 THE BOOK OF WONDER by Lord Dunsaney. Come with me, ladies and gentlemen, who are in any wise weary of London. Come with me, and those that tire at all of the world we know, for we have new worlds here. THE BRIDE OF THE MANHORSE In the morning of his two hundred and fiftieth year, Sheparok the centaur went to the golden coffer wherein the treasure of the centaurs was, and taking from it the hoarded amulet that his father, Jaisak, in the year of his prime, had hammered from mountain gold and set with opals bartered from the gnomes, he put it upon his wrist, and said no word, but walked from his mother's cavern. And he took with him, too, that clarion of the centaurs, that famous silver horn that in its time had summoned to surrender seventeen cities of man, and for twenty years had braid at stargirt walls in the siege of Tholdenblarna, the citadel of the gods. What time the centaurs waged their fabulous war, and were not broken by any force of arms, but retreated slowly in a cloud of dust before the final miracle of the gods that they brought in their desperate need from their ultimate armory. He took it and strode away, and his mother only sighed and let him go. She knew that today he would not drink at the stream coming down from the terraces of Varpa Niger, the inner land of the mountains, that today he would not wonder a while at the sunset, and afterwards trot back to the cavern again to sleep on rushes pulled by rivers that know not man. She knew that it was with him as it had been of old with his father, and with Goome, the father of Jaishak, and long ago with the gods, therefore she only sighed and let him go. But he, coming out from the cavern that was his home, went for the first time over the little stream, and going round the corner of the crags saw glittering beneath him the mundane plain, and the wind of the autumn that was gilding the world, rushing up the slopes of the mountain, beat cold on his naked flanks. He raised his head and snorted, I am a man-horse now, he shouted aloud, and leaping from crag to crag he galled by valley and chasm, by torrent bed and scar of avalanche, until he came to the wandering leagues of the plain, and left behind him forever the Atharamanarian mountains. His goal was Zetrazzula, the city of Sambelini. What legend of Sambelini's inhuman beauty, or of the wonder of her mystery, had ever floated over the mundane plain to the cradle of the centaurs race, the Atharamanarian mountains I do not know. Yet in the blood of man there is a tide, an old sea current, rather, that is somehow akin to the twilight, which brings him rumors of beauty from however far away, as driftwood is found at sea from islands not yet discovered. And this spring tide of current that visits the blood of man comes from the fabulous quarter of his lineage, from the legendary of old. It takes him out to the woodlands, out to the hills. He listens to ancient song, so it may be that Sheparok's fabulous blood stirred in those lonely mountains away at the edge of the world to rumors that only the airy twilight knew, and only confided secretly to the bat, for Sheparok was more legendary even than man. Certain it was that he headed from the first for the city of Zetrazzula, where Sambelini in her temple dwelt, the wall the mundane plain, its rivers and mountains lay between Sheparok's home and the city he sought. When first the feet of the centaur touched the grass of that soft alluvial earth, he blew for joy upon the silver horn, he pranced and caracald, he gamballed over the leagues, pace came to him like a maiden with a lamp, a new and beautiful wonder. The wind laughed as it passed him. He put his head down low to the scent of the flower. He lifted it up to be near the unseen stars. He reveled through kingdoms, took rivers in his stride. How shall I tell you, ye that dwell in cities, how shall I tell you what he felt as he galloped? He felt for strength like the towers of Bel Norana, for lightness like those gossamer palaces that the fairy spider bells twixed heaven and sea along the coasts of Zith, for swiftness like some bird racing up from the morning to sing in some city spires before daylight comes. He was the sworn companion of the wind, for joy he was as a song. The lightnings of his legendary sires, the early gods, began to mix with his blood, his hooves thundered. He came to the cities of men, and all men trembled for they remembered the ancient mythical wars, and now they dreaded new battles and feared for the race of man. Not by Clio are these wars recorded. History does not know them. But what of that? Not all of us have sat at historians feet, but all have learned fable and myth at their mother's knees. And there were none that did not fear strange wars when they saw Sheparok swerve and leap along the public ways. So he passed from city to city. By night he laid down unpanthing in the reeds of some marsh or forest. Before dawn he rose triumphant and hugely drank of some river in the dark, and splashing out of it would trot to some high place to find the sunrise and to send echoing eastwards the exultant greetings of his jubilant horn. And lo, the sunrise coming up from the echoes and the plains new lit by the day and the leagues spinning by like water flung from atop and that gate companion the loudly lacking wind and men and the fears of men and their little cities and after that great rivers and waste spaces and huge new hills and then new lands beyond them and more cities of men and always the old companion the glorious wind. Kingdom by kingdom slipped by and still his breath was even. It is a golden theme to gallop on good turf in one's youth, said the young manhorsed the centaur. Ha ha said the wind of the hills and the winds of the plain answered. Bells peeled in frantic towers, wise men consulted parchment, astrologers sought of the portent from the stars, the aged made subtle prophecies. Is he not swift, said the young. How glad he is, said the children. Night after night brought him sleep and day after day lit his gallop till he came to the lands of the Athelonian men who lived by the edges of the mundane plain and from them he came to the lands of legend again such as those in which he was cradled on the other side of the world and which fringed the marge of the world and mixed with the twilight and there a mighty thought came into his untired heart for he knew that he neared Zetrizula now, the city of Sambalini. It was late in the day when he neared it and clouds colored with evening rolled low on the plain before him. He galloped on into their golden mist and when it hid from his eyes the sight of things the dreams in his heart awoke and romantically he pondered all those rumors that used to come to him from Sambalini because of the fellowship of fabulous things. She dwelt, said evening secretly to the bat, in a little temple by a lone lakeshore a grove of cypresses greened her from the city from Zetrizula of the climbing ways and opposite her temple stood her tomb that lakeshore polker with open door lest her amazing beauty and the centuries of her youth should ever give rise to the heresy among men that lovely Sambalini was immortal for only her beauty and her lineage were divine. Her father had been half centaur and half god her mother was the child of a desert lion and that sphinx that watches the pyramids she was more mystical than woman her beauty was as a dream, was as a song the one dream of a lifetime dreamed on enchanted dues the one song sung to some city by a deathless bird blown far from his native coast by storm and paradise dawn after dawn on mountains of romance or twilight after twilight could never equal her beauty all the glowworms had not the secret among them nor all the stars of night poets had never sung it nor evening guessed its meaning the morning envied it it was hidden from lovers she was unwed, unwood the lions came not to woo her because they feared her strength and the gods dare not love her because they knew she must die this was what evening had whispered to the bat this was the dream in the heart of Sheprock as he cantered blind through the mist and suddenly there at his hooves in the dark of the plain appeared the cleft in the legendary lands and Zetrezzula sheltering in the cleft and sunning herself in the evening swiftly and craftily he bounded down by the upper end of the cleft and entering Zetrezzula by the outer gate which looks out sheer on the stars he galloped suddenly down the narrow streets many that rushed out on to balconies as he went clattering by many that put their heads from glittering windows are told of in olden song Sheprock did not tarry to give greetings or to answer challenges from marshal towers he was down through the earthward gateway like the thunderbolt of his sires and like the viathan who has leapt at an eagle he surged into the water between temple and tomb he galloped with half-shed eyes up the temple steps and only seeing dimly through his lashes sees Sambalini by the hair undazzled as yet by her beauty and so hailed her away and leaping with her over the flawless chasm where the waters of the lake fall unremembered away into a hole in the world took her we know not where to be her slave for all centuries that are allowed to his race three blasts he gave as he went upon that silver horn that is the world-owned treasure of the centaurs these were his wedding bells end of The Bride of the Manhorse The Book of Wonder by Lord Dunseney this is LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org distressing tale of Thangobrind the jeweler when Thangobrind the jeweler heard the ominous cough he turned at once upon that narrow way a thief he was, a very high repute being patronized by the lofty and elect for he stole nothing smaller than the mumu's egg and in all his life stole only four kinds of stone the ruby, the diamond, the emerald and the sapphire and as jewelers go his honesty was great now there was a merchant prince who had come to Thangobrind and had offered his daughter's soul for the diamond that is larger than the human head and was to be found on the lap of the spider idol Hala Hala in his temple of Mungaling for he had heard that Thangobrind was a thief to be trusted Thangobrind oiled his body and slipped out of his shop and went secretly through byways and got as far as snarp before anybody knew that he was out on business again or missed his sword from its place under the counter thence he moved only by night hiding by day and rubbing the edges of his sword which he called mouse because it was swift and nimble the jeweler had subtle methods of traveling nobody saw him cross the plains of Zid nobody saw him come to Mursk or to Lann oh but he loved the shadows once the moon peeping out unexpectedly from a tempest had betrayed an ordinary jeweler not so did a undue Thangobrind the watchman only saw a crouching shape that snarled and laughed tis but a hyena they said once in the city of Ag one of the guardians seized him but Thangobrind was oiled and slipped from his hand you scarcely heard his bare feet patter away he knew that the merchant prince awaited his return his little eyes opened all night and glittering with greed he knew how his daughter lay chained up and screaming night and day ah Thangobrind knew and had he not been out on business he had almost allowed himself one or two little laughs but business was business and the diamond that he sought still lay on the lap of Halahala where had been for the last two million years since Halahala created the world and gave unto it all things except that precious stone called dead man's diamond the jewel was often stolen but it had a knack of coming back again to the lap of Halahala Thangobrind knew this but he was no common jeweler and hoped to outwit Halahala receiving not the trend of ambition and lust and that they are vanity how nimbly he threaded his way through the pits of Snude now like a botanist scrutinizing the ground now like a dancer leaping from crumbling edges it was quite dark when he went by the towers of Thor where archers shoot ivory arrows at strangers lest any foreigner should alter their laws which are bad but not to be altered by mere aliens at night they shoot by the sound of the stranger's feet O Thangobrind was ever a jeweler like you he dragged two stones behind him by long cords and at these the archers shot tempting indeed was the snare that they set in Wa the emeralds loose set in the city's gate but Thangobrind discerned the golden cord that climbed the wall from each the weights that would topple upon him if he touched one and so he left them though he left them weeping and at last came to Theth there all men worship Halahala though they were willing to believe in other gods as missionaries attest but only as creatures of the chase for the hunting of Halahala who wears their halos so these people say on golden hooks along his hunting belt and from Theth he came to the city of Mung and the temple of Mungaling and entered and saw the spider idol Halahala sitting there with dead man's diamond glittering on his lap and looking for all the world like a full moon but a full moon seen by a lunatic who had slept too long in its rays for there was in dead man's diamond a certain sinister look and a boating of things to happen that are better not mentioned here the face of the spider idol was lit by that fatal gem there was no other light in spite of his shocking limbs and that demonic body his face was serene and apparently unconscious a little fear came into the mind of Fengobrain the jeweler a passing tremor, no more business was business and he hoped for the best Fengobrain offered honey to Halahala and prostrated himself before him oh he was cunning when the priest stole out of the darkness to lap up the honey they were stretched senseless on the temple floor for there was a drug in the honey that was offered to Halahala and Fengobrain the jeweler picked dead man's diamond up and put it on his shoulder and trudged away from the shrine and Halahala the spider idol said nothing at all but he laughed softly as the jeweler shut the door when the priest awoke out of the grip of the drug that was offered with the honey to Halahala they rushed to a little secret room with an outlet on the stars and cast a horoscope of the thief something that they saw on the horoscope seemed to satisfy the priest it was not like Fengobrain to go back by the road by which he had come no he went by another road even though it led to the narrow way, night house and spider forest the city of Moong went towering by behind him balcony above balcony eclipsing half the stars as he trudged away though when a soft pittering as a velvet feet rose behind him he refused to acknowledge that it might be what he feared yet the instincts of his tray told him that it is not well when any noise would ever fall as a diamond by night and this was one of the largest that had ever come to him in the way of business when he came to the narrow way that leads to spider forest dead man's diamond feeling cold and heavy and the velvety footfall seeming fearfully close the jeweler stopped and almost hesitated he looked behind him there was nothing there he listened attentively there was no sound now then he thought of the screams of the merchant prince's daughter that was the diamond's price and smiled and went stoutly on there watched him apathetically over the narrow way that grim and dubious woman whose house is night thankham brine hearing no longer the sound of suspicious feet felt easier now he was all but come to the end of the narrow way when the woman listlessly uttered that ominous cough the cough was too full of meaning to be disregarded then grime turned round and saw at once what he feared the spider idol had not stayed at home the jeweler put his diamond gently upon the ground and drew his sword called mouse and then began that famous fight upon the narrow way in which the grim old woman whose house was night seemed to take so little interest to the spider idol you saw at once it was all a horrible joke to the jeweler it was grim earnest he fought and panted and was pushed back slowly along the narrow way but he wounded hola hola all the while with terrible long gashes all over his deep soft body till mouse was slimy with blood but at last the persistent laughter of hola hola was too much for the jeweler's nerves and once more wounding his demonic foe he sank aghast and exhausted by the door of the house called night at the feet of the grim old woman who having uttered once that ominous cough interfered no further with the course of events and there carried thingabrine the jeweler away those whose duty it was to the house where the two men hang and taking down from his hook the left hand of the two they put that venturist jeweler in his place so that there fell on him the doom that he feared as all men know though it is so long since and there abated somewhat the ire of the envious gods and the only daughter of the merchant prince felt so little gratitude for this great deliverance that she took to respectability of the militant kind and became aggressively dull and called her home the English Riviera and had platitudes worked and worsted upon her tea cozy and in the end never died but passed away in her residence end of distressing tale of thangobrind the jeweler the book of wonder by Lord Dunsaney this is LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org the house of the Spinks when I came to the house of the Spinks it was already dark they made me eagerly welcome and I, in spite of the deed was glad of any shelter from that ominous wood I saw at once that there had been a deed although a cloak did all that a cloak may do to conceal it the mere uneasiness of the welcome made me suspect that cloak the Spinks was moody and silent I had not come to pry into the secrets of eternity nor to investigate the Spinks' private life and so had little to say and few questions to ask but to whatever I did say she remained morosely indifferent it was clear that either she suspected me of being in search of the secrets of one of her gods or of being boldly inquisitive about her traffic with time or else she was darkly absorbed with brooding upon the deed I saw soon enough that there was another than me to welcome I saw it from the hurried way that they glanced from the door to the deed and back to the door again and it was clear that the welcome was to be a bolted door but such bolts and such a door rest and decay and fungus had been there far too long and it was not a barrier any longer that would keep out even a termant wolf and it seemed to be something worse than a wolf that they feared a little later on I gathered from what they said that some imperious and ghastly thing was looking for the Spinks and that something that had happened had made its arrival certain it appeared that they had slapped the Spinks to vex her out of her apathy in order that she should pray to one of her gods whom she had littered in the house of time but her moody silence was invincible and her apathy oriental ever since the deed had happened and when they found that they could not make her pray there was nothing for them to do but to pay little useless attentions to the rusty lock of the door and to look at the deed and wonder and even pretend to hope and to say that after all it might not bring that destined thing from the forest which no one named it may be said I had chosen a gruesome house but not if I had described the forest from which I came and I was in need of any spot where I could rest my mind from the thought of it I wondered very much what thing would come from the forest on account of the deed and having seen that forest as you gentle reader have not I had the advantage of knowing that anything might come it was useless to ask the Spinks she seldom reveals things like her paramour time the gods take after her and while this mood was on her Rebuff was certain so I quietly began to oil the lock of the door and as soon as they saw the simple act I won their confidence it was not that my work was of any use it should have been done long before but they saw that my interest was given for the moment to the thing that they thought vital they clustered round me then they asked me what I thought of the door and whether I had seen better or whether I had seen worse and I told them about all the doors I knew and said that the doors of the baptistery in Florence were better doors made by a certain firm of builders in London were worse and then I asked them what it was that was coming after the Spinks because of the deed and at first they would not say and I stopped oiling the door and then they said that it was the arch inquisitor of the forest who was investigator and avenger of all silvestry and things and from what they said about him it seemed to me that this person was quite white and was a kind of madness that would settle down quite blankly upon a place a kind of mist in which reason could not live and it was the fear of this that made them fumble nervously at the lock of that rotten door but with the Spinks it was not so much fear as sheer prophecy the hope that they tried to hope was well enough in its way but I did not share it it was clear that the thing that they feared was the corollary of the deed one saw that more by the resignation upon the face of the Spinks than by their sorry anxiety for the door the wind soared and the great tapers flared and their obvious fear and the silence of the Spinks drew more than ever a part of the atmosphere and bats went restlessly through the gloom of the wind that beat the tapers low then a few things screamed far off then a little nearer and something was coming towards us I hastily gave a prod to the door that they guarded my finger sink right into the mouldering wood there was not a chance of holding it I had not leisure to observe their fright I thought of the back door for the forest was better than this only the Spinks was absolutely calm her prophecy was made and she seemed to have seen her doom so that no new thing could perturb her but by mouldering rungs of ladders as old as man by slippery edges of the dreaded abyss with an ominous dizziness about my heart and a feeling of horror in the soles of my feet I clempered from tower to tower till I found the door that I sought and it opened on to one of the upper branches of a huge and somber pine down which I climbed on to the floor of the forest and I was glad to be back again in the forest from which I had fled and the Spinks in her menaced house I know not how she fared whether she gazes forever disconsolate at the deed remembering only in her smitten mind at which the little boys now leer that she once knew well those things at which man stands aghast or whether in the end she crept away and clampering horribly from abyss to abyss came at last to hire things and is wise and eternal still for who knows of madness whether it is divine or whether it be of the pit End of The House of the Spinks The Book of Wonder by Lord Dunsany This is LibriVox Recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Probable Adventure of the Three Literary Men When the Nomads came to El Lola they had no more songs and the question of stealing the golden box rose in all its magnitude On the one hand many had sought the golden box the receptacle as the Ethiopians know of poems of fabulous value and their doom is still the common talk of Arabia On the other hand it was lonely to sit around the campfire by night with no new songs It was the tribe of Heth that discussed these things one evening upon the plains below the peak of Maluna Their native land was the track across the world of immorial wanderers and there was trouble among the elders of the Nomads because there were no new songs While untouched by human trouble untouched as yet by the night that was hiding the plains away the peak of Maluna, calm in the afterglow beyond the dubious land and it was there on the plain upon the known side of Maluna just as the evening star came mouse-like into view and the flames of the campfire lifted their lonely plumes un-sheered by any song that that rash scheme was hastily planned by the Nomads which the world has named the quest of the golden box No measure of wiser precaution could the elders of the Nomads have taken than to choose for their thief that very slith that identical thief that, even as I write in how many schoolrooms, governesses teach stole a march on the king of Westalia yet the weight of the box was such that others had to accompany him and sippy and slog were no more agile thieves that may be found today among the vendors of the antique So over the shoulder of Maluna these three climbed next day and slept as well as they might among its snows rather than risk a night in the woods of the dubious land and the morning came up radiant and the birds were full of song but the forest underneath and the waste beyond it and the bare and ominous crags all wore the appearance of an unuttered threat Though slith had an experience of twenty years of theft yet he said little only if one of the others made a stone roll with his foot or later on in the forest if one of them stepped on a twig he whispered sharply to them always the same words that is not business He knew that he could not make them better thieves during a two days journey and whatever doubts he had he had interfered no further From the shoulder of Maluna they dropped into the clouds and from the clouds to the forest to whose native beasts as well the three thieves knew all flesh was meat whether it were the flesh of fish or man there the thieves drew idolatrously from their pockets each one a separate god and prayed for protection in the unfortunate wood and hoped there from for a three fold chance of escape since if anything should eat one of them it were certain to eat them all and they confided that the corollary might be true and all should escape if one did whether one of these gods was propitious and awake or whether all of the three or whether it was chance that brought them through the forest unmouthed by detestable beasts none knoweth but certainly neither the emissaries of the god that most they feared nor the wrath of the topical god of that ominous place brought their doom to the three adventurers there or then and so it was that they came to Rumbly Heath in the heart of the dubious land whose stormy hillocks were the groundswell and the afterwash of the earthquake lulled for a while something so huge that it seemed unfair to man that it should move so softly stocked splendidly by them and only so barely did they escape its notice that one word ran and echoed through their three imaginations if if if and when this danger was at last gone by they moved cautiously on again and presently saw the little harmless mipped half fairy and half gnome giving shrill contented squeaks on the edge of the world and they edged away unseen for they said that the inquisitiveness of the mipped had become fabulous and that harmless as he was he had a bad way with secrets yet they probably loathed the way that he nuzzles dead white bones and would not admit their loathing for it does not become adventurers to care who eats their bones be this as it may they edged away from the mipped and came almost at once to the wisened tree the goalpost of their adventure and knew that beside them was the crack in the world and the bridge from bad to worse and that underneath them stood the rocky house of the owner of the box this was their simple plan to slip into the corridor in the upper cliff to run softly down it, of course with naked feet under the warning to travelers that is grieving upon stone which interpreters take to be it is better not not to touch the berries that are there for a purpose on the right side going down and so to come to the guardian on his pedestal who had slept for a thousand years and should be sleeping still and going through the open window one man was the weight outside by the crack in the world until the others came out with the golden box and should they cry for help he was to threaten at once to unfasten the iron clamp that kept the crack together when the box was secure they were to travel all night and all the following day until the cloud banks that wrapped the slopes of Maluna were well between them and the owner of the box the door in the cliff was open they passed without a murmur down the cold steps Slith leading them all the way a glance of longing no more each gave to the beautiful berries the guardian upon his pedestal was still asleep slorg climbed by a ladder that Slith knew where to find to the iron clamp across the crack in the world and weighed him aside with a chisel in his hand listening closely for anything untoward while his friends slipped into the house and no sound came and presently Slith and Sippy found the golden box everything seemed happening as they had planned it only remained to see if it was the right one and to escape with it from that dreadful place under the shelter of the pedestal so near to the guardian that they could feel his warmth which paradoxically had the effect of chilling the blood of the boldest of them they smashed the emerald hasp and opened the golden box and there they read by the light of ingenious sparks which Slith knew how to contrive and even this poor light they hid with their bodies what was their joy even at that perilous moment as they lurked between the guardian and the abyss to find that the box contained fifteen peerless odes in the alchaic form five sonnets that were by far the most beautiful in the world nine ballads in the manner of Provence that had no equal in the treasuries of man a poem addressed to Amoth in twenty-eight perfect stanzas a piece of blank verse of over a hundred lines on a level not yet known to have been attained by man as well as fifteen lyrics on which no merchant would dare to set a price they would have read them again for they gave happy tears to a man in memories of dear things done in infancy and brought sweet voices from far subholkers but Slith pointed imperiously to the way by which they had come and extinguished the light and Slogan's sippy side then took the box the guardian still slept asleep that survived a thousand years as they came away they saw that indulgent chair close by the edge of the world in which the owner of the box had lately sat reading selfishly and alone the most beautiful songs and verses that poet ever dreamed they came in silence to the foot of the stairs and then it befell that as they drew nearer safety in the night's most secret hour some hand in an upper chamber lit a shocking light lit it and made no sound for a moment it might have been an ordinary light fatal as even that could very well be at such a moment as this but when it began to follow them like an eye and to grow redder and redder as it watched them then even optimism despaired and sippy very unwisely attempted flight and Slogan even as unwisely trying to hide but Slith, knowing well why that light was lit in that secret chamber and who it was that lit it leaped over the edge of the world and is falling from us still through the unreverberate blackness of the abyss end of probable adventure of the three literary men the book of wonder by Lord Dunsany this is LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org the injudicious prayers of Pombo Thy Dolator Pombo Thy Dolator had prayed Ammo's a simple prayer a necessary prayer such as even an idol of ivory could very easily grant and Ammo's has not immediately granted it Pombo had therefore prayed to Tharma for the overthrow of Ammo's and idol-friendly to Tharma and in doing this offended against the etiquette of the gods Tharma refused to grant the little prayer Pombo prayed frantically to all the gods of idolatry for though it was a simple matter yet it was very necessary to a man and gods that were older than Ammo's rejected the prayers of Pombo and even gods that were younger and therefore of greater repute he prayed to them one by one and they all refused to hear him nor at first did he think at all of the subtle divine etiquette against which he had offended it occurred to him all at once as he prayed to his 50th idol a little green jade god whom the Chinese know that all the idols were in league against him when Pombo discovered this he resented his birth bitterly and made lamentation and alleged that he was lost he might have been seen then in any part of London hunting curiosity shops and places where they sold idols of ivory or of stone for he dwelt in London with others of his race though he was born in Burma among those who hold Ganges holy on drizzly evenings of November's worst his haggard face could be seen in the glow of some shop pressed close against the glass where he would supplicate some calm cross-legged idol till policemen moved him on and after closing hours back he would go to his dingy room in that part of our capital where English is seldom spoken to supplicate little idols of his own and when Pombo's simple necessary prayer was equally refused by the idols of museums auction rooms, shops then he took counsel with himself and purchased incense and burned it in a brazier before his own cheap little idols and played the wile upon an instrument such as that wherewith men charmed snakes and still the idols clung to their etiquette whether Pombo knew about this etiquette and considered it frivolous in the face of his need whether his need now grown desperate unhinged his mind, I know not but Pombo the idolater took a stick and suddenly turned iconoclast Pombo the iconoclast immediately left his house leaving his idols to be swept away with the dust and so to mingle with man and went to an arch idolater of repute who carved idols out of rare stones and put his case before him the arch idolater who made idols of his own rebuked Pombo in the name of man for having broken his idols for hath not man made them the arch idolater said and concerning the idols themselves he spoke long and learnedly explaining divine etiquette and how Pombo had offended and how no idol in the world would listen to Pombo's prayer when Pombo heard this he wept and made bitter outcry and cursed the gods of ivory and the jade and the hand of man that made them but most of all he cursed their etiquette that had undone as he said an innocent man so that at last that arch idolater who made idols of his own stopped in his work upon an idol of Jasper for a king that was weary of woosh and took compassion on Pombo and told him that though no idol in the world would listen to his prayer he had only a little way over the edge of it a certain disreputal idol sat who knew nothing of etiquette and granted prayers that no respectable god would ever consent to hear when Pombo heard this he took two handfuls of the arch idolater's beard and kissed them joyfully and dried his tears and became his old impertinent self again and he that carved from Jasper the usurper of woosh explained how in the village of world's end at the furthest end of last street there is a hole that you take to be a well close by the garden wall for that if you lower yourself by your hands over the edge of the hole and feel about with your feet till they find a ledge that is the top step of a flight of stairs that takes you down over the edge of the world for all that men know those stairs may have a purpose and even a bottom step said the arch idolater but discussion about the lower flights is idle then the teeth of Pombo chattered for he feared the darkness but he that made idols of his own explained that those stairs were always lit by the faint blue gloaming in which the world spins then he said you will go by lonely house and under the bridge that leads from the house to nowhere and whose purpose is not guessed thens past Maharyana the god of flowers and his high priest who is neither bird nor cat and so you will come to the little idol dooth the disreputable god that will grant your prayer and he went on carving again at his idol of Jasper for the king who was weary of woesh and Pombo thanked him and went singing away for in his vernacular mind he thought that he had the gods it is a long journey from London to worlds end and Pombo had no money left and yet within five weeks he was strolling along last street but how he contrived to get there he will not say for it was not entirely honest and Pombo found the well at the end of the garden beyond the end house of last street and many thoughts ran through his mind as he hung by his hands from the edge but chiefest of all those thoughts was one that said the gods were laughing at him through the mouth of the arch idolater their prophet and the thought beat in his head till it ached like his wrists and then he found the step and Pombo walked downstairs there sure enough was the gloaming in which the world spins and the stars shone far off in it faintly there was nothing before him as he went downstairs but that strange blue waste of gloaming with its multitude of stars and comets plunging through it out on outward journeys and comets returning home and then he saw the lights of the bridge to nowhere and all of a sudden he was in the glare of a burning parlor window of lonely house and he heard voices there pronouncing words and the voices were no wise human and but for his bitter need he had screamed and fled halfway between the voices and Maharyan whom he now saw standing out from the world covered in rainbow halos he perceived the weird grey beast that is neither cat nor bird as Pombo hesitated chilly with fear he heard those voices grow louder in lonely house and at that he still only moved a few steps lower and then rushed past the beast the beast intently watched Maharyan hurling up bubbles that are every one a season of spring in unknown constellations calling the swallows home to unimagined fields watched him without even turning to look at Pombo and saw him drop into the Lin Lin Larna the river that rises at the edge of the world the golden pollen that sweetens the tide of the river and is carried away from the world to be a joy to the stars and there before Pombo was the little disreputable god who cares nothing for etiquette and will answer prayers that are effused by all the respectable idols and whether the view of him at last excited Pombo's eagerness or whether his need was greater than he could bear that it drove him so swiftly downstairs or whether as is most likely he ran too fast past the beast I do not know and it does not matter to Pombo but at any rate he could not stop as he had designed an attitude of prayer at the feet of dooth but ran on past him down the narrowing steps clutching at smooth bear rocks till he fell from the world as when our hearts miss a beat we fall in dreams and wake up with a dreadful jolt but there was no waking up for Pombo who still fell on towards the incurious stars and his fate is even one with the fate of Slith end of the injudicious prayers of Pombo the idolater the book of wonder by Lord Dunseney this is LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org the Lude of Mamasharna things had grown too hot for Shard captain of pirates on all the seas that he knew the ports of Spain were close to him they knew him in San Domingo men winked in Syracuse when he went by the two kings of the Sicilies never smiled within an hour of speaking of him there were huge rewards for his head in every capital city with pictures of it for identification and all the pictures were unflattering therefore captain Shard decided that the time had come to tell his men the secret writing off Teneriff one night he called them all together he generously admitted that there were things in the past that might require explanation the crowns that the princes of Aragon had sent to their nephews the kings of the two Americas had certainly never reached their most sacred majesties where men might ask were the eyes of captain Stobud who had been burning towns on the Patagonian seaboard why should such a ship as theirs choose pearls for cargo why so much blood on the decks and so many guns and where was the Nancy the Lark or the Margaret Bell such questions as these he urged might be asked by the inquisitive and if counsel for the defense should happen to be a fool and unacquainted with the ways of the sea they might become involved in troublesome legal formulae and bloody bill as they rudely called Mr. Gag a member of the crew looked up at the sky and said that it was a windy night and looked like hanging and some of those present thoughtfully stroked their necks while captain Shard unfolded to them his plan he said the time was come to quit the desperate Lark where she was too well known to the navies of four kingdoms was getting to know her and others had suspicions more cutters than even captain Shard suspected were already looking for her jolly black flag with its neat skull and crossbones in yellow there was a little archipelago that he knew of on the wrong side of the Sargasso sea there were but 30 islands there, bare ordinary islands but one of them floated he had noticed it years ago and had gone ashore and never told the soul but had quietly anchored it with anchor of his ship to the bottom of the sea which just there was profoundly deep and had made the thing the secret of his life determining to marry and settle down there if it ever became impossible to earn his livelihood in the usual way at sea when first he saw it it was drifting slowly with the wind in the tops of the trees but if the cable had not rusted away it should be still where he left it and they would make a rudder and hollow out cabins below and at night they would hoist sails to the trunks of the trees and sail wherever they liked and all the pirates cheered for they wanted to set their feet on land again somewhere where the hangmen would not come and jerk them off it at once and bold men though they were it was a strange seeing so many lights coming their way at night even then but it swerved away again and was lost in the mist and captain shards said that they would need to get provisions first and he for one intended to marry before he settled down and so they should have one more fight before they left the ship and sacked the sea coast city of Bama Sharna and take from it provisions for several years while he himself would marry the queen of the south and again the pirates cheered for often they had seen sea coast Bama Sharna and had always envied its opulence from the sea so they set all sail and often altered their course and dodged and fled from strange lights till dawn appeared and all day long fled southwards and by evening they saw the silver spires of slender Bama Sharna a city that was the glory of the coast and in the midst of it far away though they were they saw the palace of the queen of the south and it was so full of windows all looking toward the sea and they were so full of light both from the sunset that was fading upon the water and from candles that maids were lighting one by one that had looked far off like a pearl shimmering still in its heliotis shell still wet from the sea so captain shard and his pirate saw it at evening over the water and thought of rumors that said that Bama Sharna was the loveliest city of the coast of the world and that its palace was lovelier even than Bama Sharna but for the queen of the south rumor had no comparison then night came down and hid the silver spires and shard slipped on through the gathering darkness until by midnight the pirate ship lay under the seaward battlements and at the hour when sick men mostly die and sentries on lonely ramparts stand to arms exactly half an hour before dawn shard with two rowing boats and half his crew with craftily muffled oars landed below the battlements they were through the gateway of the palace itself before the alarm was sounded and as soon as they heard the alarm shards gunners at sea opened upon the town and before the sleepy soldiery of Bama Sharna knew whether the danger was from the land or the sea shard had successfully captured the queen of the south they would have looted all day that silver sea coast city but there appeared with dawn suspicious top sails just along the horizon therefore the captain with his queen went down to the shore at once and hastily re-embarked and sailed away with what loot they had hurriedly got to the ocean where they had to fight a good deal to get back to the boat they cursed all day the interference of those ominous ships which steadily grew near there were six ships at first and that night they slipped away from all but two but all the next day those two were still in sight and each of them had more guns than the desperate lark all the next night shard dodged about the sea and the next morning it was alone with shard on the sea and his archipelago was just in sight the secret of his life and shard saw he must fight and the bad fight it was and yet it suited shard's purpose for he had more merry men when the fight began than he needed for his island and they got it over before any other ship came up and shard put all adverse evidence out of the way and came that night to the islands near the sargasso sea long before it was light the survivors of the crew were puring at the sea and when dawn came there was the island no bigger than two ships straining hard at its anchor with the wind and the tops of the trees and then they landed and dug cabins below and raised the anchor out of the deep sea and soon they made the island what they called ship shape and in desperate lark they sent away empty under full sail to sea where more nations than shard suspected were watching for her and where she was presently captured by an admiral of spain who when he found none of that infamous crew on board to hang by the neck from the art arm grew ill through disappointment and shard on his island offered the queen of the south the choices of the old wines of Provence looted from galleons with treasure for Madrid and spread a table where she dined in the sun while in some cabin below he bade the least course of his mariners sing yet always she was morose and moody towards him and often at evening he was heard to say that he wished he knew more about the ways of queens so they lived for years the pirates mostly gambling and drinking below captain shard trying to please the queen of the south and she never wholly forgetting Balmasharna when they needed new provisions they hoisted sails on the trees and as long as no ship came in sight they scutted before the wind with the water rippling over the beach of the island but as soon as they sited a ship the sails came down and they became an ordinary uncharted rock they mostly moved by night sometimes they hovered off sea coast towns as of old sometimes they boldly entered river mouths and even attached themselves for a while to the mainland once they would plunder the neighborhood and escape again to sea and if a ship was wrecked on their island of a night they said it was all to the good they grew very crafty in seamanship and cunning in what they did for they knew that any news of the desperate lark's old crew would bring hangman from the interior running down to every port and no one is known to have found them out or to have annexed their island but rumor arose and passed from port to port and every place where sailors meet together and even survives to this day of a dangerous uncharted rock anywhere between Plymouth and the Horn which would suddenly rise in the safest track of ships and upon which vessels were supposed to have been wrecked leaving strangely enough no evidence of their doom there was a little speculation about it at first till it was silenced by the chance remark of a man old with wandering it is one of the mysteries that haunt the sea and almost captain shard and the queen of the south lived happily ever after though still at evening those on watch in the trees would see their captain sit with a puzzled air or hear a mutter now and again in a discontented way and knew more about the ways of queens end of the loot of Bama Sharna the book of wonder by Lord Dunsany this is LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Miss Cubbage and the Dragon of Romance this tale is told in the balconies of Belgrave Square and among the towers of Pond Street men sing in an evening in the Brompton Road little upon her 18th birthday thought Miss Cubbage of number 12A Prince of Wales Square that before another year had gone its way she would lose the sight of the unshapely oblong that was so long her home and had you told her further that within that year there was so called square and of the day when her father was elected by a thumping majority to share in the guidance of the destinies of the empire should utterly fade from her memory she would merely have said in that effected voice of hers go to there was nothing about it in the daily press the policy of her father's party had no provision for it there was no hint of it in conversation at evening parties Miss Cubbage went there was nothing to warn her at all that a loathsome dragon with golden scales that rattled as he went would have come up clean out of the prime of romance and gone by night so far as we know through Hammersmith and come to Ardell Mansion and then had turned to his left which of course brought him to Miss Cubbage's father's house there sat Miss Cubbage waiting for her father to be made a baronette she was wearing walking boots and a hat and a low necked evening dress for a painter was but just now painting her portrait and either she nor the painter saw anything odd in this strange combination she did not notice the roar of the dragon's golden scales nor distinguish above the manifold lights of London the small red glare of his eyes he suddenly lifted his head with gold over the balcony he did not appear a yellow dragon then for his glistening scales reflected the beauty that London puts upon her only at evening and night she screamed but to no night nor knew what night to call on nor guessed where were the dragon's overthrowers of far romantic days nor what mightier game they chased or what wars they waged for chance they were busy even then arming for Armageddon out of the balcony of her father's house in Prince of Wales square the painted dark green balcony that grew blocker every year the dragon lifted Miss Cubbage and spread his rattling wings and London fell away like an old fashion and England fell away and the smoke of its factories and the round material world that goes humming round the sun vexed and pursued by time until there appeared the eternal romance, lying low by mystical seas you had not pictured Miss Cubbage stroking the golden head of one of the dragons of song with one hand idly while with the other she sometime played with pearls brought up from lonely places of the sea they filled huge heliotish shells with pearls and laid them there beside her they brought her emeralds which she set to flash among the tresses of her long black hair they brought her threaded sapphires for her cloak all this the princes of fable did and the elves and the gnomes of myth and partly she still lived and partly she was one with long ago and with those sacred tales that nurses tell when all their children are good and evening has come and the fire is burning well and the soft pat pat of the snowflakes on the pain is like the furtive tread of the wings in old enchanted woods if at first she missed those dainty novelties among which she was reared the old sufficient song of the mystical sea singing of fairy lore at first soothe and at last consoled her even she forgot those advertisements of pills that are so dear to england even she forgot political cant and the things that one discusses and the things that one does not and had perforce to contend herself with seeing sailing by huge golden lading galleons with treasure for Madrid and the merry skull and crossbones of the pirateers and the tiny nautilus setting out to sea and ships of heroes trafficking in romance or of princes seeking for enchanted aisles it was not by chains that the dragon kept her there but by one of the spells of old to one to whom the facilities of the daily press had for so long been accorded spells would have you would have said and galleons after a time and all things out of date after a time but whether the centuries passed her or whether the years or whether no time at all she did not know if anything indicated the passing of time it was the rhythm of elfin horns blowing upon the heights if the centuries went by her the spell that bound her gave her also perennial youth and kept alight forever the lantern by her side and saved from decay the marble palace facing the mystical sea and if no time went by her there at all her single moment on those marvelous coasts was turned as it were to a crystal reflecting a thousand scenes if it was all a dream it was a dream that knew no morning and no fading away the tide roamed on and whispered while near that captive lady asleep in his marble tank the golden dragon dreamed and a little way out from the coast all that the dragon dreamed showed faintly in the mist that lay over the sea he never dreamed of any rescuing night so long as he dreamed it was twilight but when he came up nimbly out of his tank night fell and starlight glistened on the dripping golden scales there he and his captive either defeated time or never encountered him at all while in the world we know raged rants of alls or battles yet to be I know not to what part of the shore of romance he bore her perhaps she became one of those princesses of whom fables loved to tell but let it suffice that there she lived by the sea and kings ruled and demons ruled and kings came again and many cities returned to their native dust and still she abided there and still her marble pals passed not away nor the power that there was in the dragon's spell and only once did there ever come to her a message from the world that of old she knew it came in a pearly ship across the mystical sea it was from an old school friend that she had had in Putney merely a note no more in a little neat round hand it said it is not proper for you to be there alone end of miss coverage and the dragon of romance the book of wonder by lord dunsaney this is LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org the quest of the queens tears Sylvia queen of the woods in her woodland palace held court and made a mockery of her suitors she would sing to them she said she would give them banquets she would tell them tales of legendary days her jugglers should caper before them her army salute them her fools crack chests with them and make whimsical quips only she could not love them this was not the way they said to treat princes in their splendor and mysterious troubadours concealing kingly names it was not in accordance with fable myth had no precedent for it she should have thrown her glove they said into some lion's den she should have asked for a score of venomous heads of the serpents of lycantera or demanded the death of any notable dragon or sent them all upon some deadly quest but that she could not love them it was unheard of in parallel in the annals of romance and then she said that if they must needs have a quest she would offer her hand to him who first should move her to tears and the quest should be called for reference in histories or song the quest of the queen's tears and he that achieved them she would wed be he only a petty duke of lands unknown to romance and many were moved to anger for they hoped for some bloody quest but the old lord's chamberlain said as they muttered among themselves in a far dark end of the chamber that the quest was hard and wise for that if she could ever weep she might also love they had known her all her childhood she had never sighed many men had she seen suitors and courtiers and had never turned her head after one went by her beauty was as still sunsets of bitter evenings when all the world is fror a wonder and a chill she was as a sun-stricken mountain uplifted alone all beautiful with ice a desolate and lonely radiance lay the evening far up beyond the comfortable world not quite to be companion by the stars the doom with a mountaineer if she could weep they said she could love they said and she smiled pleasantly on those ardent princes and troubadours concealing kingly names then one by one they told each suitor prince the story of his love with outstretched hands and kneeling on the knee and very sorry and pitiful were the tails sled often up in the galleries some maid of the palace wept and very graciously she nodded her head like a listless magnolia in the deeps of the night moving highly to all the breezes a glorious bloom and when the princes had told their desperate loves and had departed away with no other spoil than of their own tears only even then there came the unknown troubadours and told their tails in song concealing their gracious names and there was one acronian clothed with rags on which was the dust of roads and underneath the rags was war scarred armor whereon were dents of blows and when he stroked his harp and sang his song in the gallery above maidens wept and even old lords chamberlain whimpered among themselves and thereafter laughed through their tears and said it is easy to make old people weep and to bring idle tears from lazy girls but he will not set a weeping the queen of the woods and graciously she nodded and he was the last and disconsolate went away those dukes and princes and troubadours in disguise yet acronian pondered as he went away king he was of a pharma lul and half overlord of zarora and hilly chang and duke of the dukedom zamolong and malash none of them unfamiliar with romance or unknown or overlooked in the making of myth he pondered as he went in his thin disguise now by those that do not remember their childhood having other things to do but you'd understood that underneath fairyland which is as all men know at the edge of the world there dwelleth the gladsome beast a synonym he for joy it is known how the lark in its zenith children at play out of doors good witches and jolly old parents have all been compared how aptly with this very sane gladsome beast only one crab he has if I may use slang for a moment to make myself perfectly clear only one drawback and that is that in the gladness of his heart he spoils the cabbages of the old man who looks after fairyland and of course he eats men it must further be understood that whoever may obtain the tears of the gladsome beast in a bowl and become drunken upon them may move all persons to shed tears of joy so long as he remains inspired by the potion to sing or to make music now acronian pondered in this wise that if he could obtain the tears of the gladsome beast by means of his art withholding him from violence and if a friend should slay the gladsome beast before his weeping ceased for an end must come to weeping even with men that so he might get safe away with the tears and drink them before the queen of the woods and move her to tears of joy he sought out therefore a humble nightly man who cared not for the beauty of sylvia queen of the woods but had found a woodland maiden of his own once long ago in summer and the man's name was Eirath a subject of acronian a knighted arms of the spearguard and together they set out through the fields of fable until they came to fairyland a kingdom sunning itself as all men know for leagues along the edges of the world and by a strange old pathway they came to the land they sought through a wind blowing up the pathway sheer from space with a kind of metallic taste from the roving stars even so they came to the windy house of thatch where dwells the old man who looks after fairyland sitting by parlor windows that look away from the world he made them welcome in his star word parlor telling them tales of space and when they named to him their perilous quest he said it would be a charity to kill the gladsome beast for he was clearly one of these happy ways and then he took them out through his back door for the front door had no pathway nor even a step from it the old man used to empty his slops sheer on to the southern cross and so they came to the garden where and his cabbages were and those flowers that only blow in fairyland turning their faces always towards the comet and he pointed them out the way to the place he called underneath where the gladsome beast had his layer then they maneuvered acronian was to go by the way of the steps with his harp and an agate bowl while arath went round by a crag on the other side then the old man who looks after fairyland went back to his windy house muttering angrily as he passed his cabbages for he did not love the ways of the gladsome beast and the two friends parted on their separate ways nothing perceived them but that ominous crow glutted over long already upon the flesh of man the wind blew bleak from the stars at first there was dangerous climbing and then acronian gained the smooth broad steps that led from the edge to the layer and at that moment heard at the top of the steps the continuous chuckles of the gladsome beast he feared then that its mirth might be insuperable not to be saddened by the most grievous song nevertheless he did not turn back then but softly climbed the stairs and placing the agate bowl upon a step struck up the chant called dolerous it told of desolate regret in things befallen happy cities long since in the prime of the world it told of how the gods and beasts and men had long ago loved beautiful companions and long ago in vain it told of the golden host of happy hopes but not of their achieving it told how love scorned death but told of death's laughter the contended chuckles of the gladsome beast suddenly ceased in his lair he rose and shook himself he was still unhappy acronian still saying on the chant called dolerous the gladsome beast came warmfully up to him acronian ceased not for the sake of his panic but still saying on he sang of the malignity of time two tears welled large in the eyes of the gladsome beast acronian moved the agate bowl to a suitable spot with his foot he sang of autumn and of passing away then the beast wept as the floor hills weep in the thaw and the tears splashed big agate bowl acronian desperately chanted on he told of the glad unnoticed things men see and do not see again of sunlight beheld unheeded on faces now withered away the bowl was full acronian was desperate the beast was so close once he thought that its mouth was watering but it was only the tears that had run on the lips of the beast he felt as a morsel the beast was ceasing to weep he sang of worlds that had disappointed the gods and all of a sudden crash and the staunch spear of erath went home behind the shoulder and the tears and the joyful ways of the gladsome beast were ended and over forever and carefully they carried the bowl of tears away leaving the body of the gladsome beast as a change of diet for the ominous crow and going by the windy house of thatch they said farewell to the old man who looks after fairyland who, when he heard of the deed rubbed his hands together and mumbled again and again and a very good thing too my cabbages, my cabbages and not long after acronian sang again in the silvan palace of the queen of the woods having first drunk all the tears in his agate bowl the gala night and all the court were there and ambassadors from the lands of legend and myth and even some from terra cognita and acronian sang as he never sang before and will not sing again oh but dolerous dolerous are all the ways of man few in fierce are his days and the end trouble and vain vain his endeavor and woman who shall tell of it her doom is written with mans by listless careless gods with their faces to other spears somewhat thus he began and then inspiration seized him and all the trouble and the beauty of his song may not be set down by me there was much of gladness in it and all mingled with grief it was like the way of man it was like our destiny psalms arose at his song sighs came back long echoes seneschals soldiers sobbed and a clear cry made the maidens like rain the tears came down from gallery to gallery all around the queen of the woods was a storm of sobbing and sorrow but no she would not weep end of the quest of the queen's tears the book of wonder by lord dunsaney this is LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org the horde of the gibblins the gibblins eat as is well known nothing less good than man their evil tower is joined to terra cognita to the lands we know by a bridge their horde is beyond reason avarice has no use for it they have a separate cellar for emeralds and a separate cellar for sapphires they have filled a hole with gold and dig it up when they need it and the only use that is known for their ridiculous wealth is to attract to their larder a continual supply of food in times of famine they have even been known to scatter rubies abroad a little trail of them to some city of man and sure enough their larders would soon be full again their tower stands on the other side of that river known to Homer Horus Okia Noaio as he called it which surrounds the world and where the river is narrow and affordable the tower was built by the gibblins gluttonous sires where they like to see burglars rowing easily to their steps some nourishment that common soil has not to share with their colossal roots from both banks of the river there the gibblins lived and discreditably fed Alderic night of the order of the city and the assault hereditary guardian of the king's peace of mind a man not unremembered among makers of myth pondered so long upon the gibblins horde that by now he deemed it his a last that I should say of so perilous a venture taken at dead of night by a valorous man that its motive was sheer avarice yet upon avarice only the gibblins relied to keep their larders full and once in every hundred years sent spies into the cities of men to see how avarice did and always the spies returned again to the tower saying that all was well it may be thought that as the years went on and men came by fearful ends all fewer and fewer would come to the gibblins table but the gibblins found otherwise not in the folly and frivolity of his youth did Alderic come to the tower but he studied carefully for several years the manner in which burglars met their doom when they went in search of the treasure that he considered his in every case they had entered by the door he consulted those who gave advice on this quest in detail and cheerfully paid their fees and determined to do nothing that they advised for what were their clients now no more than examples of the savory art and mere half-forgotten memories of a meal and many perhaps no longer even that these were the requisites for the quest that these men used to advise a horse, a boat, male armor and at least three men at arms some said blow the horn at the tower door others said do not touch it Alderic thus decided he would take no horse down to the river's edge he would not row along it in a boat and he would go alone and by way of the forest unpassable how pass you may say the unpassable this was his plan there was a dragon he knew of who if peasants prayers are heeded deserved to die not alone because of the number of maidens he cruelly slew but because he was bad for the crops he ravaged the very land and was the bane of a dukedom now Alderic determined to go up against him so he took horse and spear and pricked till he met the dragon and the dragon came out against him breathing bitter smoke and to him Alderic shouted hath foul dragon ever slain true knight and well the dragon knew that this had never been and he hung his head and was silent for he was glutted with blood then said the knight if thou wouldst ever taste maidens blood again thou shalt be my trusty steed and if not by this spear thou shalt befall thee all that the troubadours tell of the dooms of thy breed and the dragon did not open his ravening mouth nor rush upon the knight for well he knew the fate of those that did these things but he consented to the terms imposed and swore to the knight to become his trusty steed it was on a saddle upon this dragon's back that Alderic afterwards sailed above the unpassable forest even above the tops of those measureless trees children of wonder but first he pondered that subtle plan of his which was more profound than merely to avoid what had been done before and he commanded a blacksmith and the blacksmith made him a pickaxe now there was great rejoicing at the rumor of Alderic's quest for all folk knew that he was a cautious man and they deemed that he would succeed and enrich the world and they rubbed their hands in the cities at the thought of largesse and there was joy among all men in Alderic's country except per chance among the lenders who feared they would soon be paid and there was rejoicing also because men hoped that when the gibelins were robbed of their horde they would shatter their high built bridge and break the golden chains that bound them to the world and drift back they in their tower to the moon from which they had come and to which they rightly belonged there was little love for the gibelins though all men envied their horde so they all cheered that day when he mounted his dragon as though he was already a conqueror and would please them more than the good that they hoped he would do to the world was that he scattered gold as he rode away for he would not need it he said if he found the gibelins horde and he would not need it more if he smoked on the gibelins table when they heard that he had rejected the advice of those that gave it some said that the night was mad and others said he was greater than those what gave the advice but none appreciated the worth of his plan he reasoned thus for centuries men had been well advised and had gone by the cleverest way while the gibelins came to expect them to come by boat and to look for them at the door whenever their larder was empty even as a man looketh for a snipe in a marsh but how said Aldrich and would men find him there assuredly never so Aldrich decided to swim the river and not to go by the door but to pick his way into the tower through the stone moreover it was in his mind to work below the level of the ocean the river as Homer knew that girdles the world so that as soon as he made a hole in the wall the water should pour in confounding the gibelins confounding the cellars rumored to be twenty feet in depth and therein he would dive for emeralds as a diver dived for pearls and on the day that I tell of he galloped away from his home scattering largesse of gold as I have said and passed through many kingdoms the dragon snapping at maidens as he went but being unable to eat them because of the bit in his mouth and earning no gentler reward than a spurthrust where he was softest and so they came to the sward arboreal precipice of the unpassable forest the dragon rose at it with a rattle of wings many a farmer near the edge of the worlds saw him up there where yet the twilight lingered a faint black wavering line and mistaking him for a row of geese going inland from the ocean went into their houses cheerily rubbing their hands and saying that winter was coming and that we should soon have snow soon even there the twilight faded away and when they descended at the edge of the world it was night and the moon was shining ocean the ancient river narrow and shallow there thowed by and made no murmur whether the gibblins banqueted or whether they watched by the door they also made no murmur and aldrich dismounted and took his armor off and saying one prayer to his lady swam with his pickaxe he did not part from his sword for fear that he meet with the gibblin landed the other side he began to work at once and all went well with him nothing put out its head from any window and all were lighted so that nothing within could see him in the dark the blows of his pickaxe were dulled in the deep walls all night he worked no sound came to molest him and then dawned the last rock swirved and tumbled inwards and the river poured in after then aldrich took a stone and went to the bottom step and hurled the stone at the door he heard the echoes roll into the tower then he ran back and dived through the hole in the wall he was in the emerald cellar there was no light in the lofty vault above him but diving through 20 feet of water he felt the floor all rough with emeralds and open clouds rough with emeralds and open coffers full of them by a faint ray of the moon he saw that the water was green with them and easily filling a satchel he rose again to the surface and there were the gibblins way steep in the water with torches in their hands and without saying a word or even smiling they neatly hanged him on the outer wall and the tale is one of those to have not a happy ending the end of The Horde of the Gibblins The Book of Wonder by Lord Dunsaney this is LibriVox Recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org how newt would have practiced his art upon the nulls despite the advertisements of rival firms it is probable that every tradesman knows that nobody in business at the present time has a position equal to that of Mr. Nooth to those outside the magic circle of business his name is scarcely known he does not need to advertise he is consummate he is superior even to modern competition and whatever claims they boast his rivals know it his terms are moderate so much cash down when the goods are delivered so much in blackmail afterwards he consults your convenience his skill may be counted upon I have seen a shadow on a windy night move more noisely than Nooth for Nooth is a burglar by trade men have been known to stay in country houses and to send a dealer afterwards to bargain for a piece of tapestry that they saw there some article of furniture some picture this is bad taste but those whose culture is more elegant invariably send Nooth a night or two after their visit he has a way with tapestry you would scarcely notice that the edges had been cut and often when I see some huge new house full of old furniture and portraits from other ages I say to myself these moldering chairs these full length ancestors and carved mahogany are the produce of the incomparable Nooth it may be urged against my use of the word incomparable that in the burglary business the name of Slith stands paramount and alone and of this I am not ignorant but Slith is a classic and lived long ago and knew nothing at all of modern competition besides which the surprising nature of his doom has possibly cast a glamour upon Slith that exaggerates in our eyes his undoubted merits it must not be thought that I am a friend of Nooth's on the contrary such politics as I have are on the side of property and he needs no words from me for his position is almost unique in trade being among the every few that do not need to advertise at the time that my story begins Nooth lived in a roomy house in Belgrave Square in his inimitable way he had made friends with the caretaker the place suited Nooth and whenever anyone came to inspect it before purchase the caretaker used to praise the house in the words that Nooth had suggested if it wasn't for the drains she would say it's the finest house in London and when they pounced on this remark and asked questions about the drains she would answer them that the drains also were good but not so good as the house they did not see Nooth when they went over the rooms but Nooth was there here in a neat black dress on one spring morning came an old woman whose bonnet was lined with red asking for Mr. Nooth and with her came her large and awkward son Miss Agans the caretaker glanced up the street and then she let them in and left them to wait in the drawing room amongst furniture all mysterious with sheets for a long while they waited there was a smell piped it back and there was Nooth standing quite close to them Lawn she said the old woman whose bonnet was lined with red you did make me start and then she saw by his eyes that that was not the way to speak to Mr. Nooth and at last Nooth spoke and very nervously the old woman explained that her son was a likely lad and had been in business already but wanted to better himself and she wanted Mr. Nooth to teach him a livelihood first of all Nooth wanted to see a business reference and when he was shown one from a jeweler with whom he happened to be hand and glove the upshot of it was that he agreed to take young Tonker where this was the surname of the likely lad and to make him his apprentice and the old woman whose bonnet was lined with red went back to her little cottage in the country the evening said to her old man Tonker, we must fasten the shutters of a night time for Tommy's a burglar now the details of the likely lad's apprenticeship I do not propose to give for those that are in the business know those details already and those that are in other businesses care only for their own while men of leisure who have no trade at all would fail to appreciate the gradual degrees by which Tommy Tonker came first to cross bare boards covered with little obstacles in the dark without making any sound and then to go silently up creaky stairs and then to open doors and glassy to climb let it suffice that the business prospered greatly while glowing reports of Tommy Tonker's progress were sent from time to time to the old woman whose bonnet was lined with red in the laborious handwriting of Nooth Nooth had given up lessons in writing very early for he seemed to have some prejudice against forgery and therefore considered writing a waste of time and then there came the transaction with Lord Castle Norman at his Surrey residence Nooth selected a Saturday night for a chance that Saturday was observed as Sabbath in the family of Lord Castle Norman and by eleven o'clock the whole house was quiet five minutes before midnight Tommy Tonker instructed by Mr. Nooth who waited outside came away with one pocketful of rings and shirt studs it was quite a light pocketful but the jewelers in Paris could not match it without sending specially to Africa so that Lord Castle Norman had to borrow bone shirt studs not even rumor whispered the name of Nooth were I to say that this turned his head there are those to whom the assertion would give pain for his associates hold that his astute judgment was unaffected by circumstance I will say therefore that it spurred his genius to plan what no burglar had ever planned before it was nothing less than to burgle the house of the gnolls and this that abstemious man unfolded a Tonker over a cup of tea had Tonker not been nearly insane with pride over their recent transaction and had he not been blinded by a veneration for Nooth he would have but I cry over spilled milk he expostulated respectfully he said he would rather not go he said it was not fair he allowed himself to argue and in the end one windy October morning with the menace in the air found him and Nooth drawing near to the dreadful wood Nooth by weighing little emeralds against pieces of common rock they obtained the probable weight of those house ornaments that the gnolls are believed to possess in the narrow lofty house wherein they have dwelt from of old they decided to steal two emeralds and to carry them between them on a cloak but if they should be too heavy one must be dropped at once Nooth warned Young Tonker against greed and explained that the emeralds were worth less than cheese until they were safe away from the dreadful wood everything had been planned and they walked now in silence no track led up to the sinister gloom of the trees either of men or cattle not even a poacher had been there snaring elves for over a hundred years you did not trespass twice in the dels of the gnolls and apart from the things that were done there the trees themselves were a warning and did not wear the wholesome look of those that we plant ourselves the nearest village was some miles away with the backs of all its houses turned to the wood and without one window at all facing in that direction they did not speak of it there and elsewhere it is unheard of into this wood stepped Nooth and Tommy Tonker they had no firearms Tonker had asked for a pistol but Nooth replied that the sound of a shot would bring everything down on us and no more was said about it into the wood they went all day deeper and deeper they saw the skeleton of some early Georgian poacher nailed to a door and an oak tree sometimes they saw a fairy scuttle away from them once Tonker stepped heavily on a hard dry stick after which they both flayed still for twenty minutes and the sunset flared full of omens through the tree trunks and night fell with a fitful starlight as Nooth had foreseen to that lean high house where the knoll so secretly dwelt all was so silent by that unvalued house that the faded courage of Tonker flickered up but to Nooth's experience since it seemed too silent and all the while there was that look in the sky that was worse than a spoken doom so that Nooth, as is often the case had leisure to fear the worst nevertheless he did not abandon the business but sent the likely lad with the instruments of his trade by means of the ladder to the old green casement and the moment that Tonker touched the withered boards the silence that though ominous was earthly became unearthly like the touch of a ghoul and Tonker heard his breath offending against that silence like mad drums in a night attack and a string of one of his sandals went tap on a rung of a ladder and the leaves of the forest were mute and the breeze of the night was still and Tonker prayed that a mouse or a mole might make any noise at all but not a creature stirred even Nooth was still and then and there while yet he was undiscovered the likely lad made up his mind as he should have done long before to leave those colossal emeralds where they were and have nothing further to do with lean high house of the Nooth but to quit the sinister wood in the nick of time and retire from business at once and buy a place in the country then he descended softly and beckoned to Nooth but the Nooth had watched him through navish holes that they bore in trunks of the trees and the unearthly silence gave way with the grace to the rapid screams of Tonker as they picked him up from behind screams that came faster and faster until they were incoherent and where they took him it is not good to ask and what they did with him I shall not say Nooth looked on for a while from the corner of the house with a mild surprise on his face as he rubbed his chin for the trick of the holes in the trees was new to him then he stole the wood away through the dreadful wood and did they catch Nooth you ask me gentle reader oh no my child for such a question is childish nobody ever catches Nooth end of how Nooth would have practiced his art upon the knolls the book of wonder by Lord Dunsaney this is Lieberbach's recording all Lieberbach's recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit Lieberbach's.org how one came as was foretold to the city of never the child that played about the terraces and gardens in sight of the Suri hills never knew that it was he that should come to the ultimate city never knew that he should see the under pits the barbecans and the holy minarets of the Hamidia city known think of him now as a child with a little red watering can going about the gardens on a summer's day that lit the warm south country his imagination delighted with all tales of quite little adventures and all the while there was reserved for him that feet at which men wonder looking in other directions away from the Suri hills through all his infancy he saw that precipice that wall above wall and mountain above mountain stands at the edge of the world and in perpetual twilight alone with the moon and the sun holds up the inconceivable city of never to treaded streets he was destined prophecy knew it he had the magic halter and a worn old rope it was an old way faring woman had given it to him it had the power to hold any animal whose race had never known captivity such as the unicorn the hippogriff paguses, dragons and wyverns but with a lion, giraffe, camel or horse it was useless how often have we seen that city of never that marvel of the nations not when it is night in the world and we can see no further than the stars not when the sun is shining where we dwell dazzling our eyes but when the sun has set on some stormy days all at once, repentant at evening and those glittering cliffs reveal themselves which we almost take to be clouds and it is twilight with us as it is forever with them then on their gleaming summits we see those golden domes that over pier the edges of the world and seem to dance with dignity and calm in that gentle light of evening that is wonders native haunt then does the city never, unvisited and afar look long at her sister the world it had been prophesied that he should come there they knew it when the pebbles were being made and before the isles of coral were given unto the sea and thus the prophecy came unto fulfillment and passed into history and so at length to oblivion out of which I drag it as it goes floating by into which I shall one day tumble the hippogriffs dance before dawn in the upper air long before sunrise flashes upon our lawns they go to glitter in light that has not yet come to the world and as the dawn works up from the ragged hills and the stars feel it they go slanting earthwards till sunlight touches the tops of the tallest trees and the hippogriffs alight with a rattle of quills and fold their wings and gallop and gamble away till they come to some prosperous wealthy detestable town and they leap at once from the fields and soar away from the side of it pursued by the horrible smoke of it until they come again to the pure blue air he whom prophecy had named from of old to come to the city of never went down one midnight with his magic halter to a lakeside where the hippogriffs alighted at dawn for the turf was soft there and they could gallop far before dawn and there he waited hidden near their hoof marks and the stars paled a little and grew indistinct but there was no other sign as yet of the dawn when there appeared far up in the deeps of the night two little saffron specks then four and five it was the hippogriffs dancing and twirling around in the sun another flock joined them there were twelve of them now they danced there flashing back to the sun they descended in wide curves slowly trees down on earth revealed against the sky jet black each delicate twig a star disappeared from a cluster now another and dawn came on like music like a new song ducks shot by to the lake from still dark fields of corn far voices uttered a color grew upon water and still the hippogriffs gloried the light reveling up in the sky but when pigeon stirred on the branches and the first small bird was abroad and little coots from the rushes ventured to peer about then there came down on a sudden with a thunder of feathers the hippogriffs and as they landed from their celestial heights all bathed with the day's first sunlight the man whose destiny it was as from of old to come to the city of never spring up and caught the last with the magic halter it plunged but could not escape it for the hippogriffs are of the uncaptured races and magic has power over the magical so the man mounted it and it soared again for the heights once it had come as a wounded beast goes home but when they came to the heights that venturous rider saw huge and fair to the left of him the destined city of never and he beheld the towers of Lell and Lek near it and Akathuma and the cliffs of Tolna Arba a glistening in the twilight like an alabaster statue of the evening towards them he wrenched the halter towards Tolna Arba and the under pits the wings of the hippogriff roared as the halter turned him of the under pits who shall tell their mystery is secret it is held by some that they are the sources of night and that darkness pours from them at evening upon the world while others hint that knowledge of these might undo our civilization there watched him ceaselessly from the under pits those eyes whose duty it is from further within and deeper the bats went well there arose when they saw the surprise in the eyes the sentinels on the bulwarks beheld that stream of bats and lifted up their spears as it were for war nevertheless when they perceived that that war for which they watched was not now come upon them they lowered their spears and suffered him to enter and he passed worrying through the earthward gateway even so he came as foretold to the city of never perched upon Tolna Arba and saw late twilight on those pinnacles that know no other light all the domes were of copper but the spires on their summits were gold little steps of onyx ran all this way in that with cobbled agates were its streets a glory through small square panes of rose quartz the citizens looked from their houses to them as they looked abroad the world far off seemed happy clad though that city was in one robe always in twilight yet was its beauty worthy of even so lovely a wonder city in twilight were both peerless but for each other built of a stone unknown in the world we tread where its bastions quarried we know not where but called by the gnomes abyx it so flashed back to the twilight its glories color for color that none can say of them where their bandery is and which the internal twilight and which the city of never they are the twin born children the fairest daughters of wonder time had been there but not to the domes that were made of copper the rest he had left untouched even he the destroyer of cities by what bribe I know the world was a burden nevertheless they often wept in never for change and passing away mourning catastrophes in other worlds and they built temples sometimes to ruin stars that had fallen flaming down from the milky way giving them worship still when by us long since forgotten other temples they have who knows to what divinities and he that was destined to the city of never was well content to behold it as he trotted down its agate street with the wings of his hippogriff furrowed seeing it either side of him marvel on marvel of which even China is ignorant then as he neared the cities further rampart by which no inhabitant stirred and looked in a direction to which no house is faced with any rose pink windows far off dwarfing the mountains and even greater city whether that city was built upon the twilight or whether it rose from the coasts of some other world he did not know he saw it dominate the city of never and strove to reach it but at this unmeasured home of unknown colossi the hippogriff shied frantically in neither the magic halter nor anything that he did at last from the city of never's lonely outskirts where no inhabitants walked the rider turned slowly earthward he knew now why all the windows faced this way the denizens of the twilight gazed at the world and not at a greater than them then from the last step of the earthward stairway like lead past the under pits and down the glittering face of told in arba down from the overshadowed glories of the gold-tipped city of never and out of perpetual twilight swooped the man on his winged monster the wind that slept at the time leaped up like a dog at their onrush he uttered a cry and ran past them down on the world it was morning night was roaming away with his cloak trailed behind him with miss turned over and over as he went the orb was grey but it glittered lights blinked surprisingly in early windows forth over wet dim fields went cows from their houses even in this hour touched the fields again the feet of the hippogriff and the moment that the man dismounted and took off his magic halter the hippogriff flew slanting away with a were going back to some airy dancing place of his people and he that surmounted glittering tolanarba and came alone of men to the city of never has his name and his fame among nations but he and the people of that twilight city well know two things unguessed by other men they that there is another city fairer than theirs and he a deed unaccomplished end of how he came as was