Part 6

In due time we made our way to the city of Fadz on the seacoast, where we took ship for Oogh; and for some two weeks we sailed the Great Sea with favorable winds. At the end of that time we were blown out of our course by storms, and took shelter in the Island Kingdom, at a port called Ventamere, whence we visited the kingdom’s capital city, and arrived there in time to witness, as the King’s guests, the marriage of his daughter the Princess Hyla to one Alb, a goldsmith’s son, a youth of exceedingly cheerful and engaging manners. This ceremony over, we returned to Ventamere, and there took ship once more for Oogh.

No further accident delayed us, and after a week we sighted that part of the mainland which my father had described to me. At my direction we were put ashore, my daughter and myself, at a point where, as I knew, I should find the road to Oogh.

Leaving orders for the ship to ride at a safe distance from shore against our return, we turned our faces inland; but before going further, I darkened my face, neck, and hands with walnut juice, and dressed myself in patched and threadbare clothing. I put on my magic doublet, but concealed it beneath a rude blue smock. I tried to persuade my daughter to darken her face also, but she positively refused to ruin her complexion, as she expressed it, and I now regretted bitterly that I had brought her with me. I was able to persuade her, however, to put on a coarse and tattered gown, but she did it very unwillingly. I had provided myself with some trinkets of silver, odds and ends of lace and silk, and children’s toys, and these I now slung on my back in a pack. Thus, in the character of a peddler and his daughter, we set forth upon the road to Oogh.

_A Strange Encounter at a Wayside Well_

Late in the afternoon we saw before us the roofs of the city, and at the end of the road a gate in the city wall. At the same time we perceived, in a clump of trees, a wayside well, and we were hastening toward it, being tired and thirsty, when we heard a voice in that direction, which was exclaiming angrily:

“There! Take that! I hate you, I hate you! Oh, if I could never see you again!”

Hearing no reply to this outburst, and wondering who it was that could take such language in silence, we hurried forward, and saw, standing beside the well, under the trees, a boy and no one else; a boy of some twelve years of age, dressed in a gorgeous robe of pale yellow silk; a singularly beautiful boy, with great dark eyes and curly dark hair, but a face extremely pallid and stained with tears; a face, in fact, the saddest I had ever seen in a child. He was picking up from the wet ground beside the well handfuls of mud, and spattering his silk robe with it; and as we arrived he tore from his head a cap of spotless white velvet and stamped it into the mud, crying out, “I won’t wear you any more, I won’t! I hate you!” And then he burst into tears and flung himself full length on his face in the mud, beating the ground with his hands and muttering brokenly to himself.

We paused in astonishment, but my daughter, recovering herself quickly, ran to him and put her hand on his shoulder. He sat up, startled. He rose to his feet timidly, and gazed at us with big round eyes, trying to choke back his sobs. He was mud from head to foot, and his gorgeous robe was ruined.

My daughter coaxed him to tell her what was the matter, but he made no answer; instead, he pulled off the ruined robe and flung it in the mud, and standing in his shirt and breeches stamped upon it and burst into tears again, and cried, “I won’t wear it! I want to be poor! I want to be like the others! Oh, the wicked Eyebrow! Why can’t he be good like the others? Oh, if I could only cut off the Eyebrow and make him poor and good like the others!”

My daughter took his hand and begged him to tell her his trouble, but all he would say was, “He’s wicked, and I want him to be good like the others! And to-night he’s going to give the Blind Bowler to Goolk the Spider, and I can’t stop him, I can’t stop him!” And he broke into a fresh storm of sobbing.

My daughter shook her head at me pityingly.

“We are very sorry, my lad,” said I, “and I ask you to trust us. We are going into the city, and perhaps when you know us better you will tell us all about it. We should like to help you. Will you come with us?”

“What can a peddler do against the Eyebrow?” said the boy,--but he dried his tears, and allowed my daughter to lead him forth by the hand into the road.

We could make nothing of the boy’s wild talk, but we went onward without questioning him further, and drew near to the city in silence. Beside the city gate, under the wall, a crowd of idle people were gathered, and from the center of the group we could hear voices singing together hoarsely. In a few minutes we were in the midst of the crowd, and saw what it was the idlers were looking at.

_The Three Blind Ballad Singers_

Three blind men were singing a comic ballad in loud voices, and prancing up and down in time, with such antics that the crowd roared with delight. Each of the three held in his hand a sheaf of papers,--ballads, undoubtedly, intended for sale to the onlookers. Suddenly they stopped, each with a hand at his ear, and looked up at the sky as if listening.

“Is there a stranger here?” cried one of them.

“A peddler and a maid!” shouted one of the crowd. “All tattered and torn!”

“With eyebrows?” cried the ballad singer.

“Yes! yes!” said several of the crowd together.

I did not like this sort of attention very well, and I was about to draw my daughter away, when the ballad singers faced with one accord in my direction and began to cry, “Buy our ballads! Ho, master Eyebrows! Buy our ballads! Welcome to Oogh, master Eyebrows!”

The faces and heads of these three fellows were covered with black hair; but I now noticed that not one of them had the vestige of an eyebrow; and I observed further that there was not an eyebrow amongst all the crowd, with the exception only of the boy at my side; and as to him, the people, when they saw him, suddenly fell silent, and backed away from him with something like fear in their eyes. The boy observed it, as I could see, and looked as if he were going to cry again.

“What do we say, brothers,” shouted one of the ballad singers, “what do we say to the damsel in the tattered gown? Shall one of us marry the tattered damsel? Oh, yes, oh, yes! Tra la, tra la,--”

He paused, as if waiting for a laugh; but the crowd did not laugh any more, and my daughter was herself in fact the only one who seemed to be amused. As for myself, I was beginning to be angry.

“We’ll marry the Lady Tatters!” cried the blind man. “O-o-oh!” And he burst into a loud song, in which the other two joined, all three prancing up and down meanwhile in a ridiculous dance. So far as I can recollect it, their song went something like this:

“O Lady Tatters! O Lady Tatters! We scorn the fellow who basely flatters, But we can’t help saying that nobody matters But you, fair lady, but you, but you! Tra la, tra la, tra la, tra la, We know that it’s generally customary In cases like these to be shy and wary, For often enough in matrimony There’s plenty of gall mixed in with the honey, How true that is! how true! how true! Tra la, tra la, tra la, tra la, But under existing circumstances Every fellow must take some chances, Refusing to bother concerning expenses And other deplorable consequences, Cheerfully scorning each friendly warning,-- How few regard it! how few! how few! Tra la, tra la, tra la, tra la, O Lady Tatters! O Lady Tatters! We’ve duly considered these difficult matters, And now, without any reservation, We’re ready to enter the marriage relation! You’ve only to view our reliable faces And gaze on our truly superlative graces, To note that the suitors by whom you’re attended Come really remarkably well recommended,-- Buy it’s all in the point of view! How true! It’s all in the point of view! Tra la, tra la, tra la, tra la,--”

“Silence, rogues!” I cried, out of all patience at their impudence, but my daughter burst out laughing. It was ever her way to be amused rather than annoyed.

“Master Eyebrows!” shouted the first ballad singer. “Choose one of us for the tattered damsel! What will you take for her? Speak.”

“You shall have the Shears!” shouted the second ballad singer.

“The Shears of Sharpness!” shouted the third.

“See, Eyebrows!” cried the first. “The Shears of Sharpness!”

_The Blind Ballad Singer Displays the Shears of Sharpness_

He drew from under his gown a pair of tailor’s shears, and as he did so the crowd fell back as if in alarm. He stepped toward the city wall, and placed his hand on a flat iron bar, some two or three inches in width, supporting an awning over a booth; and applying his shears to it, he cut it through and through as if it had been paper. I gasped in amazement; never had I seen a pair of shears like those.

“The Shears for the lady!” cried the blind man. “Come, Eyebrows, choose!”

“Impudent rascal,” said I, “the lady is my daughter, and I foresee that a good scourging is awaiting you. Come, Amadore!”

“But buy our ballads!” cried the second ballad singer. “Buy our ballads!” cried the others, and each of the three thrust toward me one of his papers.

I took them, and paying over a few coppers, moved on toward the city gate. “Father!” said Amadore in my ear. “The boy is gone!”

It was true. The boy had slipped away, and was gone. The idlers began to laugh again, and I drew my daughter after me into the city.

In a moment we were standing in a street of shops, and my daughter, laughing again, begged me to read my ballads. I glanced at the sheets, still angry, and was about to toss them away, when I observed that they were blank, or nearly so, and I looked at them more closely.

On the first were written these words, and nothing more: “Hurry. Hurry.”

On the second I found these words only: “The Cobweb Room in the Governor’s Palace.”

On the third were these words only: “The Eyebrows of Babadag the Tailor.”

I stared at my daughter in perplexity; but she urged that these could be no other than messages on behalf of our friend Urban, and that we must find him without a moment’s delay. We walked on briskly, intending to inquire our way to the governor’s palace.

_The Strange Conduct of the People of Oogh_

As we went on, we became aware of a general and oppressive stillness. A few people were in the street, and some could be seen inside the shops; but they conversed in low tones, and they seemed to be idle, indifferent, and listless. Here and there a shopkeeper sat in a chair before his shop, gazing blankly at the opposite wall.

Of the first of these shopkeepers I inquired the direction of the governor’s palace. The man started from his reverie, as if frightened, rose from his chair, stared at me curiously, and without a word went into his shop and closed the door. “Did you see?” said my daughter. “He had no eyebrows.”

At the next corner we came to an open market of stalls, and there I repeated my inquiry. Instead of the usual bustle and clamor of a market, there was the same silence, though the place was thronged with people. I nudged my daughter in surprise, for among all these people there was not an eyebrow. The venders were making no effort, apparently, to sell their wares, and the customers were buying with an air of indifference, as if the business bored them. I began to feel depressed, and even my daughter was sober.

The market man of whom I asked my direction looked anxiously about him before answering, and then whispered hurriedly, “I’ve nothing to do with it. Nothing. How do you come to be wearing eyebrows here?”

Without answering him, I applied at two or three other stalls, but the only result was a shaking of heads and a curious, wide gaze, as of mild alarm. There was nothing to do but to search out unaided the most pretentious house in the city; for such a house, undoubtedly, would be the governor’s residence.

We walked the streets for more than an hour; and everywhere was the same silence, the same listlessness, the same apathy. “I don’t believe,” said my daughter, “that these people have any wills of their own at all.”

“Certainly,” said I, “they have no eyebrows of their own, at least. Except for the boy who ran away from us, I haven’t seen an eyebrow in the city. It seems strange.”

_The Mansion in the Ruined Park_

We ascended a hill, and came to a park gate, at a point from which we could see the entire city below us. Through the gate, across the park, we saw a residence more imposing than any we had yet seen. The gate hung wide open on broken hinges, and the park within was in a state of ruin.

“This must be it,” said my daughter.

“It seems unlikely,” said I, “but we will soon know.”

We made our way across the park, through tall weeds and tangled brambles, and stood before a splendid but gloomy mansion. The door was swinging open, and we entered.

All was silent within. A sense of calamity seemed to pervade the place; plainly it was deserted. We walked on through spacious apartments, and everywhere was furniture of the richest description, but covered with dust and hung with cobwebs. We stopped finally, far within, before a door which appeared to lead outside.

“It is no use,” said I. “Our friend is gone, if he was ever here, and we must seek him elsewhere.”

“No, no,” said my daughter. “We must find the Cobweb Room.”

She led the way out into an open court green with moss and weeds, in the center of which was a fountain with a dry and littered basin beneath it. I stopped suddenly, and listened. “Hark!” said I. From a distance came, or seemed to come, the voices of the three blind ballad singers, shouting out some ribald ballad. My daughter smiled, and I called out, “Urban!” The singing ceased, and there was no response to my cry. “Come,” said my daughter, and led me around the dry fountain to an alley of cypress trees which opened toward a section of the mansion beyond the court.

An open door at the end of this alley admitted us to a circular chamber, very lofty, evidently an audience room, deserted like the rest, on one side of which, on a daïs, stood a marble seat with arms, covered with cobwebs.

“Ah! Look!” said my daughter, and pointed to an open doorway on the opposite side of the room.

_The Solitary Figure Behind the Spider’s Web_

The doorway was barred from top to bottom and from side to side with a single monstrous spider’s web. We stood before it and looked through. Seated beside a table in a little room with a high window barred likewise with a cobweb was the figure of our friend, the governor of Oogh.

His head was resting mournfully on his hand, and he was staring vacantly at the floor. His hair was long and powdered with dust; his beard had grown to a great length; but he had no eyebrows. His hands and clothing were white with dust, and there was around his neck, in striking contrast, a gold chain, of very fine gold and delicate workmanship.

“Urban!” I cried. “We are here!”

He did not move. I called his name again, but he seemed not to hear. He did not move nor speak. I pushed briskly against the cobweb, but it held like wire; I could not break through, though I dashed against it with all my strength. I tried to cut it with a sharp knife which I wore under my smock, but it was no use; the cobweb held, and the blade was broken.

We remained for a moment, peering in at our friend, uncertain what to do. Who could have been the author of this witchery? I remembered the name which had occurred on one of the ballad singers’ sheets. I gave a last look at the silent and motionless figure within, and led my daughter back to the court of the dry fountain. There she sat down on the rim of the empty basin, and looked up at the sky as if listening. A faint sound, as of singing at a distance, seemed to float down to us.

“Just as I thought,” said my daughter. “It will be best for me to remain here. I think some information will come to me here, if I wait. Do you go down into the city, father, and seek what you may find there. I will wait here until you return. Don’t be uneasy, father; I shall not be lonesome.” And she laughed, as if at some joke.

I did not understand her purpose, and I refused to leave her; but she insisted, and I gave in at last. She always had her way.

I left her, and set forth alone to obtain such information as I could. I was passing out through the ruinous gateway into the street, when I heard, or fancied I heard, from the direction of the house, the voices of the three blind ballad singers, in one of their songs; but when I stopped to listen I could hear them no longer, and I concluded that I had been mistaken.

I reached the market place, and stood for a moment behind an awning, debating whether I might put a question regarding Babadag the Tailor. I was still uncertain what to do, when a slight commotion among the people attracted my notice. I looked out from my concealment, and saw, approaching from the next corner, the boy whom I had found beside the wayside well.

_The Prince Watches the People’s Behavior Toward the Boy_

His face was dark with a sort of settled gloom. He walked slowly, and as he came on the people made way for him and stood whispering in groups and glancing at him furtively over their shoulders. He paused at one of the stalls and picking up some dates looked at the vender, timidly and appealingly, as if about to speak; but the vender sidled away from him toward the nearest group, and the boy put down the fruit, sighed, and went on.

He passed the place of my concealment, and by this time tears were beginning to trickle down his cheeks. But he held his head proudly, and looking neither to right nor to left passed out of sight around the next corner.

I followed him, hoping for some light upon the general mystery. I followed him across the city, through many streets, wondering why it was that a boy so gentle and so beautiful should seem to inspire everywhere a kind of mild and listless aversion. At one place a child ran up to him and tugged at his garments, and the boy’s face lighted up with pleasure; but the child’s mother pulled her infant away in a hurry, and the boy went on, more sadly than before.

He came to a street in which, for the space of a single block, the shops and houses were evidently deserted; and in the middle of this block, before a shop with broken windows, deserted apparently like the rest, the boy stopped, and pushing open the front door, went in.

I came up quickly, and peeping in at the same door saw a vacant room within, in which remnants of old merchandise were lying about in disorder, and dirt and refuse lay everywhere on the floor. I went in quietly and crossed the room to a door at the rear, and opening it on a crack saw the boy stooping down in a paved yard. I heard the boy speak, without hearing what he said, and saw him descend by some means into the ground and disappear.

I ran to the spot and knelt down beside an iron grating, some three feet square, which I found there in the pavement. I heard from below a rumble, succeeded by a clatter, and then there was silence. Laying down my pack on the ground I pulled at the grating, and found that it rose on hinges, like a trapdoor. I opened it, and saw beneath it a ladder. I stepped on the top rung, and went down.

_The Man with the Ball in the Underground Alley_

At the bottom I found myself at one end of a dimly lighted room, very long and very narrow, like an enclosed alley; and near by was the boy, and beside him a grown man, both intent on something at the other end of the room. The man was swinging in his right hand a large wooden ball, and as I watched him he cried out, laughing cheerily:

“Never mind, Figli! This time I’ll make a strike! Only forty-seven more to make! Now watch!”

He hurled the ball from him along the floor, and it rolled swiftly to the far end of the room, where it crashed in among ten large wooden bottles, standing upright on the floor. He was playing tenpins.

“Oh!” cried the boy called Figli. “Only seven!”

“Never mind, never mind,” said the Bowler, cheerfully, and ran up the alley and set up the pins, and then ran back with the ball, in great haste. As he came back, he appeared to look directly at me, but gave no sign of having seen me. I scanned his face closely. He was blind. His hair and beard were black, and he had no eyebrows.

The boy flung out his hands as if in despair, and cried:

“It’s no use! You can’t do it! Forty-seven strikes to make by midnight! Oh, he’ll give you to Goolk the Spider! What shall I do? What shall I do?”

“Perhaps I can help you,” said I, coming forward.

The boy sprang up, and the Blind Bowler wheeled round toward me.

“Oh! it’s you,” said the boy named Figli. “What can a peddler do against the Eyebrow?”

“Who is it?” said the Blind Bowler.

“It’s a stranger with eyebrows,” said Figli, “who was kind to me to-day.”

The Blind Bowler sent a ball spinning up the alley, and all the ten pins fell down with a clatter.

“A strike!” cried Figli, joyfully.

“We’ll do it yet!” said the Bowler. “Only forty-six more! Never give up! Keep everlastingly at it, that’s my motto!” And he ran after the ball, set up the pins, and ran back, ready to throw again.

“If he has eyebrows,” said he, panting and wiping his forehead, “he must have a will of his own; and it must be a good will, or else he wouldn’t have been kind to you.”

He rolled the ball again, knocking down only six.

“Better luck next time!” he cried, and darted up the alley. “Never say die, and keep everlastingly at it, that’s the motto!”

“My boy,” said I, “I beg you to trust me, and to tell me who you are, and why--”

“A strike!” cried the Blind Bowler. “Only forty-five to make by midnight! Trust him, Figli! His voice is honest. I think he is the one we have been waiting for. Trust him!”

“It’s hard for me to tell you,” said the boy, “it’s too--”

“I’ll tell you!” cried the Blind Bowler, running down the alley. “His name is Figli Babadag. Does that tell you everything?”

“No, nothing,” said I.

“Eight down that time!” cried the Bowler. “Never say die! He’s the son of Babadag the Tailor. Now do you know?”

“No,” said I.

“Then I must tell you,” said the Blind Bowler. “It is Babadag who rules the city; don’t you know that? Master of black secrets is Babadag, and lord of the Eyebrow; and his anger is terrible. He has put the golden chain about the Governor’s neck and shut him up in the Cobweb Room. He has drawn the wills from out of the brains of all our people, by plucking out their eyebrows, so that in all the city there are but two wills only, one bad and one good: the will of Babadag and the will of his little son. Nine down that time! Never give up!”

“Oh!” cried Figli. “I want my father to be good! I want him to be poor and good like the others! If I could only make him good!”

“Only one way to do that!” said the Blind Bowler, halfway down the alley. “He is lord of the Eyebrow, and in the Eyebrow lies his power. But the hairs of his eyebrows are no ordinary hairs; they are of the family of gray snakes that live in the lake Siskratoum, and there is no one to cut them, even if there were a blade sharp enough; and they must be cut by the hand of love, and there is no one here that loves him, but his son. There is not one but trembles at his name, and even at the name of Figli his son;--there is scarcely one who dares brush against the boy in the street, for fear of what power may lie in the eyebrows of the boy, and for fear of his father’s malice.”

“They won’t speak to me!” cried Figli. “They’re afraid of me! And I’ve done them no harm! I only want to be friends with them!”

“You see he’s all alone. He hates his riches; he wants to be poor and simple, like the others.”

“And what about yourself?” said I.