The E. Nesbit Megapack: 26 Classic Novels and Stories (37 page)

“And now,” said Mr. Noah, “I beg that anxiety may be dismissed from every mind. If the waters subside, they leave us safe. If they rise, as I confidently expect them to do, our ark will float, and we still are safe. In the morning I will take soundings and begin to steer a course. We will select a suitable spot on the shore, land and proceed to the Hidden Places, where we will consult the oracle. A little refreshment before we retire for what is left of the night? A captain’s biscuit would perhaps not be inappropriate?” He took a tin from a locker and handed it round.

“That’s A1, sir,” said the Lord High Islander, munching. “What a head you have for the right thing.”

“All practice,” said Mr. Noah modestly.

“Thank you,” said Lucy, taking a biscuit; “I wish.…”

The sentence was never finished. With a sickening suddenness the floor of the saloon heaved up under their feet, a roaring surging battering sound broke round them; the saloon tipped over on one side and the whole party was thrown on the pink silk cushions of the long settee. A shudder seemed to run through the ark from end to end, and “What is it? Oh! what is it?” cried Lucy as the ark heeled over the other way and the unfortunate occupants were thrown on to the opposite set of cushions. (It really
was
, now, rather like what you imagine the inside of your Noah’s ark must be when you put in Mr. Noah and his family and a few hastily chosen animals and shake them all up together.)

“It’s the sea,” cried the Lord High Islander; “it’s the great Fear come upon us! And I’m not afraid!” He drew himself up as well as he could in his cramped position, with Mr. Noah’s elbow pinning his shoulder down and Mr. Perrin’s boot on his ear.

With a shake and a shiver the ark righted itself, and the floor of the saloon got flat again.

“It’s all right,” said Mr. Perrin, resuming control of his boot; “good workmanship, it do tell. She ain’t shipped a drop, Mr. Noah, sir.”

“It’s all right,” said Mr. Noah, taking his elbow to himself and standing up rather shakily on his yellow mat.

“We’re afloat, we’re afloat

On the dark rolling tide;

The ark’s water-tight

And the crew are inside.

“Up, up with the flag

Let it wave o’er the sea;

We’re afloat, we’re afloat—

And what else should we be?”

“I don’t know,” said Lucy; “but there isn’t any flag, is there?”

“The principle’s the same,” said Mr. Noah; “but I’m afraid we didn’t think of a flag.”

“
I
did,” said Mr. Perrin; “it’s only a Jubilee hankey”—he drew it slowly from his breast-pocket, a cotton Union Jack it was—“but it shall wave all right. But not till daylight, I think, sir. Discretion’s the better part of—don’t you think, Mr. Noah, sir? Wouldn’t do to open the ark out of hours, so to speak!”

“Just so,” said Mr. Noah. “One, two, three! Bed!”

The ark swayed easily on a sea not too rough. The saloon passengers staggered to their cabins. And silence reigned in the ark.

* * * *

I am sorry to say that the Pretenderette dropped the wicker cage containing the parrot into the sea—an unpardonable piece of cruelty and revenge; unpardonable, that is, unless you consider that she did not really know any better. The Hippogriff’s white wings swept on; Philip, now laid across the knees of the Pretenderette (a most undignified attitude for any boy, and I hope none of you may be placed in such a position), screamed as the cage struck the water, and, “Oh, Polly!” he cried.

“All right,” the parrot answered; “keep your pecker up!”

“What did it say?” the Pretenderette asked.

“Something about peck,” said Philip upside down.

“Ah!” said the Pretenderette with satisfaction, “he won’t do any more pecking for some time to come.” And the wide Hippogriff wings swept on over the wide sea.

Polly’s cage fell and floated. And it floated alone till the dawn, when, with wheelings and waftings and cries, the gulls came from far and near to see what this new strange thing might be that bobbed up and down in their waters in the light of the new-born day.

“Hullo!” said Polly in bird-talk, clinging upside down to the top bars of the cage.

“Hullo, yourself,” replied the eldest gull; “what’s up? And who are you? And what are you doing in that unnatural lobster pot?”

“I conjure you,” said the parrot earnestly, “I conjure you by our common birdhood to help me in my misfortune.”

“No gull who
is
a gull can resist that appeal,” said the master of the sea birds; “what can we do, brother-bird?”

“The matter is urgent,” said Polly, but quite calmly. “I am getting very wet and I dislike salt water. It is bad for my plumage. May I give an order to your followers, bird-brother?”

“Give,” said the master gull, with a graceful wheel and whirl of his splendid wings.

“Let four of my brothers raise this detested trap high above the waves,” said the parrot, “and let others of you, with your brave strong beaks, break through the bars and set me free.”

“Delighted,” said the master gull; “any little thing, you know,” and his own high-bred beak was the first to take hold of the cage, which presently the gulls lifted in the air and broke through, setting the parrot free.

“Thank you, brother-birds,” the parrot said, shaking wet wings and spreading them; “one good turn deserves another. The beach yonder was white with cockles but yesterday.”

“Thank you, brother-bird,” they all said, and flew fleetly cocklewards.

And that was how the parrot got free from the cage and went back to the shore to have that little talk with the blugraiwee which I told you about in the last chapter.

* * * *

The ark was really very pleasant by daylight with the sun shining in at its windows. The sun shone outside as well, of course, and the Union Jack waved cheerfully in the wind. Breakfast was served on the terrace at the end of the ark—you know—that terrace where the boat part turns up. It was a very nice breakfast, and the sea was quite smooth—a quite perfect sea. This was rather fortunate, for there was nothing else. Sea on every side of the ark. No land at all.

“However shall we find the way,” Lucy asked the Lord High Islander, “with nothing but sea?”

“Oh,” he answered, “that’s all the better, really. Mr. Noah steers much better when there’s no land in sight. It’s all practice, you know.”

“And when we come in sight of land, will he steer badly then?”

“
Oh, anybody can steer then,” said Billy; “you if you like.” So it was Lucy who steered the ark into harbour, under Mr. Noah’s directions. Arks are very easy to steer if you only know the way. Of course arks are not like other vessels; they require neither sails nor steam engines, nor oars to make them move. The very arkishness of the ark makes it move just as the steersman wishes. He only has to say “Port,” “Starboard,” “Right ahead,” “Slow” and so on, and the ark (unlike many people I know) immediately does as it is told. So steering was easy and pleasant; one just had to keep the ark’s nose towards the distant domes and pinnacles of a town that shone and glittered on the shore a few miles away. And the town grew nearer and nearer, and the black streak that was the people of the town began to show white dots that were the people’s faces. And then the ark was moored against a quay side, and a friendly populace cheered as Mr. Noah stepped on to firm land, to be welcomed by the governor of the town and a choice selection of eminent citizens.

“It’s quite an event for them,” said Mr. Perrin. “They don’t have much happening here. A very lazy lot they be, almost as bad as Somnolentia.”

“What makes them lazy?” Lucy asked.

“It’s owing to the onions and potatoes growing wild in these parts, I believe,” said the Lord High Islander. “They get enough to eat without working. And the onions make them sleepy.”

They talked apart while Mr. Noah was arranging things with the Governor of the town, who had come down to the harbour in a hurry and a flurry and a furry gown.

“I’ve arranged everything,” said Mr. Noah at last. “The islanders and the M.A.’s and the animals are to be allowed to camp in the public park till we’ve consulted the oracle and decided what’s to be done with them. They must live somewhere, I suppose. Life has become much too eventful for me lately. However there are only three more deeds for the Earl of Ark to do, and then perhaps we shall have a little peace and quietness.”

“The Earl of Ark?” Lucy repeated.

“Philip, you know. I do wish you’d try to remember that he’s an earl now. Now you and I must take camel and be off.”

And now came seven long days of camel travelling, through desert and forest and over hill and through valley, till at last Lucy and Mr. Noah came to the Hidden Place where the oracle is, and where that is I may not tell you—because it’s one of the eleven mysteries. And I must not tell you what the oracle is because that is another of the mysteries. But I may tell you that if you want to consult the oracle you have to go a long way between rows of round pillars, rather like those in Egyptian tombs. And as you go it gets darker and darker, and when it is quite dark you see a little, little light a very long way off, and you hear very far away, a beautiful music, and you smell the scent of flowers that do not grow in any wood or field or garden of this earth. Mixed with this scent is the scent of incense and of old tapestried rooms, where no one has lived for a very long time. And you remember all the sad and beautiful things you have ever seen or heard, and you fall down on the ground and hide your face in your hands and call on the oracle, and if you are the right sort of person the oracle answers you.

Lucy and Mr. Noah waited in the dark for the voice of the oracle, and at last it spoke. Lucy heard no words, only the most beautiful voice in the world speaking softly, and so sweetly and finely and bravely that at once she felt herself brave enough to dare any danger, and strong enough to do any deed that might be needed to get Philip out of the clutches of the base Pretenderette. All the tiredness of her long journey faded away, and but for the thought that Philip needed her, she would have been content to listen for ever to that golden voice. Everything else in the world faded away and grew to seem worthless and unmeaning. Only the soft golden voice remained and the grey hard voice that said, “You’ve got to look after Philip, you know!” And the two voices together made a harmony more beautiful than you will find in any of Beethoven’s sonatas. Because Lucy knew that she should follow the grey voice, and remember the golden voice as long as she lived.

But something was tiresomely pulling at her sleeve, dragging her away from the wonderful golden voice. Mr. Noah was pulling her sleeve and saying, “Come away,” and they turned their backs on the little light and the music and the enchanting perfumes, and instantly the voice stopped and they were walking between dusky pillars towards a far grey speck of sunlight.

It was not till they were once more under the bare sky that Lucy said:

“What did it say?”

“You must have heard,” said Mr. Noah.

“I only heard the voice and what it meant. I didn’t understand the words. But the voice was like dreams and everything beautiful I’ve ever thought of.”

“I thought it a wonderfully straight-forward business-like oracle,” said Mr. Noah briskly; “and the voice was quite distinct and I remember every word it said.”

(Which just shows how differently the same thing may strike two people.)

“What did it say?” Lucy asked, trotting along beside him, still clutching Philip’s bundle, which through all these days she had never let go.

And Mr. Noah gravely recited the following lines. I agree with him that, for an oracle, they were extremely straightforward.

“You had better embark

Once again in the Ark,

And sailing from dry land

Make straight for the Island.”

“Did it really say that?” Lucy asked.

“Of course it did,” said Mr. Noah; “that’s a special instruction to me, but I daresay you heard something quite different. The oracle doesn’t say the same thing to every one, of course. Didn’t you get any special instruction?”

“Only to try to be brave and good,” said Lucy shyly.

“Well, then,” said Mr. Noah, “you carry out your instructions and I’ll carry out mine.”

“But what’s the use of going to the island if you can’t land when you get there?” Lucy
insisted. “You know only two people can land there, and we’re not them, are we?”

“Oh, if you begin asking what’s the use, we shan’t get anywhere,” said Mr. Noah. “And more than half the things you say are questions.”

* * * *

I’m sorry this chapter is cut up into bits with lines of stars, but stars are difficult to avoid when you have to tell about a lot of different things happening all at once. That is why it is much better always to keep your party together if you can. And I have allowed mine to get separated so that Philip, the parrot and the rest of the company are going through three sets of adventures all at the same time. This is most trying for me, and fully accounts for the stars. Which I hope you’ll excuse. However.

We now come back by way of the stars to Philip wrong way up in the clutches of the Pretenderette. She had breathed the magic word in the Hippogriff’s ear, but she had not added any special order. So the Hippogriff was entirely its own master as far as the choice of where it was to go was concerned. It tossed its white mane after circling three times between air and sky, made straight for the Island-where-you-mayn’t-go. The Pretender
tte didn’t know that it was the Island-where-you-mayn’t-go, and as they got nearer and she could see plainly its rainbow-coloured sands, its palms and its waterfalls, its cool green thickets and many tinted flowers and glowing fruits, it seemed to her that she might do worse than land there and rest for a little while. For even the most disagreeable people get tired sometimes, and the Pretenderette had had a hard day of it. So she made no attempt to check the Hippogriff or alter its course. And when the Hippogriff was hovering but a few inches from the grass of the most beautiful of the island glades, she jerked Philip roughly off her knee and he fell all in a heap on the ground. With great presence of mind our hero—if he isn’t a hero by now he never will be—picked himself up and bolted into the bushes. No rabbit could have bolted more instantly and fleetly.

“I’ll teach you,” said the furious Pretenderette, preparing to alight. She looked down to find a soft place to jump on. And then she saw that every blade of grass was a tiny spear of steel, and every spear was pointed at her. She made the Hippogriff take her to another glade—more little steel spears. To the rainbow sands—but on looking at them she saw that they were quivering quicksands. Wherever green grass had grown the spears now grew; and wherever the sand was it was a terrible trap of quicksand. She tried to dismount in a little pool, but fortunately for her she noticed in time that what shone in it so silvery was not water but white-hot molten metal.