Wet Magic · Chapter 7 (2/2)

“Perhaps burglars will break in and read it,” suggested Reuben kindly. “Anyhow, what’s the use of kicking up a shine about it? I can’t see what you want to go back for. It’s a little bit of all right here, so it is⁠—I don’t think. Plucky sight better than anything I ever come across. I’m a-goin’ to enjoy myself I am, and see all the sights. Miss, there, said we might.”

“Well spoken indeed,” said Maia, smiling at his earnest face. “That is the true spirit of the explorer.”

“But we’re not explorers,” said Mavis, a little crossly, for her; “and we’re not so selfish as you think, either. Mother will be awfully frightened if we’re not home to tea. She’ll think we’re drowned.”

“Well, you are drowned,” said Maia brightly. “At least that’s what I believe you land people call it when you come down to us and neglect to arrange to have the spell of return said for you.”

“How horrible,” said Mavis. “Oh, Cathay,” and she clutched her sister tightly.

“But you needn’t stay drowned,” said the Princess. “Someone’s sure to say the spell somehow or other. I assure you that this is true; and then you will go home with the speed of an eel.”

They felt, somehow, in their bones that this was true, and it consoled them a little. Things which you feel in your bones are most convincing.

“But Mother,” said Mavis.

“You don’t seem to know much about magic,” said Maia pityingly: “the first principle of magic is that time spent in other worlds doesn’t count in your own home. No, I see you don’t understand. In your home it’s still the same time as it was when you dived into the well in the cave.”

“But that’s hours ago,” said Bernard; and she answered:

“I know. But your time is not like our time at all.”

“What’s the difference?”

“I can’t explain,” said the Princess. “You can’t compare them any more than you can compare a starlight and a starfish. They’re quite, quite different. But the really important thing is that your Mother won’t be anxious. So now why not enjoy yourselves?”

And all this time the other Princess had been holding up the jar which was the source of all the rivers in all the world.

“Won’t she be very tired?” asked Reuben.

“Yes, but suppose all the rivers dried up⁠—and she had to know how people were suffering⁠—that would be something much harder to bear than tiredness. Look in the pool and see what she is doing for the world.”

They looked, and it was like a colored cinematograph; and the pictures melted into one another like the old dissolving views that children used to love so before cinematographs were thought of.

They saw the Red Indians building their wigwams by the great rivers⁠—and the beavers building their dams across the little rivers; they saw brown men setting their fish traps by the Nile, and brown girls sending out little golden-lighted love-ships on the Ganges. They saw the stormy splendor of the St. Lawrence, and the Medway’s pastoral peace. Little streams dappled with sunlight and the shadow of green leaves, and the dark and secret torrents that tear through the underworld in caverns and hidden places. They saw women washing clothes in the Seine, and boys sailing boats on the Serpentine. Naked savages dancing in masks beside tropical streams overshadowed by strange trees and flowers that we do not know⁠—and men in flannels and girls in pink and blue, punting in the backwaters of the Thames. They saw Niagara and the Zambesi Falls; and all the time the surface of the pool was smooth as a mirror and the arched stream that was the source of all they saw poured ceaselessly over their heads and fell splashing softly into its little marble channel.

I don’t know how long they would have stayed leaning their elbows on the cool parapet and looking down on the changing pictures, but suddenly a trumpet sounded, drums beat, and everyone looked up.

“It’s for the review,” said Maia, through the rattle of the drums. “Do you care for soldiers?”

“Rather,” said Bernard, “but I didn’t know you had soldiers.”

“We’re very proud of our troops,” said the Princess. “I am Colonel of the Lobster Battalion, and my sister commands the Crustacean Brigade; but we’re not going on parade today.”

The sound of drums was drawing nearer. “This way to the parade ground,” said the Princess, leading the way. They looked at the review through a big arch, and it was like looking into a very big aquarium.

The first regiment they saw was, as it happened, the 23rd Lobsters.

If you can imagine a Lobster as big as a Guardsman, and rather stouter, you will have some idea of the splendid appearance of this regiment. Only don’t forget that Lobsters in their natural regimentals are not red. They wear a sort of steel-blue armor, and carry arms of dreadful precision. They are terrible fellows, the 23rd, and they marched with an air at once proud and confident.

Then came the 16th Swordfish⁠—in uniform of delicate silver, their drawn swords displayed.

The Queen’s Own Gurnards were magnificent in pink and silver, with real helmets and spiked collars; and the Boy Scouts⁠—“The Sea Urchins” as they were familiarly called⁠—were the last of the infantry.

Then came Mermen, mounted on Dolphins and Sea Horses, and the Cetacean Regiments, riding on their whales. Each whale carried a squadron.

“They look like great trams going by,” said Francis. And so they did. The children remarked that while the infantry walked upright like any other foot soldiers, the cavalry troops seemed to be, with their mounts, suspended in the air about a foot from the ground.

“And that shows it’s water,” said Bernard.

“No, it doesn’t,” said Francis.

“Well, a whale’s not a bird,” said Bernard.

“And there are other things besides air and water,” said Francis.

The Household Brigade was perhaps the handsomest. The Grand Salmoner led his silvery soldiers, and the 100th Halibuts were evidently the sort of troops to make the foes of anywhere “feel sorry they were born.”

It was a glorious review, and when it was over the children found that they had been quite forgetting their desire to get home.

But as the back of the last Halibut vanished behind the seaweed trees the desire came back with full force. Princess Maia had disappeared. Their own Princess was, they supposed, still performing her source-service.

Suddenly everything seemed to have grown tiresome.

“Oh, I do wish we could go home,” said Kathleen. “Couldn’t we just find the door and go out?”

“We might look for the door,” said Bernard cautiously, “but I don’t see how we could get up into the cave again.”

“We can swim all right, you know,” Mavis reminded them.

“I think it would be pretty low down to go without saying goodbye to the Princesses,” said Francis. “Still, there’s no harm in looking for the door.”

They did look for the door. And they did not find it. What they did find was a wall⁠—a great gray wall built of solid stones⁠—above it nothing could be seen but blue sky.

“I do wonder what’s on the other side,” said Bernard; and someone, I will not say which, said: “Let’s climb up and see.”

It was easy to climb up, for the big stones had rough edges and so did not fit very closely, and there was room for a toe here and a hand there. In a minute or two they were all up, but they could not see down on the other side because the wall was about eight feet thick. They walked toward the other edge, and still they could not see down; quite close to the edge, and still no seeing.

“It isn’t sky at all,” said Bernard suddenly. “It’s a sort of dome⁠—tin I shouldn’t wonder, painted to look like sky.”

“It can’t be,” said someone.

“It is though,” said Bernard.

“There couldn’t be one so big,” said someone else.

“But there is,” said Bernard.

And then someone⁠—I will not tell you who⁠—put out a hand, and, quite forgetting the Princess’s warning, touched the sky. That hand felt something as faint and thin as a bubble⁠—and instantly this something broke, and the sea came pouring into the Mer-people’s country.

“Now you’ve done it,” said one of those whose hand it wasn’t. And there was no doubt about it; the person who owned the hand had done it⁠—and done it very thoroughly. It was plain enough now that what they had been living in was not water, and that this was. The first rush of it was terrible⁠—but in less than a moment the whole kingdom was flooded, and then the water became clear and quiet.

The children found no difficulty in breathing, and it was as easy to walk as it is on land in a high wind. They could not run, but they walked as fast as they could to the place where they had left the Princess pouring out the water for all the rivers in all the world.

And as they went, one of them said, “Oh don’t, don’t tell it was me. You don’t know what punishments they may have here.”

The others said of course they wouldn’t tell. But the one who had touched the sky felt that it was despised and disgraced.

They found the pedestal, but what had been the pool was only part of the enormous sea, and so was the little marble channel.

The Princess was not there, and they began to look for her, more and more anxious and wretched.

“It’s all your fault,” said Francis to the guilty one who had broken the sky by touching it; and Bernard said, “You shut up, can’t you?”

It was a long time before they found their Princess, and when they did find her they hardly knew her. She came swimming toward them, and she was wearing her tail, and a cuirass and helmet of the most beautiful mother-of-pearl⁠—thin scales of it overlapping; and the crest on her helmet was one great pearl, as big as a billiard ball. She carried something over her arm.

“Here you are,” she said. “I’ve been looking for you. The future is full of danger. The water has got in.”

“Yes, we noticed that,” said Bernard.

And Mavis said: “Please, it was us. We touched the sky.”

“Will they punish us?” asked Cathay.

“There are no punishments here,” said the pearly Princess gravely, “only the consequences of your action. Our great defense against the Under Folk is that thin blue dome which you have broken. It can only be broken from the inside. Our enemies were powerless to destroy it. But now they may attack us at any moment. I am going to command my troops. Will you come too?”

“Rather,” said Reuben, and the others, somewhat less cordially, agreed. They cheered up a little when the Princess went on.

“It’s the only way to make you safe. There are four posts vacant on my staff, and I have brought you the uniforms that go with the appointments.” She unfolded five tails, and four little pearly coats like her own, with round pearls for buttons, pearls as big as marbles. “Put these on quickly,” she said, “they are enchanted coats, given by Neptune himself to an ancestor of ours. By pressing the third button from the top you can render yourself invisible. The third button below that will make you visible again when you wish it, and the last button of all will enable you to become intangible as well as invisible.”

“Intangible?” said Cathay.

“Unfeelable, so you’re quite safe.”

“But there are only four coats,” said Francis. “That is so,” said the Princess. “One of you will have to take its chance with the Boy Scouts. Which is it to be?”

Each of the children always said, and thought that it meant to say “I will,” but somehow or other the person who spoke first was Reuben. The instant the Princess had said “be,” Reuben shouted: “Me,” adding however almost at once, “please.”

“Right,” said the Princess kindly, “off with you! The Sea Urchins’ barracks are behind that rock. Off with you! Here, don’t forget your tail. It enables you to be as comfortable in the water as any fish.”

Reuben took the tail and hastened away.

“Now,” said the Princess. And they all began putting on their tails. It was like putting both your feet into a very large stocking. Then came the mail coats.

“Don’t we have swords?” Francis asked, looking down at his slim and silvery extremity.

“Swords? In the Crustacean Brigade? Never forget, children, that you belong to the Princess’s Own Oysters. Here are your weapons.” She pointed to a heap of large oyster shells, as big as Roman shields.

“See,” she said, “you hold them this way as a rule. A very powerful spring is released when you hold them that way.”

“But what do you do with it?” Mavis asked.

“Nip the feet of the enemy,” said the Princess, “and it holds on. Under Folk have no tails. You wait till they are near a rock; then nip a foeman’s foot with your good weapon, laying the other end on the rock. The oyster shell will at once attach itself to the rock and.⁠ ⁠…”

A terrible shout rang out, and the Princess stopped.

“What is it; oh, what is it?” said the children. And the Princess shuddered.

Again that shout⁠—the most terrible sound the children had ever heard.

“What is it?” they said again.

The Princess drew herself up, as if ashamed of her momentary weakness, and said:

“It is the war cry of the Under Folk.”