Be that as it may, my serpentine hairstyle was of no practical use, and for a time I relapsed into gloom.
How long, I wondered idly, would my hair actually grow? I amused myself by imagining commanding it to grow and grow without cease until it overwhelmed the earth and threaded its locks through the deeps of the sea, strangling and choking all life therein. In my mind's eye I traced its progress, saw it slowly filling up the dungeon and spilling out over the top—
My thoughts suddenly focused on that picture. What, I wondered, would happen to me in that event? Should I be smothered to death in all that hair, or would I—could I—?
A plan darted into my head.
I must wait until after the next food delivery, which came but once a day. To my great relief, that delivery would come soon, or so I calculated by my sense of the passage of time. I did not believe that I could bear to wait much longer to try my idea.
After a small eternity, my bread, cheese, and water came. I thanked the anonymous bearer as usual, being careful not to allow any sense of my new hopefulness to creep into my speech. The trapdoor was duly lowered. Taking up my food and drink into my two hands and slinging my sewing kit over my shoulder, I began.
I repeated all the verses I could remember in praise of my hair and then begged it thusly:
"O my hair," I said, "thou hast labored long at my request this day. I now ask thee to do even more." My heart suddenly misgave me at the thought that what I asked might be too much on top of all the tomfoolery I had engaged in earlier, but I persisted. "I prithee, grow, and go on growing until I give thee leave to stop."
Obediently, the hair began to grow, and I began to pace slowly around the perimeter of the round room, allowing the hair to trail behind me on the ground. When once I had completed the circuit of the room, I must perforce tread upon my own hair, which I did.
Around and around I walked, my hair endlessly flowing out behind me and before me. I spoke kindly to my hair, honoring it for its energy and diligence as well as its great beauty.
Around and around and around. The path of my hair, which circled the room, grew gradually higher off the floor. I took a bite of bread and cheese as I walked and then a sip of water.
Around and around and around. I worried after a time that the golden pathway might become too slender and, lacking adequate support, cave in toward the center and pitch me to the ground. As I mounted higher and higher and the danger of such a fall became greater, I found it necessary to fix my eyes straight ahead, so that dread alone did not make me lose my balance.
Around and around and around. Would I never reach my destination? My hair was happily very thick, but when once I had walked upon it, 'twas compacted down much smaller. I was therefore raised up but a few inches with each revolution. It seemed I had been walking this shining trail all of my life. I dared not stop to rest, for the span of the road was not wide enough to allow me to sit or kneel with any security that I would ever be able to rise again. My voice grew hoarse with singing the praises of my tresses, and I was in the end reduced to a melancholy croaking like that of a raven.
"Good ... hair. Very ... very ... wonderful..." I whispered, in barely audible tones. "Good ... hair."
I dared not cease speaking my approval, for whenever I did so to drink a drop of water (the cheese and bread were long gone), the hair on the instant likewise ceased growing. I therefore went on, though few human listeners could have guessed at the meaning of my mumbles.
Around and around and around. I was growing clumsy through exhaustion of both mind and body. Eventually the ventilation slit was covered over and what light there had been vanished and the air grew foul. As the hours of darkness wound downward until dawn, I had to pinch myself very hard in order to stay awake. Even so, I fell into a sort of dream in which I thought that I was climbing the stairs within the Tower of Dorloo, mounting slowly up and up until my head would brush the roof of the tower—
Thunk!
I saw stars before my eyes and, in a daze, wondered if my head had somehow penetrated the tower roof and I now was gazing upon a starlit night. But I quickly regained my wits and realized that I had reached the top and had struck my head against the wooden floorboards of the castle basement.
I extended my right hand out toward the center of the room. I could just barely see the length of rope ladder which remained inside the dungeon. I grasped at it.
I could not reach so far.
Nay, I could not. Twas no more than a handbreadth away from my groping fingers. Yet had I leaned ever so slightly more toward the center of the room I should have fallen to my death.
I wept. Far below I heard the clink and rattle as a rain of diamonds hit the stone floor. I considered flinging myself after my tears, to dash my brains out against that floor. What more was there to do, other than to die here atop a monstrous coil of my own hair, so close and yet so far from freedom?
I felt an odd tugging at my scalp, and shook my head impatiently, bracing myself to leap out into the air. I closed my eyes. What, I wondered, would the moment of impact be like?
Upon this thought I decided to wait and reflect further. While there is life there is yet hope. I opened my eyes again.
Something was happening along the length of the hair coil. It stirred and writhed in a terrifying manner, so that I was certain that its stability had eroded and the whole structure would sway and crash within a matter of moments. Then I saw that one strand, about the thickness of my thumb, was loosening itself from the mass. When it had freed itself, it deliberately shrank down until it was no more than a mere twenty feet long.
It hung there, doing nothing.
I stared at it.
"What?" I cried. "What am I to do with that strand of hair?"
There was no response, which was after all very much what might have been expected.
I reached out and took the lock of hair into my hand and considered. What I needed now was a sort of extension of my hand, to bridge the short distance between it and the ladder. I drew the hair up until I held near the end of it, a few fingerlengths protruding from my hand. I reached out once again to the rope ladder. The wisp of hair brushed the edge of it. Leaning perilously out over the void, I thrust it forward, let go and ... hoped.
'Twas over the ladder rung!
I took a deep breath and said as clearly as I might, "Come to me, O my hair. Come to thy mistress who loves thee."
It came, sweet as a bird to the nest. It curled around the ladder rung and then returned to my hand.
And then, of course, all was easy.
I drew the ladder near, stepped onto it, interwove my arms in the ropes for security, and then pushed mightily upward on the trapdoor. In no time at all I was climbing out of my prison cell.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
And Out Again
HAIR TODAY, GONE TOMORROW.
—PARAPHRASED PROVERB
You, my quick-witted friend, will no doubt have foreseen my next trouble. 'Tis difficult to flee unseen and unheard down a castle corridor, even in the dark hours before dawn, while trailing gleaming golden tresses fully a mile long.
"I do most earnestly entreat you to decrease your length, O my hair," I whispered, but so far off were the nethermost ends of my curls that I could not judge if my command was being obeyed.
Furthermore, I had no idea where the other dungeon, holding the Prince and Little Echo, might be. I paused a moment for thought. My own dungeon had been cut out of the rock beneath one of the four towers of the inner keep. Might not the Prince and Little Echo be located in a cell beneath another tower?
I hurried on as best I could, dragging the heavy weight of my locks behind me. The sound of my hair following me, nearly filling the wide halls, seemed like that of a mighty river to my frightened ears.
"Do diminish, dear hair, I pray you," I breathed. "I am sorry to hurry you, but I assure you that the task is urgent."
I gathered up great armfuls of the stuff in order to shorten my tail as much as possibl
e, but yet I knew that the last of it might not leave the dungeon until well after I had quit the castle altogether. 'Twas almost as bad as being tied.
By the most prodigious luck I met no one and reached the next tower block safely. It seemed reasonable that those soldiers would have deposited the Prince in the nearest dungeon to mine; they were not the sort to exert themselves any more than necessary.
I found a trapdoor in the basement floor, opened it cautiously to avoid making any noise, and whispered: 'Are you there? Tis I, Alexandria Aurora Fortunato, come to release you from this place of confinement."
A pause, then a quavering voice. "O, Yer Ladyship, is it really you come to get me? Indeed and you are an angel of mercy!"
"Smeatt?" I said, puzzled.
"That be my name, though 'twill always be a wonderment to me how yer came to know it, lady."
I paused for thought. "Do you know where my companion was incarcerated?"
Silence, then: "In-how-much, Yer Ladyship?"
"Where is my friend, do you know, Smeatt?" I asked.
"In the next tower block dungeon, I expect," said Smeatt. "But, wait, Yer Ladyship!" he wailed. "Y'won't be meaning to go away and leave me here, will ye? This do be the worst of all the dungeons, why, I wouldn't let 'em put yer friend 'ere, I made 'em take 'im along further. There's water in 'ere, with things swimmin' around.
"An' if ye leave me the Baroness will kill me sure, an' all because I did save Yer Ladyship's life, lo these many years ago. 'Tis not behavior fitten fer a great lady like yerself. I'll not believe it until I sees it."
"Of course I won't leave you here, Smeatt, not if you promise not to do anything to prevent our escape. But what do you mean, you saved my life long ago? I have never set eyes on you before, not until you found us in the forest these five days past."
Once again there was silence. Smeatt was thinking.
"How so be it iffen you let me out first and then I tells ye?"
I responded by throwing down the rope ladder to him.
"Ah! Yer a kind girl, you are, as I always—"
"Hush!" I whispered. "Explanations must wait until another time. I will go and get my companion. Do you," I asked, struck by a sudden thought, "know of a way out of this place?"
"As it so happens," said Smeatt, his head appearing over the edge of the trapdoor, "I believe I do, Yer Ladyship, if so be it as old customs still hold."
"I am overjoyed to hear it. Come along, Smeatt, come along. Ahead of me, if you please, or you will tread on my hair."
Smeatt was quite right. There was a third trapdoor in the third tower block (and a fourth in the fourth, for aught 1 know), and under it slept the Prince and Little Echo.
When once aroused by the rope ladder falling upon him, the Prince was quick enough in scrambling out, bearing Little Echo under one arm and the saddlebags over his shoulder.
"O!" I breathed when I saw her cradled in the crook of his elbow. "Is she—How is she?"
"Excellent well!" the Prince replied, smiling down upon her foolish little face with a doting expression. "Every day she gains a bit more ground. Why, today she flapped her wing—the injured one, you know, and—"
"Hush!" I whispered. "I beg your pardon, and I am more pleased than I can say, but we must be very, very quiet."
"Indeed, that is so," said the Prince, sobering. His eyes lit upon on my hair, which wound away down the corridor and around the corner. "Alas!" he murmured, pointing to it. "Not again!"
"Nay, 'tis not fastened anywhere, but 'twill require the passage of some time before 'tis again of a manageable length. Smeatt," I said, turning to the soldier, "I pray you, lead us out of this castle, if you can."
"Right this way then, Yer Ladyship and sir."
The way out of the castle appeared to be a doorway so tiny as to appear that it was made for dwarfs, which led down to the river. As Smeatt had predicted, it opened silently at a touch.
The Prince was inclined to be critical.
"Why, Smeatt, is this door unlocked? Tis a most unwarrantable violation of the proper security of this castle."
Smeatt became evasive. "Tis the usual procedure, like."
"But why is it the usual procedure?"
"O well now, I couldn't exactly say. But where's the harm? True, we do be at war at the present time, but"—he tittered, as though at a vastly witty jest—'"tain't as though the Prince of Dorloo were standin' right outside with 'is army, is 'ee now? Like as not, 'ee's off canoodlin' with 'is girl somewheres, so what's the point in bein' over particular?"
"Smeatt," began the Prince sternly, and I had once again to warn them to lower their voices.
"There be nothin' wrong in a few of the lads slippin' off downstream to Clove City to see their sweet'earts an' drink a few ales, be there?" argued Smeatt. An' the door gots to be left open so as they can slide back in afore dawn, y'see."
"Nothing wrong?" the Prince exploded. "Smeatt, I am shocked—!"
"Hist!" I hissed.
Somewhat abashed, the Prince contented himself with training a sad, reproachful look upon Smeatt, which made the soldier squirm as though he had a tunic full of ants.
Considering that, had the door not been left unlocked, we three should no doubt be shortly discovered and clapped into irons if not worse, it appeared to me that there was no great need to make such ado about the matter. However, 'twas not worth discussion and I kept silent as we passed through.
I had only just stepped through the door and put one foot out of the castle when I felt a sudden sharp pull on my hair. I caught at the Prince's arm.
"Someone has taken hold of my hair," I gasped.
He turned to me, concerned. "What should we do, Mistress Alexandria?"
"Help me to carry it along. O, we must run!"
The Prince and Smeatt on each side of me flung their arms around my hair and tugged. We stumbled along as quickly as we might down toward the river. A tremendous barking arose behind us in the castle.
"There used to be some boats tied up down 'ere," panted Smeatt, and when we reached the riverside there was, verily, a small boat tethered to a willow tree.
My hair seemed to grow heavier and heavier with each step I took. I imagined at least a score of soldiers hauling on it.
"Into the boat, lady," cried Smeatt, as he and the Prince heaved the mass of my hair down the bank. I needed no urging, but climbed in as swiftly as I could scramble, followed by the Prince and Smeatt.
"Push off," I cried. "Push off into the current!" The Prince and Smeatt, each taking an oar, did so, and as they did so, the end of my hair came into sight through the door in the wall.
My hair had been steadily shrinking, at my request, and was now no longer than an eighth of a mile. On it rode a Sergeant with great braided shoulder pads and a high hat, three foot soldiers, four barking dogs, and five dirty children. All of the last-named nine individuals appeared to be under the impression that this was some sort of entertainment expressly designed for their amusement. Both children and dogs lost their balance periodically and rolled hilariously about before regaining their footing. They yelped and shrieked with joy. The soldiers were less pleased with this diversion and held on grimly, as one might cling to the mane of a horse.
Never could we three have pulled this mighty weight along, had my hair not been helping. Still, our great peril required an even greater deed. I stood up in the boat, provoking protests from both Smeatt and the Prince.
"O my hair," I cried out in a clear, ringing voice, "thou who art the greatest wonder of the Western World, thou crowning glory of glories, O thou hair beyond compare, come to me, I pray thee, that I may pet thee and comb thee and tender thee thy full mead of praise. Come to me ... NOW!"
'Twas a mistake to have stood up in the boat.
I never precisely saw what happened. The others told me, however, that my hair snapped back to my head with a speed too rapid for the eye to follow. I promptly plunged into the river. All the assorted soldiers, children, and dogs, having had the rug s
natched out from under their feet (so to speak), rolled merrily down the hill like so many cartwheels and eventually came to rest, some on the bank and some in the water.
"Were any drowned?" I asked some time later, after I had been dragged back on board, at considerable risk to the stability of the rowboat, and revived from my unconscious state.
"Nay, worse luck," said Smeatt.
"Nay, mistress, do not fear," said the Prince, gently mopping my face dry with one of the little Goose gowns from my sewing bag. "The children and dogs bounced right back up again none the worse for their ride, only vexed to find it come to an end. And the soldiers only fell in knee-deep water, so all were well."
"And Little Echo?"
"Is well," said the Prince, smiling.
"And you? And Smeatt?"
"All, all are well. And here is your comb, for I believe you made a solemn promise not twenty minutes past, which it would be proper to now fulfill."
And so I sat in the bow of the boat and combed my hair in the rays of early morning sunlight which were now breaking over the hill. The gold dust fell about us like a gilded rain and was like to have swamped the boat, had Smeatt not offered to scoop it out into the stream.
Sweetly did I sing songs to my tresses such as I remembered my mother to have sung to me as a babe; 1 kissed my locks and called them by pet names and recited nonsense rhymes in their honor. I was well content to do so, for I owed them my life and liberty and would not soon forget my debt.
The Prince and Smeatt took turns rowing the boat. Sometimes they allowed it to be borne along, as we were in the current of a deep, mud-bottomed river, and it drew us along right speedily.
As if to crown my joy, just as I was about to drift off to sleep, a gaggle of eleven white Geese appeared overhead, circled, and then landed, splash! splash! splash! around us. Little Echo honked excitedly, the Prince laughed for pleasure, and Smeatt stealthily drew out a small slingshot from within his tunic and began to grope for something with which to arm it.
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