The E. Nesbit Megapack: 26 Classic Novels and Stories (26 page)

When they got to the Hall of Justice, she caught hold of his hand, and said:

“Oh!” very loud and sudden, “doesn’t it remind you of anything?” she asked.

Philip pulled his hand away and said “No” before he remembered that he had decided not to speak to her. And the “No” was quite untrue, for the building did remind him of something, though he couldn’t have told you what.

The prisoners and their guard passed through a great arch between magnificent silver pillars, and along a vast corridor, lined with soldiers who all saluted.

“Do all sorts of soldiers salute you?” he asked the captain, “or only just your own ones?”

“It’s
you
they’re saluting,” the captain said; “our laws tell us to salute all prisoners out of respect for their misfortunes.”

The judge sat on a high bronze throne with colossal bronze dragons on each side of it, and wide shallow steps of ivory, black and white.

Two attendants spread a round mat on the top of the steps in front of the judge—a yellow mat it was, and very thick, and he stood up and saluted the prisoners. (“Because of your misfortunes,” the captain whispered.)

The judge wore a bright yellow robe with a green girdle, and he had no wig, but a very odd-shaped hat, which he kept on all the time.

The trial did not last long, and the captain said very little, and the judge still less, while the prisoners were not allowed to speak at all. The judge looked up something in a book, and consulted in a low voice with the crown lawyer and a sour-faced person in black. Then he put on his spectacles and said:

“Prisoners at the bar, you are found guilty of trespass. The punishment is Death—if the judge does not like the prisoners. If he does not dislike them it is imprisonment for life, or until the judge has had time to think it over. Remove the prisoners.”

“Oh,
don’t!
” cried Philip, almost weeping.

“I thought you weren’t afraid,” whispered Lucy.

“Silence in court,” said the judge.

Then Philip and Lucy were removed.

They were marched by streets quite different from those they had come by, and at last in the corner of a square they came to a large house that was quite black.

“Here we are,” said the captain kindly. “Good-bye. Better luck next time.”

The gaoler, a gentleman in black velvet, with a ruff and a pointed beard, came out and welcomed them cordially.

“How do you do, my dears?” he said. “I hope you’ll be comfortable here. First-class misdemeanants, I suppose?” he asked.

“Of course,” said the captain.

“Top floor, if you please,” said the gaoler politely, and stood back to let the children pass. “Turn to the left and up the stairs.”

The stairs were dark and went on and on, and round and round, and up and up. At the very top was a big room, simply furnished with a table, chairs, and a rocking-horse. Who wants more furniture than that?

“You’ve got the best view in the whole city,” said the gaoler, “and you’ll be company for me. What? They gave me the post of gaoler because it’s nice, light, gentlemanly work, and leaves me time for my writing. I’m a literary man, you know. But I’ve sometimes found it a trifle lonely. You’re the first prisoners I’ve ever had, you see. If you’ll excuse me I’ll go and order some dinner for you. You’ll be contented with the feast of reason and the flow of soul, I feel certain.”

The moment the door had closed on the gaoler’s black back Philip turned on Lucy.

“I hope you’re satisfied,” he said bitterly. “This is all
your
doing. They’d have let me off if you hadn’t been here. What on earth did you want to come here for? Why did you come running after me like that? You know I don’t like you?”

“You’re the hatefullest, disagreeablest, horridest boy in all the world,” said Lucy firmly—“there!”

Philip had not expected this. He met it as well as he could.

“I’m not a little sneak of a white mouse squeezing in where I’m not wanted, anyhow,” he said.

And then they stood looking at each other, breathing quickly, both of them.

“I’d rather be a white mouse than a cruel bully,” said Lucy at last.

“I’m not a bully,” said Philip.

Then there was another silence. Lucy sniffed. Philip looked round the bare room, and suddenly it came to him that he and Lucy were companions in misfortune, no matter whose fault it was that they were imprisoned. So he said:

“Look here, I don’t like you and I shan’t pretend I do. But I’ll call it Pax for the present if you like. We’ve got to escape from this place somehow, and I’ll help you if you like, and you may help me if you can.”

“Thank you,” said Lucy, in a tone which might have meant anything.

“So we’ll call it Pax and see if we can escape by the window. There might be ivy—or a faithful page with a rope ladder. Have you a page at the Grange?”

“There’s two stable-boys,” said Lucy, “but I don’t think they’re faithful, and I say, I think all this is much more magic than you think.”

“Of course I know it’s magic,” said he impatiently; “but it’s quite real too.”

“Oh, it’s real enough,” said she.

They leaned out of the window. Alas, there was no ivy. Their window was very high up, and the wall outside, when they touched it with their hand, felt smooth as glass.

“
That’s
no go,” said he, and the two leaned still farther out of the window looking down on the town. There were strong towers and fine minarets and palaces, the palm trees and fountains and gardens. A white building across the square looked strangely familiar. Could it be like St. Paul’s which Philip had been taken to see when he was very little, and which he had never been able to remember? No, he could not remember it even now. The two prisoners looked out in a long silence. Far below lay the city, its trees softly waving in the breeze, flowers shining in a bright many-coloured patchwork, the canals that intersected the big squares gleamed in the sunlight, and crossing and recrossing the squares and streets were the people of the town, coming and going about their business.

“Look here!” said Lucy suddenly, “do you mean to say you don’t know?”

“Know what?” he asked impatiently.

“Where we are. What it is. Don’t you?”

“No. No more do you.”

“Haven’t you seen it all before?”

“No, of course I haven’t. No more have you.”

“All right. I
have
seen it before though,” said Lucy, “and so have you. But I shan’t tell you what it is unless you’ll be nice to me.” Her tone was a little sad, but quite firm.

“I
am
nice to you. I told you it was Pax,” said Philip. “Tell me what you think it is.”

“I don’t mean that sort of grandish standoffish Pax, but real Pax. Oh, don’t be so horrid, Philip. I’m dying to tell you—but I won’t if you go on being like you are.”

“
I’m
all right,” said Philip; “out with it.”

“No. You’ve got to say it’s Pax, and I will stand by you till we get out of this, and I’ll always act like a noble friend to you, and I’ll try my best to like you. Of course if you can’t like me you can’t, but you ought to try. Say it after me, won’t you?”

Her tone was so kind and persuading that he found himself saying after her, “I, Philip, agree to try and like you, Lucy, and to stand by you till we’re out of this, and always to act the part of a noble friend to you. And it’s real Pax. Shake hands.”

“Now then,” said he when they had shaken hands, and Lucy uttered these words:

“Don’t you see? It’s your own city that we’re in, your own city that you built on the tables in the drawing-room? It’s all got big by magic, so that we could get in. Look,” she pointed out of the window, “see that great golden dome, that’s one of the brass finger-bowls, and that white building’s my old model of St. Paul’s. And there’s Buckingham Palace over there, with the carved squirrel on the top, and the chessmen, and the blue and white china pepper-pots; and the building we’re in is the black Japanese cabinet.”

Philip looked and he saw that what she said was true. It
was
his city.

“But I didn’t build insides to my buildings,” said he; “and when did
you
see what I built anyway?”

“The insides are part of the magic, I suppose,” Lucy said; “and I saw the cities you built when Auntie brought me home last night, after you’d been sent to bed. And I did love them. And oh, Philip, I’m so glad it’s Pax because I do think you’re so
frightfully
clever, and Auntie thought so too, building those beautiful things. And I knew nurse was going to pull it all down. I begged her not to, but she was addymant, and so I got up and dressed and came down to have another look by moonlight. And one or two of the bricks and chessmen had fallen down. I expect nurse knocked them down. So I built them up again as well as I could—and I was loving it all like anything; and then the door opened and I hid under the table, and you came in.”

“Then you were there—did you notice how the magic began?”

“No, but it all changed to grass; and then I saw you a long way off, going up a ladder. And so I went after you. But I didn’t let you see me. I knew you’d be so cross. And then I looked in at the guard-room door, and I did so want some of the cocoa-nut milk.”

“When did you find out it was
my
city?”

“I thought the soldiers looked like my lead ones somehow. But I wasn’t sure till I saw the judge. Why he’s just old Noah, out of the Ark.”

“So he is,” cried Philip; “how wonderful! How perfectly wonderful! I wish we weren’t prisoners. Wouldn’t it be jolly to go all over it—into all the buildings, to see what the insides of them have turned into? And all the other people. I didn’t put
them
in.”

“That’s more magic, I expect. But—Oh, we shall find it all out in time.”

She clapped her hands. And on the instant the door opened and the gaoler appeared.

“A visitor for you,” he said, and stood aside to let some one else come in, some one tall and thin, with a black hooded cloak and a black half-mask, such as people wear at carnival time.

When the gaoler had shut the door and gone away the tall figure took off its mask and let fall its cloak, showing to the surprised but recognising eyes of the children the well-known shape of Mr. Noah—the judge.

“How do you do?” he said. “This is a little unofficial visit. I hope I haven’t come at an inconvenient time.”

“We’re very glad,” said Lucy, “because you can tell us—”

“I won’t answer questions,” said Mr. Noah, sitting down stiffly on his yellow mat, “but I will tell you something. We don’t know who you are. But I myself think that you may be the Deliverer.”

“Both of us,” said Philip jealously.

“One or both. You see the prophecy says that the Destroyer’s hair is red. And your hair is not red. But before I could get the populace to feel sure of, that my own hair would be grey with thought and argument. Some people are so wooden-headed. And I am not used to thinking. I don’t often have to do it. It distresses me.”

The children said they were sorry. Philip added:

“Do tell us a little about your city. It isn’t a question. We want to know if it’s magic. That isn’t a question either.”

“I was about to tell you,” said Mr. Noah, “and I will not answer questions. Of course it is magic. Everything in the world is magic, until you understand it.

“And as to the city. I will just tell you a little of our history. Many thousand years ago all the cities of our country were built by a great and powerful giant, who brought the materials from far and wide. The place was peopled partly by persons of his choice, and partly by a sort of self-acting magic rather difficult to explain. As soon as the cities were built and the inhabitants placed here the life of the city began, and it was, to those who lived it, as though it had always been. The artisans toiled, the musicians played, and the poets sang. The astrologers, finding themselves in a tall tower evidently designed for such a purpose, began to observe the stars and to prophesy.”

“I know that part,” said Philip.

“Very well,” said the judge. “Then you know quite enough. Now I want to ask a little favour of you both. Would you mind escaping?”

“If we only could,” Lucy sighed.

“The strain on my nerves is too much,” said Mr. Noah feelingly. “Escape, my dear children, to please me, a very old man in indifferent health and poor spirits.”

“But how—”

“Oh, you just walk out. You, my boy, can disguise yourself in your dressing-gown which I see has been placed on yonder chair, and I will leave my cloak for you, little girl.”

They both said “Thank you,” and Lucy added: “But
how?
”

“Through the door,” said the judge. “There is a rule about putting prisoners on their honour not to escape, but there have not been any prisoners for so long that I don’t suppose they put you on honour. No? You can just walk out of the door. There are many charitable persons in the city who will help to conceal you. The front-door key turns easily, and I myself will oil it as I go out. Good-bye—thank you so much for falling in with my little idea. Accept an old man’s blessing. Only don’t tell the gaoler. He would never forgive me.”

He got off his mat, rolled it up and went.

“Well!” said Lucy.

“Well!” said Philip.

“I suppose we go?” he said. But Lucy said, “What about the gaoler? Won’t he catch it if we bolt?”

Philip felt this might be true. It was annoying, and as bad as being put on one’s honour.

“Bother!” was what he said.

And then the gaoler came in. He looked pale and worried.

“I am so awfully sorry,” he began. “I thought I should enjoy having you here, but my nerves are all anyhow. The very sound of your voices. I can’t write a line. My brain reels. I wonder whether you’d be good enough to do a little thing for me? Would you mind escaping?”

“But won’t you get into trouble?”

“Nothing could be worse than this,” said the gaoler, with feeling. “I had no idea that children’s voices were so penetrating. Go, go. I implore you to escape. Only don’t tell the judge. I am sure he would never forgive me.”

After that, what prisoner would not immediately have escaped?

The two children only waited till the sound of the gaoler’s keys had died away on the stairs, to open their door, run down the many steps and slip out of the prison gate. They walked a little way in silence. There were plenty of people about, but no one seemed to notice them.

“Which way shall we go?” Lucy asked. “I wish we’d asked him where the Charitables live.”

“I think,” Philip began; but Lucy was not destined to know what he thought.

There was a sudden shout, a clattering of horses’ hoofs, and all the faces in the square turned their way.

“They’ve seen us,” cried Philip. “Run, run, run!”

He himself ran, and he ran toward the gate-house that stood at the top of the ladder stairs by which they had come up, and behind him came the shouting and clatter of hot pursuit. The captain stood in the gateway alone, and just as Philip reached the gate the captain turned into the guard-room and pretended not to see anything. Philip had never run so far or so fast. His breath came in deep sobs; but he reached the ladder and began quickly to go down. It was easier than going up.