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

china plates, “are used in games of skill. They are thrown from one hand to another, and if one fails to catch them his head is broken.”

An egg boiler, he explained, was a Land Queen’s jewel case, and four egg-shaped emeralds had been fitted into it to show its use to the vulgar. A silver ice pail was labeled: “Drinking Vessel of the Horses of the Kings of Earth,” and a cigar case half full was called “Charm case containing Evil Charms: probably Ancient Barbarian.” In fact it was very like the museums you see on land.

They were just coming to a large case containing something whitish and labeled, “Very valuable indeed,” when a messenger came to tell the Curator that a soldier was waiting with valuable curiosities taken as loot from the enemy.

“Excuse me one moment,” said the Curator, and left them.

“I arranged that,” said Ulfin, “quick, before he returns⁠—take your coats if you know any spell to remove the case.”

The Princess laughed and laid her hand on the glassy dome, and lo! it broke and disappeared as a bubble does when you touch it.

“Magic,” whispered Ulfin.

“Not magic,” said the Princess. “Your cases are only bubbles.”

“And I never knew,” said Ulfin.

“No,” said the Princess, “because you never dared to touch them.”

The children were already busy pulling the coats off the ruby slab where they lay. “Here’s Cathay’s,” whispered Mavis.

The Princess snatched it and her own pearly coat which, in one quick movement, she put on and buttoned over Cathay’s little folded coat, holding this against her. “Quick,” she said, “put yours on, all of you. Take your mer-tails on your arms.”

They did. The soldiers at the end of the long hall had noticed the movements and came charging up toward them.

“Quick, quick!” said the Princess, “now⁠—altogether. One, two, three. Press your third buttons.”

The children did, and the soldiers tearing up the hall to arrest the breakers of the cases of the Museum⁠—for by this time they could see what had happened⁠—almost fell over each other in their confusion. For there, where a moment ago had been four children with fin-tail fetters, was now empty space, and beside the rifled Museum case stood only Ulfin.

And then an odd thing happened. Out of nowhere, as it seemed, a little pearly coat appeared, hanging alone in air (water, of course, it was really. Or was it?). It seemed to grow and to twine itself round Ulfin.

“Put it on,” said a voice from invisibility, “put it on,” and Ulfin did put it on.

The soldiers were close upon him. “Press the third button,” cried the Princess, and Ulfin did so. But as his right hand sought the button, the foremost soldier caught his left arm with the bitter cry⁠—

“Traitor, I arrest you in the King’s name,” and though he could now not see that he was holding anything, he could feel that he was, and he held on.

“The last button, Ulfin,” cried the voice of the unseen Princess, “press the last button,” and next moment the soldier, breathless with amazement and terror, was looking stupidly at his empty hand. Ulfin, as well as the three children and the Princess, was not only invisible but intangible, the soldiers could not see or feel anything.

And what is more, neither could the Princess or the children or Ulfin.

“Oh, where are you? Where am I?” cried Mavis.

“Silence,” said the Princess, “we must keep together by our voices, but that is dangerous. A la porte!” she added. How fortunate it was that none of the soldiers understood French!

As the five were invisible and intangible and as the soldiers were neither, it was easy to avoid them and to get to the arched doorway. The Princess got there first. There was no enemy near⁠—all the soldiers were crowding around the rifled Museum case, talking and wondering, the soldier who had seized Ulfin explaining again and again how he had had the caitiff by the arm, “as solid as solid, and then, all in a minute, there was nothing⁠—nothing at all,” and his comrades trying their best to believe him. The Princess just waited, saying, “Are you there?” every three seconds, as though she had been at the telephone.

“Are you there?” said the Princess for the twenty-seventh time. And then Ulfin said, “I am here, Princess.”

“We must have connecting links,” she said⁠—“bits of seaweed would do. If you hold a piece of seaweed in your hand I will take hold of the other end of it. We cannot feel the touch of each other’s hands, but we shall feel the seaweed, and you will know, by its being drawn tight that I have hold of the other end. Get some pieces for the children, too. Good stout seaweed, such as you made the nets of with which you captured us.”

“Ah, Princess,” he said, “how can I regret that enough? And yet how can I regret it at all since it has brought you to me.”

“Peace, foolish child,” said the Princess, and Ulfin’s heart leaped for joy because, when a Princess calls a grown-up man “child,” it means that she likes him more than a little, or else, of course, she would not take such a liberty. “But the seaweed,” she added, “there is no time to lose.”

“I have some in my pocket,” said Ulfin, blushing, only she could not see that. “They keep me busy making nets in my spare time⁠—I always have some string in my pocket.”

A piece of stringy seaweed suddenly became visible as Ulfin took it out of his invisible pocket, which, of course, had the property of making its contents invisible too, so long as they remained in it. It floated toward the Princess, who caught the end nearest to her and held it fast.

“Where are you?” said a small voice.

It was Mavis⁠—and almost at once Francis and Bernard were there too. The seaweed chain was explained to them, and they each held fast to their ends of the seaweed links. So that when the