The Magic City

E >> Edith Nesbit >> The Magic City

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'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.'

[Illustration: 'Top floor, if you please,' said the gaoler politely.]

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.

[Illustration: And behind him the clatter of hot pursuit.]

He was nearly at the bottom when the whole ladder bridge leapt wildly
into the air, and he fell from it and rolled in the thick grass of that
illimitable prairie.

All about him the air was filled with great sounds, like the noise of
the earthquakes that destroy beautiful big palaces, and factories which
are big but not beautiful. It was deafening, it was endless, it was
unbearable.

Yet he had to bear that, and more. And now he felt a curious swelling
sensation in his hands, then in his head--then all over. It was
extremely painful. He rolled over in his agony, and saw the foot of an
enormous giant quite close to him. The foot had a large, flat, ugly
shoe, and seemed to come out of grey, low-hanging, swaying curtains.
There was a gigantic column too, black against the grey. The ladder
bridge, cast down, lay on the ground not far from him.

Pain and fear overcame Philip, and he ceased to hear or feel or know
anything.

When he recovered consciousness he found himself under the table in the
drawing-room. The swelling feeling was over, and he did not seem to be
more than his proper size.

He could see the flat feet of the nurse and the lower part of her grey
skirt, and a rattling and rumbling on the table above told him that she
was doing as she had said she would, and destroying his city. He saw
also a black column which was the leg of the table. Every now and then
the nurse walked away to put back into its proper place something he had
used in the building. And once she stood on a chair, and he heard the
tinkling of the lustre-drops as she hooked them into their places on the
chandelier.

'If I lie very still,' said he, 'perhaps she won't see me. But I do
wonder how I got here. And what a dream to tell Helen about!'

He lay very still. The nurse did not see him. And when she had gone to
her breakfast Philip crawled out.

Yes, the city was gone. Not a trace of it. The very tables were back in
their proper places.

Philip went back to his proper place, which, of course, was bed.

'What a splendid dream,' he said, as he cuddled down between the sheets,
'and now it's all over!'

Of course he was quite wrong.

CHAPTER III

LOST

Philip went to sleep, and dreamed that he was at home again and that
Helen had come to his bedside to call him, leading a white pony that was
to be his very own. It was a pony that looked clever enough for
anything, and he was not surprised when it shook hands with him; but
when it said, 'Well, we must be moving,' and began to try to put on
Philip's shoes and stockings, Philip called out, 'Here, I say, stop
that,' and awoke to a room full of sunshine, but empty of ponies.

'Oh, well,' said Philip, 'I suppose I'd better get up.' He looked at his
new silver watch, one of Helen's parting presents, and saw that it
marked ten o'clock.

'I say, you know,' said he to the watch, 'you can't be right.' And he
shook it to encourage it to think over the matter. But the watch still
said 'ten' quite plainly and unmistakably.

Now the Grange breakfast time was at eight. And Philip was certain he
had not been called.

'This is jolly rum,' he remarked. 'It must be the watch. Perhaps it's
stopped.'

But it hadn't stopped. Therefore it must be two hours past breakfast
time. The moment he had thought this he became extremely hungry. He got
out of bed as soon as he knew exactly how hungry he was.

There was no one about, so he made his way to the bath-room and spent a
happy hour with the hot water and the cold water, and the brown Windsor
soap and the shaving soap and the nail brush and the flesh brush and the
loofahs and the shower bath and the three sponges. He had not, so far,
been able thoroughly to investigate and enjoy all these things. But now
there was no one to interfere, and he enjoyed himself to that degree
that he quite forgot to wonder why he hadn't been called. He thought of
a piece of poetry that Helen had made for him, about the bath; and when
he had done playing he lay on his back in water that was very hot
indeed, trying to remember the poetry. The water was very nearly cold by
the time he had remembered the poetry. It was called Dreams of a Giant
Life, and this was it.

DREAMS OF A GIANT LIFE

What was I once--in ages long ago?
I look back, and I see myself. We grow
So changed through changing years, I hardly see
How that which I look back on could be me?[1]

Glorious and splendid, giant-like I stood
On a white cliff, topped by a darkling wood.
Below me, placid, bright and sparkling, lay
The equal waters of a lovely bay.
White cliffs surrounded it--and calm and fair
It lay asleep, in warm and silent air.

I stood alone--naked and strong, upright
My limbs gleamed in the clear pure golden light.
I saw below me all the water lie
Expecting something, and that thing was I.[2]

I leaned, I plunged, the waves splashed over me.
I lay, a giant in a little sea.

White cliffs all round, wood-crowned, and as I lay
I saw the glories of the dying day;
No wind disturbed my sea; the sunlight was
As though it came through windows of gold glass.
The white cliffs rose above me, and around
The clear sea lay, pure, perfect and profound;
And I was master of the cliffs, the sea,
And the gold light that brightened over me.

Far miles away my giant feet showed plain,
Rising, like rocks out of the quiet main.
On them a lighthouse could be built, to show
Wayfaring ships the way they must not go.

I was the master of that cliff-girt sea.
I splashed my hands, the waves went over me,
And in the dimples of my body lay
Little rock-pools, where small sea-beasts might play.

I found a boat, its deck was perforate;
I launched it, and it dared the storms of fate.
Its woollen sail stood out against the sky,
Supported by a mast of ivory.

Another boat rode proudly to my hand,
Upon its deck a thousand spears did stand;
I launched it, and it sped full fierce and fast
Against the boat that had the ivory mast
And woollen sail and perforated deck.
The two went down in one stupendous wreck!

Beneath the waves I chased with joyous hand
Upon the bed of an imagined sand
The slippery brown sea mouse, that still escaped,
Where the deep cave beneath my knee was shaped.
Caught it at last and caged it into rest
Upon the shallows of my submerged breast.

Then, as I lay, wrapped as in some kind arm
By the sweet world of waters soft and warm,
A great voice cried, from some far unseen shore,
And I was not a giant any more.

'Come out, come out,' cried out the voice of power,
'You've been in for a quarter of an hour.
The water's cold--come, Master Pip--your head
'S all wet, and it is time you were in bed.'

I rose all dripping from the magic sea
And left the ships that had been slaves to me--
The soap-dish, with its perforated deck,
The nail-brush, that had rushed to loss and wreck,
The flannel sail, the tooth-brush that was mast,
The sleek soap-mouse--I left them all at last.

I went out of that magic sea and cried
Because the time came when I must be dried
And leave the splendour of a giant's joy
And go to bed--a little well-washed boy.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Never mind grammar.

[2] This is correct grammar, but never mind.

When he had quite remembered the poetry he had another shower-bath, and
then when he had enjoyed the hot rough towels out of the hot cupboard he
went back to his room to dress. He now felt how deeply he wanted his
breakfast, so he dressed himself with all possible speed, even
forgetting to fasten his bootlaces properly. He was in such a hurry that
he dropped his collar-stud, and it was as he stooped to pick it up that
he remembered his dream. Do you know that was really the first time he
had thought of it. The dream--that indeed would be something to think
about.

Breakfast was the really important thing. He went down very hungry
indeed. 'I shall ask for my breakfast directly I get down,' he said. 'I
shall ask the first person I meet.' And he met no one.

There was no one on the stairs, or in the hall, or in the dining-room,
or in the drawing-room. The library and billiard-room were empty of
living people, and the door of the nursery was locked. So then Philip
made his way into the regions beyond the baize door, where the servants'
quarters were. And there was no one in the kitchen, or in the servants'
hall, or in the butler's pantry, or in the scullery, or the washhouse,
or the larder. In all that big house, and it was much bigger than it
looked from the front because of the long wings that ran out on each
side of its back--in all that big house there was no one but Philip. He
felt certain of this before he ran upstairs and looked in all the
bedrooms and in the little picture gallery and the music-room, and then
in the servants' bedrooms and the very attics. There were interesting
things in those attics, but Philip only remembered that afterwards. Now
he tore down the stairs three at a time. All the room doors were open as
he had left them, and somehow those open doors frightened him more than
anything else. He ran along the corridors, down more stairs, past more
open doors and out through the back kitchen, along the moss-grown walk
by the brick wall and so round by the three yew trees and the mounting
block to the stable-yard. And there was no one there. Neither coachman
nor groom nor stable-boys. And there was no one in the stables, or the
coach-house, or the harness-room, or the loft.

Philip felt that he could not go back into the house. Something terrible
must have happened. Was it possible that any one could want the Grange
servants enough to kidnap them? Philip thought of the nurse and felt
that, at least as far as she was concerned, it was _not_ possible. Or
perhaps it was magic! A sort of Sleeping-Beauty happening! Only every
one had vanished instead of just being put to sleep for a hundred years.

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