⁠—that’s one of our schools. And here’s the Hall of Public Archives.”

The Keeper of the Records received them with grave courtesy. The daily services of Ulfin had accustomed the children to the appearance of the Under Folk, and they no longer found their strange, mournful faces terrifying, and the great hall where, on shelves cut out of the sheer rock, were stored the graven tables of Underworld Records, was very wonderful and impressive.

“What is it you want to know?” said the Keeper, rolling away some of the stones he had been showing them. “Ulfin said there was something special.”

“Why the war began?” said Francis.

“Why the King and Queen are different?” said Mavis.

“The war,” said the Keeper of the Records, “began exactly three million five hundred and seventy-nine thousand three hundred and eight years ago. An Under-man, getting off his Sea Horse in a hurry trod on the tail of a sleeping Merman. He did not apologize because he was under a vow not to speak for a year and a day. If the Mer-people had only waited he would have explained, but they went to war at once, and, of course, after that you couldn’t expect him to apologize. And the war has gone on, off and on and on and off, ever since.”

“And won’t it ever stop?” asked Bernard.

“Not till we apologize, which, of course, we can’t until they find out why the war began and that it wasn’t our fault.”

“How awful!” said Mavis; “then it’s all really about nothing.”

“Quite so,” said the Keeper, “what are your wars about? The other question I shouldn’t answer only I know you’ll forget it when the oblivion-cup begins to work. Ulfin tells me it hasn’t begun yet. Our King and Queen are imported. We used to be a Republic, but Presidents were so uppish and so grasping, and all their friends and relations too; so we decided to be a Monarchy, and that all jealousies might be taken away we imported the two handsomest Land Folk we could find. They’ve been a great success, and as they have no relations we find it much less expensive.”

When the Keeper had thus kindly gratified the curiosity of the prisoners the Princess said suddenly:

“Couldn’t we learn Conchology?”

And the Keeper said kindly, “Why not? It’s the Professor’s day tomorrow.”

“Couldn’t we go there today?” asked the Princess, “just to arrange about times and terms and all that?”

“If my Uncle says I may take you there,” said Ulfin, “I will, for I have never known any pleasure so great as doing anything that you wish will give me.”

The Uncle looked a little anxious, but he said he thought there could be no harm in calling on the Professor. So they went. The way was long for people who were not seals by nature and were not yet compelled to walk after the manner of those charming and intelligent animals. The Mer Princess alone was at her ease. But when they passed a building, as long as from here to the end of the Mile End Road, which Ulfin told them was the Cavalry Barracks, a young Under-man leaned out of a window and said:

“What ho! Ulf.”

“What ho! yourself,” said Ulfin, and approaching the window spoke in whispers. Two minutes later the young Cavalry Officer who had leaned out of the window gave an order, and almost at once some magnificent Sea Horses, richly caparisoned, came out from under an arched gateway. The three children were mounted on these, and the crowd which had collected in the street seemed to find it most amusing to see people in fetter-tails riding on the chargers of the Horse Marines. But their laughter was not ill-natured. And the horses were indeed a boon to the weary tails of the amateur seals.

Riding along the bottom of the sea was a wonderful experience⁠—but soon the open country was left behind and they began to go up ways cut in the heart of the rock⁠—ways long and steep, and lighted, as all that great Underworld was, with phosphorescent light.

When they had been traveling for some hours and the children were beginning to think that you could perhaps have too much even of such an excellent thing as Sea Horse exercise, the phosphorescent lights suddenly stopped, and yet the sea was not dark. There seemed to be a light ahead, and it got stronger and stronger as they advanced, and presently it streamed down on them from shallow water above their heads.

“We leave the Sea Horses here,” said Ulfin, “they cannot live in the air. Come.”

They dismounted and swam up. At least Ulfin and the Princess swam and the others held hands and were pulled by the two swimmers. Almost at once their heads struck