 CHAPTER XI. THE NIGHT ATTACK. The Harmer men were not naturally lazy. They were, in the days before the coming of the Great Sloth, a most energetic and industrious people. Now that the Sloth was obliged to work eight hours a day, the weight of its constant and catching sleepiness was taken away, and the people set to work in good earnest. I did explain, didn't I, that the Great Sloth's sleepiness really was catching like measles. So now the Harmer men were as busy as ants. Some dug the channel for the new stream, some set to work to restore the buildings, while others weeded the overgrown gardens and plowed the deserted fields. The head Harmer men painted in large letters on a column in the marketplace these words. This city is now called by its ancient name of Briskford. Any citizen found calling its somnolentia will not be allowed to wash in water for a week. The head man was full of schemes, the least of which was the lighting of the town by electricity, the power to be supplied by the Great Sloth. He can't go on pumping eight hours a day, said the head man. I can easily adjust the machine to all sorts of other uses. In the evening a banquet was, of course, given to the deliverers. The banquet was all pineapple and water, because there had been no time to make or get anything else, but the speeches were very flattering, and Philip and Lucy were very pleased, more so than Brenda, who did not like pineapple, and made but little effort to conceal her disappointment. Max accepted bits of pineapple out of politeness, and hid them among the feet of the guests, so that nobody's feelings should be hurt. I don't know how we to get back to the island, said Philip next day. Now we've lost the lightning loose. I think we'd better go back by way of polystopolis, said Lucy, and find out who's been opening the books. If they go on, they may let simply anything out. And if the worst comes to the worst, perhaps we could get someone to help us to open the teal-book again, and get the teal out to cross to the island in. Lou, said Philip, with feeling, you're clever, really clever. No, I'm not kidding, I mean it. And I'm sorry I ever said you were only a girl. But how are we to get to polystopolis? It was a difficult problem. The head man could offer no suggestions. It was Brenda, who suggested asking the advice of the great sloz. He is such a fine figure of an animal, she said admiringly. So handsome and distinguished looking. I am sure he must have a really great mind. I always think good looks go with really great minds. Don't you, dear Lucy? We might as well, said Philip, if no one can think of anything else. No one could, so they decided to take Brenda's advice. Now that the sloz worked every day, it was not nearly so disagreeable as it had been when it slept so much. The children approached it at the dinner hour, and it listened patiently, if drowsily, to their question. When it had quite done it reflected, or seemed to reflect, perhaps it had fallen asleep, until the town clock struck one, the time for resuming work. Then it got up and slouched towards its machine. Q, cumbers, it said, and began to turn the handle of its wheel. They had to wait till tea-time to ask it what it meant, for in that town the rule about not speaking to the man at the wheel was strictly enforced. Q, cumbers, the sloz repeated, and added a careful explanation. You sit on the end of any young cucumber, which points in the desired direction. And when it has grown to its full length, say sixteen inches. Why, then, you are sixteen inches on your way. But that's not much, said Lucy. Every little helps, said the sloz, more haste, less speed. Then you wait till the cucumber seeds, and when the new plants grow, you select the earliest cucumber that points in the desired direction, and take your seat on it. By the end of the cucumber season, you will be another sixteen, or with luck, seventeen inches on your way, thirty-two inches in all, almost a yard, and thus you progress towards your goal, slowly but surely, like in politics. Thank you very much, said Philip. We will think it over. But it did not need much thought. If we could get a motor car, said Philip, if you can get machines by wishing for them. The very thing, said Lucy, let's find the headman. We mustn't wish for a motor, or we should have to go on using it. But perhaps there's someone here who'd like to drive a motor for his living, you know. There was. A helmer man, with an inborn taste for machinery, had long pined to leave the gathering of pineapples to others. He was induced to wish for a motor, and a BSA sixty-horsepower car snorted suddenly in the place where a moment before no car was. Oh, the luxury! This is indeed like home! sighed Brenda, curling up on the air cushions. And the children certainly felt a gloriously restful sensation. Nothing to be done, no need to think or bother, just to sit quiet and be born swiftly on through wonderful cities, all of which Philip vaguely remembered to have seen small and near and built by his own hands and helens. And so at last they came close to Polystopolis. Philip never could tell how it was that he stopped the car outside the city. It must have been some quite unaccountable instinct, because naturally, you know, when you're not used to being driven in motors, you like to dash up to the house you're going to and enjoy your friend's enjoyment of the grand way in which you have travelled. But Philip felt, in that quite certain and quite unexplainable way in which you do feel things sometimes, that it was best to stop the car among the suburban groves of Southernwood and to creep into the town in the disguise afforded by motorcoats, motor veils, and motor goggles. For, of course, all these had come with the motor car when it was wished for, because no motor car is complete without them. They said good-bye warmly to the helmer motorman, and went quietly towards the town, Max and Brenda keeping to heel in the most praiseworthy way, and the parrot nestling inside Philip's jacket, for it was chilled by the long rush through the evening air. And now the scattered houses and spacious gardens gave place to the streets of Polystopolis, the capital of the kingdom. And the streets were strangely deserted. The children both felt, in that quite certain and unexplainable way, that it would be unwise of them to go to the place where they had slept the last time they were in that city. The whole party was very tired. Max walked with drooping tail, and Brenda was whining softly to herself from sheer weariness and weak-mindedness. The parrot alone was happy, or at least contented, because it was asleep. At the corner of a little square planted with Southernwood trees in tubs, Philip called a halt. Where shall we go? he said. Let us put it to the vote. And even as he spoke, he saw a dark form creeping along in the shadow of the houses. Who goes there? Philip cried with proper spirit, and the answer surprised him, all the more that it was given with a kind of desperate bravado. I go here. I, plumbiest captain of the old guard of Polystopolis. Oh, it's you! cried Philip. I am glad you can advise us. Where can we go to sleep? Somehow or other I don't care to go to the house where we stayed before. The captain made no answer. He simply caught at the hands of Lucy and Philip, dragged them through a low-arched doorway, and as soon as the long lengths of Brenda and Max had slipped through, closed the door. Safe! he said in a breathless way, which made Philip feel that safety was the last thing one could count on at that moment. Now speak low. Who knows what spies may be listening? I am a plain man. I speak as I think. You came out of the unknown. You may be the deliverer or the destroyer, but I am a judge of faces, always was, from a boy, and I cannot believe that this countenance of apple-cheeked innocence is that of a destroyer. Philip was angry, and Lucy was furious. So he said nothing, and she said, Apple-cheeked yourself, which was very rude. I see that you are annoyed, said the captain in the dark, where of course he could see nothing. But in calling your friend Apple-cheeked, I was merely offering the highest compliment in my power. The absence of fruit in this city is, I suppose, the reason why our compliments are like that. I believe poets say, sweet as a rose, we say, sweet as an orange. May I be allowed unreservedly to apologise? Oh, that's all right, said Philip awkwardly. And to ask whether you are the deliverer? I hope so, said Philip modestly. Of course he is, said the parrot, putting its head out from the front of Philip's jacket. And he has done six deeds out of the seven already. It is time that deeds were done here, said the captain. I'll make a light and get you some supper. I'm in hiding here, but the walls are thick and all the shutters are shut. He bolted a door and opened the slide of a dark lantern. Some of us have taken refuge in the old prison. He said, it's never used, you know, so her spies don't infest it, as they do every other part of the city. Who's spies? The destroyers, said the captain, getting bread and milk out of a cupboard. At least if you're the deliverer, she must be that. But she says she's the deliverer. He lighted candles and set them on the table, as Lucy asked eagerly. What destroyer? Is it a horrid woman in a motovail? You've guessed it, said the captain gloomily. It's that pretendorette, said Philip. Does Mr. Noah know? What has she been doing? Everything you can think of, said the captain. She says she's queen, and that she's done the seven deeds. And Mr. Noah doesn't know, because she set a guard round the city, and no message can get out or in. The hippogriff, said Lucy. Yes, of course I thought of that, said the captain, and so did she. She's locked it up and thrown the key into one of the municipal wells. But why do the guards obey her? Philip asked. They're not our guards, of course, the captain answered. They're strange soldiers that she got out of a book. She got the people to pull down the Hall of Justice by pretending there was fruit in the gigantic books it's built with. And when the book was opened, these soldiers came marching out. The Sikwani and the Aedui, they call themselves. And when you finish supper, we ought to hold a council. There are a lot of us here, all sorts. Distinctions of rank are forgotten in times of public peril. Some twenty or thirty people presently gathered in that round room, from whose windows Philip and Lucy had looked out when they were first imprisoned. There were indeed all sorts—match servants, domino men, soldiers, china men, Mr Noah's three sons and his wife, a pirate, and a couple of sailors. What book, Philip asked Lucy in an undertone, did she get these soldiers out of? Caesar, I think, said Lucy, and I'm afraid it was my fault. I remember telling her about the barbarians and the legions and things after father had told me, when she was my nurse, you know. She's very clever at thinking of horrid things to do, isn't she? The council talked for two hours, and nobody said anything worth mentioning. When everyone was quite tired out, everyone went to bed. It was Philip who woken the night in the grasp of a sudden idea. What is it? Asked Max, rousing himself from his warm bed at Philip's feet. I thought of something, said Philip, in a low excited voice. I'm going to have a night attack. Shall I wake the others? Asked Max, ever ready to oblige. Philip thought a moment, then, no, he said, it's rather dangerous, and besides, I want to do it all by myself. Lucy's done more than her share already. Look out, Max, I'm going to get up and go out. He got up, and he went out. There was a faint grain as of dawn now, which showed him the great square of the city, on which he and Lucy had looked from the prison window a very long time ago, as it seemed. He found without difficulty the ruins of the Hall of Justice, and among the vast blocks scattered on the ground was one that seemed of grey marble, and bore on its back, in gigantic letters of gold, the words De Bello Gallico. Philip stole back to the prison and roused the captain. I want twenty picked men, he said, without boots, and at once. He got them, and he led them to the ruins of the Justice Hall. Now, he said, raise the cover of this book, only the cover, not any of the pages. The men set their shoulders to the marble slab that was the book's cover, and heaved it up. And as it rose on their shoulders, Philip spoke softly, urgently. Caesar, he said, Caesar, and a voice answered from under the marble slab. Who calls, it said, who calls upon Julius Caesar? And from the space below the slab, as it were from a marble tomb, a thin figure stepped out, clothed in toga and cloak, and wearing on its head a crown of bays. I called, said Philip, in a voice that trembled a little. There's no one but you who can help. The barbarians of Gaul hold this city. I call on great Caesar to drive them away. No one else can help us. Caesar stood for a moment silent in the grey twilight. Then he spoke. I will do it, he said. You have often tried to master Caesar and always failed. Now you shall be no more ashamed of that failure, for you shall see Caesar's power. Bid your slaves raise the leaves of my book to the number of fifteen. It was done, and Caesar turned towards the enormous open book. Come forth, he said. Come forth, my legions. Then something in the book moved suddenly, and out of it, as out of an open marble tomb, came long lines of silent armed men, ranged themselves in ranks, and passing Caesar saluted. And still more came, and more, and more, each with the round shield, and the shining helmet, and the javelins, and the terrible short sword. And on their backs were the packages they used to carry with them into war. The barbarians of Gaul are loose in this city, said the voice of the great commander. Drive them before you once more, as you drove them of old. Wither, O Caesar, asked one of the Roman generals. Drive them, O Titus Labienus, said Caesar, back into that book wherein I set them more than nineteen hundred years ago, and from which they have dared to escape. Who is their leader? he asked of Philip. The pretenderette, said Philip, a woman in a motor veil. Caesar does not war with women, said the man in the laurel crown. Let her be taken prisoner and brought before me. Low voiced the generals of Caesar's army gave their commands, and with incredible quietness the army moved away, spreading itself out in all directions. She has caged the hippogriff, said Philip, the winged horse, and we want to send him with a message. See that the beast is freed, said Caesar, and turned to Plumbia's the captain. We be soldiers together, he said. Lead me to the main gate, it is there that the fight will be fiercest. He laid a hand on the captain's shoulder, and at the head of the last legion, Caesar and the captain of the soldiers marched to the main gate. End of Chapter 11, Recording by Ruth Golding Chapter 12 of The Magic City This Librivox recording is in the public domain. The Magic City by E. Nesbitt Chapter 12 The End Philip tore back to the prison to be met at the door by Lucy. I hate you, she said briefly, and Philip understood. I couldn't help it, he said. I did want to do something by myself. And Lucy understood. And besides, he said, I was coming back for you. Don't be snarky about it, Lou. I've called up Caesar himself, and you shall see him before he goes back into the book. Come on, if we're sharp we can hide in the ruins of the Justice Hall and see everything. I noticed there was a bit of the gallery left standing. Come on, I want you to think what message to send by the hippogriff to Mr. Noah. Oh, you needn't trouble about that, said Lucy in an offhand manner. I sent the parrot off ages ago. And you never told me. Then I think that's quick, don't you? Lucy had a short struggle with herself. You know those unpleasant and difficult struggles, I'm sure. And said, Righto! And together they ran back to the Justice Hall. The light was growing every moment, and there was now a sound of movement in the city. Women came down to the public fountains to draw water, and boys swept the paths and doorsteps. That sort of work goes on even when barbarians are surrounding a town. And the ordinary sounds of a town's awakening came to Lucy and Philip as they waited, crowing cocks and barking dogs and cats mewing faintly for the morning milk. But it was not for those sounds that Lucy and Philip were waiting. So through those homely and familiar sounds, they listened, listened, listened, and very gradually, so that they could neither of them have said at any moment, Now it has begun. Yet quite beyond mistake the sound for which they listened was presently loud in their ears. And it was the sound of steel on steel, the sound of men shouting in the breathless moment between sword stroke and sword stroke, the cry of victory and the wail of defeat, and presently the sound of feet that ran. And now a man shot up from a side street and ran across the square towards the Palace of Justice where Lucy and Philip were hidden in the gallery, and now another and another all running hard and making for the ruined hall as hunted creatures make for cover. Rough, big, blonde, their long hair flying behind them, and their tunics of beast skins flapping as they ran, the barbarians fled before the legions of Caesar. The great marble-covered book that looked like a marble tomb was still open. Its cover and fifteen leaves propped up against the tall broken columns of the gateway of the Justice Hall. Into that open book leapt the first barbarian, leapt and vanished, and the next after him, and the next, and then by twos and threes and sixes and sevens they leapt in and disappeared, amidst gasping and shouting and the nearing sound of the butchiner and the trumpets of Rome. Then from all quarters of the city the Roman soldiers came trooping, and as the last of the barbarians plunged headlong into the open book, the Romans formed into ordered lines and waited while a man might count ten. Then, advancing between their ranks, came the spare form and thin face of the man with the laurel crown. Twelve thousand swords flashed in air, and wavered a little like reeds in the breeze, then steadied themselves, and the shout went up from twelve thousand throats, Ave Caesar! And without haste and without delay the Romans filed through the ruins to the marble covered book, and two by two entered it and disappeared. Each, as he passed the mighty conqueror, saluted him with proud, mute reverence. When the last soldier was hidden in the book, Caesar looked round him a little wistfully. I must speak to him! I must! Lucy cried. I must! Oh, what a dulling he is! She ran down the steps from the gallery and straight to Caesar. He smiled when she reached him and gently pinched her ear, fancy going through the rest of your life, hearing all the voices of the world through an ear that has been pinched by Caesar. Oh, thank you! Thank you! said Philip. How splendid you are! I'll swat up my latin like anything next term so as to read about you. Are they all in? Lucy asked. I do hope nobody was hurt. Caesar smiled. A most unreasonable wish, my child, after a great battle. He said. But for once the unreasonable is the inevitable. Nobody was hurt. You see, it was necessary to get every man back into the book just as he left it. Well, what would the schoolmasters have done? There remain now only my own God who have in charge the false woman who let loose the barbarians, and here they come. Surrounded by a guard with drawn swords, the pretenderette advanced slowly. Hail, woman! said Caesar. Hail, whoever you are! said the pretenderette very sulkily. I hail, said Caesar, your courage! Philip and Lucy looked at each other. Yes, the pretenderette had courage. They had not thought of that before. All the attempts she had made against them. She alone in a strange land. Yes, these needed courage. And I demand to know how you came here. When I found he had been at his building again, she said, pointing a contemptuous thumb at Philip. I was just going to pull it down, and I knocked down a brick or two with my sleeve. And not thinking what I was doing, I built them up again. And then I got a bit giddy, and the whole thing seemed to begin to grow. Candlesticks, and bricks, and dominoes, and everything. Bigger, and bigger, and bigger. And I looked in. It was as big as a church by this time, and I saw that boy losing his way among the candlestick pillars, and I followed him, and I listened. And I thought I could be as good a deliverer as anybody else. And the motor veil that I was going to catch the 237 train in was a fine disguise. You tried to injure the children. Caesar reminded her, I don't want to say anything to make you let me off, said the pretenderette. But at the beginning I didn't think any of it was real. I thought it was a dream. You can let your evil passions go in a dream, and it don't hurt anyone. It hurts you, Caesar said. Oh, that's no odds, said the pretenderette scornfully. You sought to injure and confound the children at every turn, said Caesar, even when you found that things were real. I saw there was a chance of being queen, said the pretenderette, and I took it. Seems to me you've no occasion to talk if you're Julius Caesar, the same as the bust in the library. You took what you could get right enough in your time when all said and done. I hail, said Caesar again, your courage. You needn't trouble, she said, tossing her head. My game's up now, and I'll speak my mind if I die for it. You don't understand. You've never been a servant to see other people get all the fat and you all the bones. What do you think it's like to know if you'd just been born in a gentleman's mansion, instead of in a model workman's dwelling? You'd have been brought up as a young lady, and had the open work silk stockings, and the lace on your underpetticoats. You go too deep for me, said Caesar, with the ghost of a smile. I now pronounce your sentence. But life has pronounced on you a sentence worse than any I can give you. Nobody loves you. Oh, you old silly, said the pretenderette in a burst of angry tears. Don't you see that's just why everything's happened? You are condemned, said Caesar calmly, to make yourself beloved. You will be taken to Briskford, where you will teach the great Sloth to like his work, and keep him awake for eight play hours a day. In the intervals of your toil you must try to get fond of someone. The Halmer people are kind and gentle. You will not find them hard to love. And when the great Sloth loves his work, and the Halmer people are so fond of you that they feel they cannot bear to lose you, your penance will be over. And you can go where you will, said the pretenderette, still tearful and furious. That if that ever happened I shouldn't want to go anywhere else. Yes, said Caesar slowly, I know. Lucy would have liked to kiss the pretenderette and say she was sorry, but you can't do that when it is all other people's fault and they aren't sorry. And besides, before all these people it would have looked like showing off. You know, I am sure, exactly how Lucy felt. The pretenderette was led away, and now Caesar stood facing the children, his hands held out in farewell. The growing light of early morning transfigures his face, and to Philip it suddenly seemed to be most remarkably like the face of that man. Mr. Peter Graham, whom Helen had married. He was just telling himself not to be a duffer, when Lucy cried out in a loud, cracked sounding voice, Daddy! Oh, Daddy! and sprang forward. And at that moment the sun rose above the city wall, and its rays gleamed redly on the helmet and the breastplate, and the shield and the sword of Caesar. The light struck at the children's eyes like a blow. Dazzled they closed their eyes, and when they opened them, blinking and confused, Caesar was gone, and the marble book was closed, forever. Three days later Mr. Noah arrived by elephant, and the meeting between him and the children is, as they say, better imagined than described, especially as there is not much time left now for describing anything. Mr. Noah explained that the freeing of polystopolus from the pretendorette and the barbarians counted as the seventh deed, and that Philip had now attained the rank of king, the deed of the great sloth having given him the title of Prince of Pineapples. His expression of gratitude and admiration were of the warmest, and Philip felt that it was rather ungrateful of him to say, as he couldn't help, saying, No, I've done all the deeds, meant I go back to Helen. All in good time, said Mr. Noah, I will at once set about the arrangements for your coronation. The coronation was an occasion of unexampled splendour. There was a banquet, of course, and fireworks, and all the guns fired salutes, and the soldiers presented arms, and the ladies presented bouquets, and at the end Mr. Noah, with a few well-chosen words which brought tears to all eyes, placed the gold crown of polystarchia upon the brow of Philip, where its diamonds and rubies shone dazzlingly. There was an extra crown for Lucy made of silver and pearls and pale silvery moonstones. You have no idea how the polystarchians shouted. And now, said Mr. Noah, when it was all over, I regret to inform you that we must part. Polystarchia is a republic, and, of course, in a republic kings and queens are not permitted to exist. Partings are painful things, and you had better go at once. He was plainly very much upset. This is very sudden, said Philip. And Lucy said, I do think it's silly. How shall we get home, all in a hurry like this? How did you get here? By building a house and getting into it. Then build your own house. Oh, we have models of all the houses you were ever in. The pieces are all numbered. You only have to put them together. He led them to a large room behind the hall of public amusements, and took down from a shelf a stout box labelled the Grange, on another box Philip saw Laburnum Cottage. Mr. Noah, kneeling on his yellow mat, tumbled the contents of the box out on the floor, and Philip and Lucy set to work to build a house with the exquisitely finished little blocks and stones and beams and windows and chimneys. I cannot bear to see you go, said Mr. Noah. Goodbye, goodbye. Remember me sometimes. We shall never forget you, said the children, jumping up hugging him. Goodbye, said the parrot who had followed them in. Goodbye, goodbye, said everybody. I wish the lightning loose was not lost. Philip, even at this parting moment, remembered to say. She isn't, said Mr. Noah. She flew back to the island directly you left her. Sales are called wings, are they not? White wings that never grow weary, you know. Relieved of your weight, the faithful yacht flew home like any pigeon. Hurray! said Philip. I couldn't bear to think of her rotting away in a cavern. I wish Max and Brenda had come to say goodbye, said Lucy. It is not needed, said Mr. Noah mysteriously. And then everybody said goodbye again, and Mr. Noah rolled up his yellow mat, put it under his arm again, and went, forever. The children built the Grange, and when the beautiful little model of that house was there before them, perfect, they stood still a moment, looking at it. I wish we could be two people each, said Lucy. And one of each of us go home, and one of each of us stay here. Oh! she cried suddenly, and snatched at Philip's arm, for a slight strange giddiness had suddenly caught her. Philip, too, swayed a little uncertainly, and stood a moment with his hand to his head. The children gazed about them, bewildered, and still a little giddy. The room was gone, the model of the Grange was gone. Over their heads was blue sky, under their feet was green grass, and in front stood the Grange itself, with its front door wide open, and on the steps Helen and Mr. Peter Graham. That telegram had brought them home. You will wonder how Lucy explained where she had been when she was lost. She never did explain. There are some things as you know that cannot be explained. But the curious thing is, that no one ever asked for an explanation. The grown-ups must have thought they knew all about it, which, of course, was very far from being the truth. When the four people on the doorstep of the Grange had finished saying how glad they were to see each other, that day on the steps, when Philip and Lucy came back from Polystarchia, Helen and Mr. Peter Graham came back from Belgium, Helen said, And we've brought to you each the loveliest present. Fetch them, Peter, there's a dear. Mr. Peter Graham went to the stable-yard, and came back, followed by two long, tan Daxons, who rushed up to the children, frisking and forning in a way they well knew. Why, Max, why, Brenda, cried Philip. Oh, Helen, are they for us? Yes, dear, of course they are, said Helen. But how did you know their names? That was one of the things which Philip could not tell then. But he told Helen the whole story later, and she said it was wonderful, and how clever of him to make all that up, and that when he was a man he would be able to be an author and to write books. And do you know, she said, I did dream about the island, quite a long dream, only when I woke up I could only remember that I'd been there and seen you. But no doubt I dreamed about Mr. Noah, and all the rest of it as well, only I forgot it. And Max and Brenda, of course, loved everyone. Their characters were quite unchanged. Only the children had forgotten the language of animals, so that conversation between them and the dogs was for ever impossible. But Max and Brenda understand every word you say, anyone can see that. You want to know what became of the red-headed, steely-eyed nurse, the pretendorette, who made so much mischief and trouble. Well, I suppose she is still living with the Halmer folk, teaching the great sloth to like his work, and learning to be fond of people, which is the only way to be happy. At any rate, no one that I know of has ever seen her again anywhere else. The End of The Magic City by E. Nesbitt. Recording by Ruth Golding.