Part 13

There was a moment’s hesitation, but the anguish of their affliction was too great; the people whispered together, doubtless remarking that they would soon get back their leaves in trade; and at any rate they began to file before me, and my healing work commenced; but not before I had applied my salve, in sight of all, to my sister’s palms, and given her immediate relief.

All that day and the next and for several days the work continued, and in each case the itching vanished at once; the city was cured again, and my vat in the public square was filled to the brim, with all the dead orange leaves that the people owned. The glory of my future was beyond calculation; my sister, I resolved, should yet be Queen; and I planned for myself such offices in the state as should give me power even greater than the King’s.

When I awoke in my bed on the following morning, I found that I was rubbing my hands.

I dressed hurriedly, and my sister came to me in tears. She was rubbing her hands.

We hurried to the King. He was running up and down, rubbing his hands.

We fled from him and ran out upon the palace steps, not knowing where next to go; and as we stood there, hesitating, the King’s brother appeared before us, and spoke with excitement.

“Beloved!” he cried. “We love each other--what more is needed? Quick, it is not yet too late! Say that you love me--let me hear it again!”

“Ah, yes, I do,” said my sister, and he threw his arm about her and clasped her to his breast.

“Come! I will save you!” he cried. “There is time, if we hurry. Will you come with me now?”

My sister drew back a little, still struggling within herself; and while she hesitated, a commotion arose at the gate, and the young man cried out, in a voice full of despair:

“It is too late, too late!”

_Tush and His Sister are Seized by the Angry Crowd_

At the gate a throng of people were pressing in with angry shouts. They made toward us, dancing and rubbing their hands. They surrounded us; they crowded upon us to suffocation; the young man and myself tried in vain to shield my sister; angry hands were laid upon her and upon myself, and we were hustled away toward the gate.

“Give us back our leaves! Kill them both! To the square!” shouted the mob; and thrusting the King’s brother aside they pulled and pushed us to the public square, and halted us beneath the vat which contained all my wealth.

A sudden outcry, followed by silence, drew my attention upward. There above us, on the rim of the vat, stood the King’s Fool. He held a lighted torch aloft in his hand.

“Madmen!” he cried. “I am ready to cure you! All alone! Speak! Shall I destroy the leaves?”

“No, no!” shouted the crowd. “Stop him! Stop him!”

“If you fire the leaves, we will kill these two!” shouted one of our captors.

“Oh!” said my sister at my side, pale with terror. “What shall we do? Stop him! If the genie would only come and help us! I wish the genie were here to help us!”

“The time has come!” cried the Fool. “I must save you! Why will you all be mad? I must save you from your madness! In with the torch!”

He faced about toward the center of the vat, and swung his torch as if about to toss it in; but at that instant a great wind swept across the square with a roar, such a blast as I had never in my life known before, and the King’s Fool tottered in it for a moment, and his torch went out; and then, clutching at the air, he was blown headlong to the ground in a heap.

“The whirlwind! The whirlwind!” shouted the crowd in terror. “Fly! Fly for your lives!”

Far off across the housetops appeared a yellow cloud, and a saffron gloom overspread the city. From the cloud to the ground revolved a yellow funnel, as of dust-laden wind; and it was coming toward us with the speed of lightning.

The crowd dispersed madly, trampling one another, shrieking and cursing, and in a twinkling they were gone. I seized my sister and dragged her to the street corner, where I opened one half of a cellar door and plunged down with her, closing the door over us, but peeping out through a crack. We were just in time.

_The Genie in the Whirlwind_

The whirling funnel of wind and dust swept over the square; and in the forefront of it, at a great height, flew the genie, his great mouth open, and darts of fire flickering around his face.

The square was empty, save for the crumpled body of the King’s Fool, lying motionless beside the vat of dead leaves; and as I gazed at him where he lay, I saw, moving toward him across the bare pavement, the humped figure of his little monkey.

The genie, far above, kept just ahead of the whirlwind; the yellow funnel whirled after him directly across the vat and covered it and passed; and as it passed, all the dead leaves surged up into it in a furious gale, so that it was darkened with them; and the next moment the whirlwind was gone, and the square lay quiet in the sunshine.

“Come, Paravaine!” said I, and pulled my sister forth across the square.

We came to the base of the vat, and on the ground beside it, left there untouched by the storm, lay the King’s Fool on his side, graver than he had ever been in his life; and huddled against his breast sat his monkey, shivering, and looking up at us with eyes that seemed to reproach us.

We hurried toward the city gate. Many houses were in ruins, and the streets were strewn with rubbish. People were running busily about, gazing intently at the ground, and now and then one would stoop and pick up something. I saw what it was they were doing; they were searching for dead leaves, scattered by the whirlwind.

“I can’t go!” said my sister, weeping. “I must see him first! Oh, my love, my love!”

“Too late now!” I cried. “Too late, too late!”

I pulled her onward, knowing that death awaited us in that city; and we came to the plot of grass where we had seen the sacred tree. It was gone, and in the place where it had been was only a gaping hole. The whirlwind had passed that way. On the ground beside the hole lay the panther, its head on its paws. It watched us with sleepy eyes as we fled by.

In a moment we had reached the city gate and passed out. The Guardian was standing there, his face clouded with a frown, and his scimitar raised.

“Why do you flee?” said he.

“From the wrath of the people!” I cried. “Let us pass!”

“You cannot pass,” said he. His scimitar glittered in the sun.

“But we repent! We repent!” cried my sister.

“Too late, too late!” said the Guardian. “See!”

He pointed upward, and afar off in the sky appeared a black speck, speeding toward us.

“The genie!” I cried; and I had no sooner said it, than the earth trembled, and before us on the ground towered the genie, breathing fire.

“Save us from him!” I cried, turning to the Guardian, but he was gone. We were alone with the genie.

_The Pulling Off of the Genie’s Ring_

“Off with the ring! That will send him away!” I cried to my sister, and she tugged at the ring on her forefinger, to pull it off; but it came unwillingly; and as she pulled, her finger lengthened; she tugged harder, and as the ring came her finger stretched out longer and longer; and when the ring was off and dropped on the ground, the first finger of her right hand was more than a foot long,--a black, stiff rod, hooked at the end like a poker.

The genie stooped, and gathered me under his right arm and my sister under his left; and giving a stamp upon the ground which shook the earth he mounted into the air....

Far out over the Great Sea, as the sun was setting, the genie drew downward toward an island; and on a bluff of this island, overlooking a cove in which fishing boats lay moored, he alighted and set us on our feet. Over my sister’s head and back he passed his hand, speaking strange words in his throat. She shriveled before my eyes; her face became old and wrinkled and her body bent; and before I could speak she was the hideous creature I had seen in the Fool’s glass, with a forefinger like the poker of a ragpicker.

“Paravaine!” I cried; but the genie turned her away toward a village which showed itself at the back of the cove, and sent her off in that direction; and when she had gone, he picked me up in his mighty hands, and carrying me to the further edge of the bluff where it looked down on the rolling surf, he swung me back and forth three or four times and tossed me out to sea.

I sank into the depths; I rose to the surface; and as my head came up I looked for the genie. Far up in the evening sky flew what seemed a tiny, black arrow. I cried aloud; and instead of a shriek there came from my throat a bark. It was the bark of a seal.

THE SIXTH NIGHT

THE ENCHANTED HIGHWAYMAN

_Mortimer the Executioner, very grand and uncomfortable in his new suit, placed a chair for the Queen before Solario’s worktable, and the old tailor having seated himself cross-legged on the table, the entire company sat down in a row, facing him._

_There were first the Executioner, with the tiny Encourager on his shoulder; then Bodkin; then Bojohn; then his mother, the Princess Dorobel, and his father, Prince Bilbo; and last, his grandmother, the Queen._

_“Now then,” said Bojohn, “I hope we’re going to hear the story of Montesango’s Cave at last.”_

_“If it please your majesty,” began Solario, addressing the Queen,--but at this moment there came a loud knock at the door._

_Mortimer the Executioner hastened to open it, and there in the doorway stood the King himself. Solario sprang down from his table, and all the others rose._

_“Ah! your majesty!” cried Solario, bowing profoundly. “This is indeed an honor!”_

_“I was told I would find you here,” said the King. “It seems that my entire family deserts me in the evening, and I am obliged to climb the worst stairs in the castle to-- But of course if you find my society too--”_

_“My dear!” said the Queen. “We have been listening to Solario’s stories, and you were so taken up with your chess that we thought you wouldn’t care to--”_

_“Why not?” said the King. “But of course if you don’t want me to hear the stories, I’ll--”_

_“Sit down, grandfather!” cried Bojohn. “He’s just going to begin.”_

_“Do sit down, my dear,” said the Queen. “Don’t you remember the story he told us the first night?”_

_“Hum! Ha! I’m all out of breath with those plaguey stairs. Something about a button, wasn’t it?”_

_“Perhaps,” said Prince Bilbo, “he’ll tell us to-night how the magic doublet came to be--”_

_“Well,” said the King, “if it isn’t a long story-- Is it a long story?”_

_“No, no, your majesty,” said Solario, bowing again, “it is quite short.”_

_“Hum!” said the King. “If you’re sure it’s not a long story--Why don’t you begin?” and he sat down in the Executioner’s chair._

_Solario took his place cross-legged on the table again, and the others resumed their seats before him,--all except the Executioner, who stood, with the Encourager on his shoulder, behind the King._

_“My dear,” said the Queen, “did you give the orders for locking the castle for the night?”_

_“I believe I usually attend to that,” said the King. “Solario, proceed.”_

_“If it is your pleasure,” said Solario, fingering his shears, “I will now relate to you the story concerning the magic doublet, as it was told to the Black Prince by his father the King of Wen, and by the Black Prince to me. The King of Wen, having directed his son regarding his mission to the City of Oogh, placed the doublet in his son’s left hand, and thus commenced what I may call_

“THE STORY OF THE ENCHANTED HIGHWAYMAN.”

_“I thought,” interrupted Bojohn, “you were going to tell us the story of the magic doublet.”_

_“I am about to do so,” said Solario. “As I was saying, the King of Wen, placing the magic doublet in his son’s left hand, thus commenced_

“THE STORY OF THE ENCHANTED HIGHWAYMAN.”

When I was a young man (said the King of Wen), I left my father’s castle one morning for a day’s hunting in the forest. Late in the afternoon it chanced that I had wandered away from my attendants, and being warm and weary I threw myself down upon the moss to rest. I had lain there but a moment when I saw, not far off among the trees, a fine buck, the only game I had come upon that day. I crept cautiously in his direction, and soon came within easy bowshot of him; but just as I was fitting my arrow to the string he tossed his head and trotted off into the forest and disappeared.

I made off after him as fast as I could, marking his trail by a broken branch here and there and an occasional hoof-print in the damp earth, and presently I found myself deep in a considerable thicket of underwood, and from this thicket I came out, to my surprise, upon a forest road.

_A Voice from Nowhere Bids the Prince Stop_

I stood for a moment looking up and down curiously. The deer was nowhere to be seen. The road was arched in a charming manner by the branches of the trees, and at no great distance lost itself in the shadowy forest. I wondered that I had never heard of this road before, and after pondering this for a moment I began to cross the road, looking carefully for the deer’s tracks in the dust. I saw no trace of him, and I was about to push into the forest on the other side, when suddenly a voice, a low but clear voice, said distinctly in my ear, “Stop!”

I looked about me, but I could see no one. There was positively no living creature near me,--unless I except a wasp which at the moment was flying about my head, and which I struck away with my hand.

I walked down the road some twenty paces, peering about for the person who had spoken, and becoming more and more perplexed; and as I was about to enter the forest the same voice, still low but quite distinct, spoke again close into my ear: “Stop!”

I stopped in bewilderment. The forest was silent as the sky; no living creature, not even a bird, could I see anywhere; there was nothing;--nothing, indeed, except the wasp which was still flying about my head and which now began to annoy me exceedingly.

I went on again, striking out at the wasp, and in a moment (I assure you I began to doubt my senses), the same voice spoke again, this time close into my left ear.

“Stop! Just a moment!” it said. “Look, if you please! On your left shoulder!”

I craned my neck about, and there was nothing on my left shoulder except the wasp. The wasp was there, indeed, and I made as if to brush him off; but the voice said, “Don’t, if you please!” and I stayed my hand.

You may imagine that I was more astonished than ever. I gazed at the wasp intently, and as I did so the voice began to murmur, in a kind of rapid, buzzing drone, into my left ear.

“Mercy on us!” I cried. “It’s the wasp that’s talking!”

It was true, beyond a doubt. “Yes!” said the voice. “Please listen! If you’d only be so good--I really wish you would!”

_The Prince Listens to a Curious Discourse_

I stood perfectly still in the roadway, and I know that my mouth hung open as I listened. The wasp buzzed into my ear a kind of rapid, droning song, so low that I had to strain my attention a little to catch it all, and these were the words I heard:

“I know it’s rude to speak to you, it’s something I but seldom do, to speak before I’m spoken to, Or buttonhole a stranger; Excuse me if I do not pause to think just now of social laws, I can not spare the time, because I’m in the gravest danger; In gravest danger, yes, it’s true, I’m sure I don’t know what I’ll do, I’ll positively die if you Refuse me your assistance; Come, follow me without delay, I pray you do not say me nay, it’s life or death,--and anyway It’s scarcely any distance.

“My lot is sad in the extreme, I really am not what I seem, I once was held in high esteem By every friend and neighbor: A man entirely free of guile, who lived but in his children’s smile, and kept them all in modest style By hard and patient labor, A man of pleasing manners who, whatever other men might do, spoke seldom unless spoken to, A practice much commended; My trade in such a way I plied upon the highway far and wide (I say it with a modest pride) I scarcely once offended.

“It used to be my pleasant way (it always made my work seem play) to take the air from day to day,-- Unless, of course,’twas raining,-- Upon the road to watch and wait from early morn to rather late, but always coming home by eight (Such was my early training), I used to watch and wait, I say, and when a trav’ler came my way, which happened every other day Unless too cold or sunny, I never spoke a word, not I, I merely breathed a patient sigh, and held my trusty blade on high And took from him his money.

“’Twas thus I kept my children ten, a decent, worthy citizen, the happiest of mortal men My humble sphere adorning, The father of ten daughters fair who needed tons of clothes to wear, and that was why I took the air Upon the road each morning, But oh, alas for them and me, it’s over now, as you may see, and you are incontestably Our only hope remaining; And all our truly dreadful plight is just because one rainy night I simply for a moment quite Forgot my early training.

“’Twas rainy and ’twas after eight, I knew that I was out too late, but when your trade’s in such a state You hardly know what cash is, You cannot stop because you get your feet all muddy, cold and wet, I knew I should be ill, and yet,-- My children needed sashes. I shivered with the wet and cold, I counted twenty times all told I’d meant to have my shoes half-soled And still they’d not been cobbled, ‘I’ll certainly,’ I thought, ‘be sick,’--and then from out the darkness thick an ancient woman with a stick In fearsome silence hobbled.

“She was an ancient, crooked crone, an ugly thing of skin and bone, she passed me silent as a stone (I thought it rather funny), But I could hear my children cry, ‘Oh, buy us ribbons, father, buy,’ and stopping her, my blade on high, I shouted, ‘Stand! Your money!’ Ah, that was just where I did make a most unfortunate mistake, for she with mirth began to shake (It made my blood run colder), And up she raised her crooked staff, she gave a most unearthly laugh, a thing I did not like by half, And touched me on the shoulder.

“She stood, she looked me through and through, she said not even ‘How d’ye do,’ she merely gave a laugh or two, And munched her gums together: A witch, a sorceress of the wood! I nearly fainted where I stood, I really truly think you could Have felled me with a feather. A witch, as sure, as sure could be! You see what she has done to me! And all because I carelessly Forgot my early training. From which you learn this lesson true, that it will never, never do to speak before you’re spoken to Or stay out when it’s raining.”

The voice stopped, and the wasp flew off, directly before my nose, as if leading me away.

_“Why, dear me!” interrupted the Queen. “I believe this wasp was nothing more nor less than a Highwayman.”_

_“What I don’t understand is,” said the King, “how a Highwayman could have learned to make up verses.”_

_“In the Forest of Wen, your majesty,” said Solario, “the Highwaymen always talked in that fashion. It was their regular custom. I am told that no Highwayman could get his certificate until he had passed an examination in arithmetic, swordplay, and composition; and of course composition included verse making.”_

_“Well,” said the King, “I don’t see what that had to do with making a good Highwayman of him; but then I don’t pretend to understand these notions about education. As far as I’m concerned, if I had to pass an examination in arithmetic in order to be a King, I’d simply have to look about for something else to do. I never could see the sense in teaching a King arithmetic, and I don’t see the sense in teaching a Highwayman how to make verses. I know it’s done in some places; it’s gotten to be quite the thing, I understand that perfectly well; but I don’t see any sense in it.”_

_“My dear,” said the Queen, “you mustn’t forget that a Highwayman has to know a great deal more than a King. It’s so very much harder to be a good Highwayman. But I don’t think I should like to be married to one.”_

_“This one was a widower, evidently,” said the King. “I know I shouldn’t like to be a widower with ten daughters on my hands. I don’t see how any human being could keep ten daughters in ribbons and--”_

_“When Dorobel was little,” said the Queen, “I always had the most terrible time to make her remember that she mustn’t speak until she was spoken to. I don’t wonder the poor man forgot it, when he was so worried about sashes for his dear children,--and out so late at night, and in the rain, too!”_

_“Why don’t you let the man go on with his story?” said the King. “We’ll_ never _get to bed at this rate. Solario, be kind enough to proceed.”_

The wasp flew off (said the King of Wen), directly before my nose, as if leading me away; and I followed him down the road.

We had gone about a mile, when the wasp turned off into the forest. I hesitated a moment, but I was curious to know what this unfortunate Highwayman intended, and I pushed on after him into a portion of the forest which was wilder and gloomier than any I had yet seen. The branches of the trees hung low, and the ground was thick with underbrush; I had to part the bushes and branches with my hands in order to get through.

The wasp flew within a foot of my nose, and I kept on after him thus for more than half an hour. He seemed to know the way, but for my part I began to wonder whether I should ever be able to find my way back. Suddenly he flew off, and I saw him no more.

_The Prince, Alone in the Forest, Hears the Bark of a Dog_

I was at this moment in an uncommonly thick part of the forest. The trees were perhaps less close, but the underbrush was taller; so tall that I could not see through. I stopped for a moment, and listened. All was still. Not a bird twittered among the leaves overhead. I was vexed that I had allowed myself to be drawn upon such a wild-goose chase, and I decided that I had better begin to make my way back to the road; and as I was considering this, I heard the bark of a dog.

It was a single, sharp bark, and it stopped abruptly, as if a hand had been clapped over the animal’s mouth. I listened again, but it came no more. “What should a dog be doing here?” I thought; and full of curiosity I pushed on through the underbrush in the direction of the sound. In a moment I had broken through the tanglewood, and I was standing at the edge of a clearing, in the midst of which was a little house.

It was a very tiny house indeed,--not much more, in fact, than a hut. Its door was closed, and the window beside the door was barred with shutters. I listened intently, thinking to hear again the bark of a dog, but I heard nothing. Evidently the place was deserted.