by E. Nesbit
* * * *
They saw the straight pale line of the sea for a long time before they came to the place of the Dwellers by the Sea. For these people had built their castle down on the very edge of the sea, and the Pebbly Waste rose and rose to a mountain that hid their castle from the eyes of the camel-riders who were now drawing near to the scene of their next deed. The Pebbly Waste was all made of small slippery stones, and the children understood how horrid a horse would have found it. Even the camel went very slowly, and the dogs no longer frisked and bounded, but went at a foot’s pace with drooping ears and tails.
“I should call a halt, if I were you,” said Polly. “We shall all be the better for a cup of cocoa. And besides—”
Polly refused to explain this dark hint and only added, “Look out for surprises.”
“I thought,” said Philip, draining the last of his second mug of cocoa, “I thought there were no birds in the desert except you, and you’re more a person than a bird. But look there.”
Far away across the desert a moving speck showed, high up in the blue air. It grew bigger and bigger, plainly coming towards the camp. It was as big as a moth now, now as big as a teacup, now as big as an eagle, and—
“But it’s got four legs,” said Lucy.
“Yes,” said the parrot; “it would have, you know. It is the Hippogriff.”
It was indeed that magnificent wonder. Flying through the air with long sweeps of his great white wings, the Hippogriff drew nearer and nearer, bearing on his back—what?
“It’s the Pretenderette,” cried Lucy, and at the same moment Philip said, “It’s that nasty motor thing.”
It was. The Hippogriff dropped from the sky to the desert below as softly as a butterfly alighting on a flower, and stood there in all his gracious whiteness. And on his back was the veiled motor lady.
“So glad I’ve caught you up,” she said in that hateful voice of hers; “now we can go on together.”
“I don’t see what you wanted to come at all for,” said Philip downrightly.
“Oh, don’t you?” she said, sitting up there on the Hippogriff with her horrid motor veil fluttering in the breeze from the now hidden sea. “Why, of course, I have a right to be present at all experiments. There ought to be some responsible grown-up person to see that you really do what you’re sure to say you’ve done.”
“Do you mean that we’re liars?” Philip asked hotly.
“I don’t mean to say anything about it,” the Pretenderette answered with an unpleasant giggle, “but a grown-up person ought to be present.” She added something about a parcel of birds and children. And the parrot ruffled his feathers till he looked twice his proper size.
Philip said he didn’t see it.
“Oh, but I do,” said the Pretenderette; “if you fail, then it’s my turn, and I might very likely succeed the minute after you’d failed. So we’ll all go on comfortably together. Won’t that be nice?”
A speechless despair seemed to have fallen on the party. Nobody spoke. The children looked blank, the dogs whined, the camel put on his haughtiest sneer, and the parrot fidgeted in his fluffed-out feather dress.
“Let’s be starting,” said the motor lady. “Gee-up, pony!” A shiver ran through every one present. That a Pretenderette should dare to speak so to a Hippogriff!
Suddenly the parrot spread its wings and flew to perch on Philip’s shoulder. It whispered in his ear.
“Whispering is not manners, I know,” it said, “but your own generous heart will excuse me. ‘Parcel of birds and children.’ Doesn’t your blood boil?”
Philip thought it did.
“Well, then,” said the bird impatiently, “what are we waiting for? You’ve only got to say the word and I’ll take her back by the ear.”
“I wish you would,” said Philip from the heart.
“Nothing easier,” said the parrot, “the miserable outsider! Intruding into our expedition! I advise you to await my return here. Or if I am not back by the morning there will be no objection to your calling, about noon, on the Dwellers. I can rejoin you there. Good-bye.”
It stroked his ear with a gentle and kindly beak and flew into the air and circled three times round the detested motor lady’s head.
“Get away,” she cried, flapping her hands furiously; “call your silly Poll-parrot off, can’t you?” And then she screamed, “Oh! it’s got hold of my ear!”
“Oh, don’t hurt her,” said Lucy.
“I will not hurt her;” the parrot let the ear go on purpose to say this, and the Pretenderette covered both ears with her hands. “You person in the veil, I shall take hold again in a moment. And it will hurt you much less if the Hippogriff and I happen to be flying in the same direction. See? If I were you I should just say ‘Go back the way you came, please,’ to the Hippogriff, and then I shall hardly hurt you at all. Don’t think of getting off. If you do, the dogs will have you. Keep your hands over your ears if you like. I know you can hear me well enough. Now I am going to take hold of you again. Keep your hands where they are. I’m not particular to an ear or so. A nose will do just as well.”
The person on the Hippogriff put both hands to her nose. Instantly the parrot had her again by the ear.
“Go back the way you came,” she cried; “but I’ll be even with you children yet.”
The Hippogriff did not move.
“Let go my ear,” screamed the lady.
“You’ll have to say please, you know,” said Philip; “not to the bird, I don’t mean that: that’s no good. But to the Hippogriff.”
“Please then,” said the lady in a burst of temper, and instantly the white wings parted and spread and the Hippogriff rose in the air. Polly let the ear go for the moment to say:
“I shan’t hurt her so long as she behaves,” and then took hold again and his little grey wings and the big white wings of the Hippogriff went sailing away across the desert.
“What a treasure of a parrot?” said Philip. But Lucy said:
“Who is that Pretenderette? Why is she so horrid to us when every one else is so nice?”
“I don’t know,” said Philip, “hateful old thing.”
“I can’t help feeling as if I knew her quite well, if I could only remember who she is.”
“Do you?” said Philip. “I say, let’s play noughts and crosses. I’ve got a notebook and a bit of pencil in my pocket. We might play till it’s time to go to sleep.”
So they played noughts and crosses on the Pebbly Waste, and behind them the parrot and the Hippogriff took away the tiresome one, and in front of them lay the high pebble ridge that was like a mountain, and beyond that was the unknown and the adventure and the Dwellers and the deed to be done.
CHAPTER VII
THE DWELLERS BY THE SEA
You soon get used to things. It seemed quite natural and homelike to Philip to be wakened in bright early out-of-door’s morning by the gentle beak of the parrot at his ear.
“You got back all right then,” he said sleepily.
“It was rather a long journey,” said the parrot, “but I thought it better to come back by wing. The Hippogriff offered to bring me; he is the soul of courteous gentleness. But he was tired too. The Pretenderette is in gaol for the moment, but I’m afraid she’ll get out again; we’re so unused to having prisoners, you see. And it’s no use putting her on her honour, because—”
“Because she hasn’t any,” Philip finished.
“I wouldn’t say that,” said the parrot, “of anybody. I’d only say we haven’t come across it. What about breakfast?”
“How meals do keep happening,” said Lucy, yawning; “it seems only a few minutes since supper. And yet here we are, hungry again!”
“Ah!” said the parrot, “that’s what people always feel when they have to
get their meals themselves!”
When the camel and the dogs had been served with breakfast, the children and the parrot sat down to eat. And there were many questions to ask. The parrot answered some, and some it didn’t answer.
“But there’s one thing,” said Lucy, “I do most awfully want to know. About the Hippogriff. How did it get out of the book?”
“It’s a long story,” said the parrot, “so I’ll tell it shortly. That’s a very good rule. Tell short stories longly and long stories shortly. Many years ago, in repairing one of the buildings, the masons removed the supports of one of the books which are part of the architecture. The book fell. It fell open, and out came the Hippogriff. Then they saw something struggling under the next page and lifted it, and out came a megatherium. So they shut the book and built it into the wall again.”
“But how did the megawhatsitsname and the Hippogriff come to be the proper size?”
“Ah! that’s one of the eleven mysteries. Some sages suppose that the country gave itself a sort of shake and everything settled down into the size it ought to be. I think myself that it’s the air. The moment you breathe this enchanted air you become the right size. You did, you know.”
“But why did they shut the book?”
“It was a book of beasts. Who knows what might have come out next? A tiger perhaps. And ravening for its prey as likely as not.”
“I see,” said Philip; “and of course beasts weren’t really needed, because of there being all the Noah’s Ark ones.”
“Yes,” said the parrot, “so they shut the book.”
“But the weather came out of books?”
“That was another book, a poetry book. It had only one cover, so everything that was on the last page got out naturally. We got a lot out of that page, rain and sun and sky and clouds, mountains, gardens, roses, lilies, flowers in general, ‘Blossoms of delight’ they were called in the book and trees and the sea, and the desert and silver and iron—as much of all of them as anybody could possibly want. There are no limits to poets’ imaginations, you know.”
“I see,” said Lucy, and took a large bite of cake. “And where did you come from, Polly, dear?”
“I,” said the parrot modestly, “came out of the same book as the Hippogriff. We were on the same page. My wings entitled me to associate with him, of course, but I have sometimes thought they just put me in as a contrast. My smallness, his greatness; my red and green, his white.”
“I see,” said Lucy again, “and please will you tell us—”
“Enough of this,” said the parrot; “business before pleasure. You have begun the day with the pleasures of my conversation. You will have to work very hard to pay for this privilege.”
So they washed up the breakfast things in warm water obligingly provided by the camel.
“And now,” said the parrot, “we must pack up and go on our way to destroy the fear of the Dwellers by the Sea.”
“I wonder,” Brenda said to Max in an undertone, “I wonder whether it wouldn’t be best for dear little dogs to lose themselves? We could turn up later, and be so very glad to be found.”
“But why?” Max asked.
“I’ve noticed,” said Brenda, sidling up to him with eager affectionateness, “that wherever there’s fear there’s something to be afraid of, even if it’s only your fancy. It would be dreadful for dear little dogs to be afraid, Max, wouldn’t it? So undignified.”
“My dear,” said Max heavily, “I could give seven noble reasons for being faithful to our master. But I will only give you one. There is nothing to eat in the desert, and nothing to drink.”
“You always were so noble, dearest,” said Brenda; “so different from poor little me. I’ve only my affectionate nature. I know I’m only a silly little thing.”
So when the camel lurched forward and the parrot took wing, the dogs followed closely.
“Dear faithful things,” said Lucy. “Brenda! Max! Nice dogs!”
And the dogs politely responding, bounded enthusiastically.
The journey was not long. Quite soon they found a sort of ravine or gully in the cliff, and a path that led through it. And then they were on the beach, very pebbly with small stones, and there was the home of the Dwellers by the Sea; and beyond it, broad and blue and beautiful, the sea by which they dwelt.
The Dwelling seemed to be a sort of town of rounded buildings more like lime-kilns than anything else, with arched doors leading to dark insides. They were all built of tiny stones, such as lay on the beach. Beyond the huts or houses towered the castle, a vast rough structure with towers and arches and buttresses and bastions and glacis and bridges and a great moat all round it.
“But I never built a city like that, did you?” Lucy asked as they drew near.
“No,” Philip answered; “at least—do you know, I do believe it’s the sand castle Helen and I built last summer at Dymchurch. And those huts are the moulds I made of my pail—with the edges worn off, you know.”
Towards the castle the travellers advanced, the camel lurching like a boat on a rough sea, and the dogs going with cat-like delicacy over the stones. They skirted large pools and tall rocks seaweed covered. Along a road broad enough for twelve chariots to have driven on it abreast, slowly they came to the great gate of the castle. And as they got nearer, they saw at every window heads leaning out; every battlement, every terrace, was crowded with figures. And when they were quite near, by throwing their heads very far back, so that their necks felt quite stiff for quite a long time afterwards, the children could see that all those people seemed quite young, and seemed to have very odd and delightful clothes—just a garment from shoulder to knee made, as it seemed, of dark fur.
“What lots of them there are,” said Philip; “where did they come from?”
“Out of a book,” said the parrot; “but the authorities were very prompt that time. Only a line and a half got out.
“Happy troops
Of gentle islanders.
Those are the islanders.”
“Then why,” asked Philip naturally, “aren’t they on an island?”
“There’s only one island, and no one is allowed on that except two people who never go there. But the islanders are happy even if they don’t live on an island—always happy, except for the great fear.”
Here the travellers began to cross one of the bridges across the moat, the bridge, in fact, which led to the biggest arch of all. It was a very rough arch, like the entrance to a cave.
And from out its dark mouth came a little crowd of people.
“They’re savages,” said Lucy, shrinking till she seemed only an extra hump on the camel’s back.
They were indeed of a dark complexion, sunburnt in fact, but their faces were handsome and kindly. They waved friendly hands and smiled in the most agreeable and welcoming way.
The tallest islander stepped out from the crowd. He was about as big as Philip.
“They’re not savages,” said Philip; “don’t be a donkey. They’re just children.”
“Hush!” said the parrot; “the Lord High Islander is now about to begin the state address of welcome!”
He was. And this was the address.
“How jolly of you to come. Do get down off that camel and come indoors and have some grub. Jim, you might take that camel round to the stable and rub him down a bit. You’d like to keep the dogs with you, of course. And what about the parrot?”
“Thanks awfully,” Philip responded, and slid off the camel, followed by Lucy; “the parrot will make his own mind up—he always does.’
They all trooped into the hall of the castle which was more like a cave than a hall and very dark, for the windows were little and high up. As Lucy’s eyes got used to the light she perceived that the clothes of the islanders were not of skins but of s
eaweed.
“I asked you in,” said the Lord High Islander, a jolly-looking boy of about Philip’s age, “out of politeness. But really it isn’t dinner time, and the meet is in half an hour. So, unless you’re really hungry—?”
The children said “Not at all!”
“You hunt, of course?” the Lord High Islander said; “it’s really the only sport we get here, except fishing. Of course we play games and all that. I do hope you won’t be dull.”
“We came here on business,” the parrot remarked—and the happy islanders crowded round to see him, remarking—“these are Philip and Lucy, claimants to the Deliverership. They are doing their deeds, you know,” the parrot ended.
Lucy whispered, “It’s really Philip who is the claimant, not me; only the parrot’s so polite.”
The Lord High Islander frowned. “We can talk about that afterwards,” he said; “it’s a pity to waste time now.”
“What do you hunt?” Philip asked.
“All the different kinds of graibeeste and the vertoblancs; and the blugraiwee, when we can find him,” said the Lord High Islander. “But he’s very scarce. Pinkuggers are more common, and much bigger, of course. Well, you’ll soon see. If your camel’s not quite fresh I can mount you both. What kind of animal do you prefer?”
“What do you ride?” Philip asked.
It appeared that the Lord High Islander rode a giraffe, and Philip longed to ride another. But Lucy said she would rather ride what she was used to, thank you.
When they got out into the courtyard of the castle, they found it full of a crowd of animals, any of which you may find in the Zoo, or in your old Noah’s ark if it was a sufficiently expensive one to begin with, and if you have not broken or lost too many of the inhabitants. Each animal had its rider and the party rode out on to the beach.
“What is it they hunt?” Philip asked the parrot, who had perched on his shoulder.
“All the little animals in the Noah’s ark that haven’t any names,” the parrot told him. “All those are considered fair game. Hullo! blugraiwee!” it shouted, as a little grey beast with blue spots started from the shelter of a rock and made for the cover of a patch of giant seaweed. Then all sorts of little animals got up and scurried off into places of security.