SCALPS
Probably the day would have been a greater success if Cyril had not
been reading The Last of the Mohicans. The story was running in
his head at breakfast, and as he took his third cup of tea he said
dreamily, 'I wish there were Red Indians in England - not big ones,
you know, but little ones, just about the right size for us to
fight.'
Everyone disagreed with him at the time, and no one attached any
importance to the incident. But when they went down to the
sand-pit to ask for a hundred pounds in two-shilling pieces with
Queen Victoria's head on, to prevent mistakes - which they had
always felt to be a really reasonable wish that must turn out well
- they found out that they had done it again! For the Psammead,
which was very cross and sleepy, said:
'Oh, don't bother me. You've had your wish.'
'I didn't know it,' said Cyril.
'Don't you remember yesterday?' said the Sand-fairy, still more
disagreeably. 'You asked me to let you have your wishes wherever
you happened to be, and you wished this morning, and you've got
it.'
'Oh, have we?' said Robert. 'What is it?'
'So you've forgotten?' said the Psammead, beginning to burrow.
'Never mind; you'll know soon enough. And I wish you joy of it!
A nice thing you've let yourselves in for!'
'We always do, somehow,' said Jane sadly.
And now the odd thing was that no one could remember anyone's
having wished for anything that morning. The wish about the Red
Indians had not stuck in anyone's head. It was a most anxious
morning. Everyone was trying to remember what had been wished for,
and no one could, and everyone kept expecting something awful to
happen every minute. It was most agitating; they knew, from what
the Psammead had said, that they must have wished for something
more than usually undesirable, and they spent several hours in most
agonizing uncertainty. It was not till nearly dinner-time that
Jane tumbled over The Last of the Mohicans - which had, of course,
been left face downwards on the floor - and when Anthea had picked
her and the book up she suddenly said, 'I know!' and sat down flat
on the carpet.
'Oh, Pussy, how awful! It was Indians he wished for - Cyril - at
breakfast, don't you remember? He said, "I wish there were Red
Indians in England," - and now there are, and they're going about
scalping people all over the country, like as not.'
'Perhaps they're only in Northumberland and Durham,' said Jane
soothingly. It was almost impossible to believe that it could
really hurt people much to be scalped so far away as that.
'Don't you believe it!' said Anthea. 'The Sammyadd said we'd let
ourselves in for a nice thing. That means they'll come HERE. And
suppose they scalped the Lamb!'
'Perhaps the scalping would come right again at sunset,' said Jane;
but she did not speak so hopefully as usual.
'Not it!' said Anthea. 'The things that grow out of the wishes
don't go. Look at the fifteen shillings! Pussy, I'm going to
break something, and you must let me have every penny of money
you've got. The Indians will come HERE, don't you see? That
spiteful Psammead as good as said so. You see what my plan is?
Come on!'
Jane did not see at all. But she followed her sister meekly into
their mother's bedroom.
Anthea lifted down the heavy water-jug - it had a pattern of storks
and long grasses on it, which Anthea never forgot. She carried it
into the dressing-room, and carefully emptied the water out of it
into the bath. Then she took the jug back into the bedroom and
dropped it on the floor. You know how a jug always breaks if you
happen to drop it by accident. If you happen to drop it on
purpose, it is quite different. Anthea dropped that jug three
times, and it was as unbroken as ever. So at last she had to take
her father's boot-tree and break the jug with that in cold blood.
It was heartless work.
Next she broke open the missionary-box with the poker. Jane told
her that it was wrong, of course, but Anthea shut her lips very
tight and then said:
'Don't be silly - it's a matter of life and death.'
There was not very much in the missionary-box - only
seven-and-fourpence - but the girls between them had nearly four
shillings. This made over eleven shillings, as you will easily
see.
Anthea tied up the money in a corner of her pocket-handkerchief.
'Come on, Jane!' she said, and ran down to the farm. She knew that
the farmer was going into Rochester that afternoon. In fact it had
been arranged that he was to take the four children with him. They
had planned this in the happy hour when they believed that they
were going to get that hundred pounds, in two-shilling pieces, out
of the Psammead. They had arranged to pay the farmer two shillings
each for the ride. Now Anthea hastily explained to him that they
could not go, but would he take Martha and the Baby instead? He
agreed, but he was not pleased to get only half-a-crown instead of
eight shillings.
Then the girls ran home again. Anthea was agitated, but not
flurried. When she came to think it over afterwards, she could not
help seeing that she had acted with the most far-seeing
promptitude, just like a born general. She fetched a little box
from her corner drawer, and went to find Martha, who was laying the
cloth and not in the best of tempers.
'Look here,' said Anthea. 'I've broken the toilet-jug in mother's
room.'
'Just like you - always up to some mischief,' said Martha, dumping
down a salt-cellar with a bang.
'Don't be cross, Martha dear,' said Anthea. 'I've got enough money
to pay for a new one - if only you'll be a dear and go and buy it
for us. Your cousins keep a china-shop, don't they? And I would
like you to get it to-day, in case mother comes home to-morrow.
You know she said she might, perhaps.'
'But you're all going into town yourselves,' said Martha.
'We can't afford to, if we get the new jug,' said Anthea; 'but
we'll pay for you to go, if you'll take the Lamb. And I say,
Martha, look here - I'll give you my Liberty box, if you'll go.
Look, it's most awfully pretty - all inlaid with real silver and
ivory and ebony like King Solomon's temple.'
'I see,' said Martha; 'no, I don't want your box, miss. What you
want is to get the precious Lamb off your hands for the afternoon.
Don't you go for to think I don't see through you!'
This was so true that Anthea longed to deny it at once - Martha had
no business to know so much. But she held her tongue.
Martha set down the bread with a bang that made it jump off its
trencher.
'I DO want the jug got,' said Anthea softly. 'You WILL go, won't
you?'
'Well, just for this once, I don't mind; but mind you don't get
into none of your outrageous mischief while I'm gone - that's all!'
'He's going earlier than he thought,' said Anthea eagerly. 'You'd
better hurry and get dressed. Do put on that lovely purple frock,
Martha, and the hat with the pink cornflowers, and the yellow-lace
collar. Jane'll finish laying the cloth, and I'll wash the Lamb
and get him ready.'
As she washed the unwilling Lamb, and hurried him into his best
clothes, Anthea peeped out of the window from time to time; so far
all was well - she could see no Red Indians. When with a rush and
a scurry and some deepening of the damask of Martha's complexion
she and the Lamb had been got off, Anthea drew a deep breath.
'HE'S safe!' she said, and, to jane's horror, flung herself down on
the floor and burst into floods of tears. Jane did not understand
at all how a person could be so brave and like a general, and then
suddenly give way and go flat like an air-balloon when you prick
it. It is better not to go flat, of course, but you will observe
that Anthea did not give way till her aim was accomplished. She
had got the dear Lamb out of danger - she felt certain the Red
Indians would be round the White House or nowhere - the farmer's
cart would not come back till after sunset, so she could afford to
cry a little. It was partly with joy that she cried, because she
had done what she meant to do. She cried for about three minutes,
while Jane hugged her miserably and said at five-second intervals,
'Don't cry, Panther dear!'
Then she jumped up, rubbed her eyes hard with the corner of her
pinafore, so that they kept red for the rest of the day, and
started to tell the boys. But just at that moment cook rang the
dinner-bell, and nothing could be said till they had all been
helped to minced beef. Then cook left the room, and Anthea told
her tale. But it is a mistake to tell a thrilling tale when people
are eating minced beef and boiled potatoes. There seemed somehow
to be something about the food that made the idea of Red Indians
seem flat and unbelievable. The boys actually laughed, and called
Anthea a little silly.
'Why,' said Cyril, 'I'm almost sure it was before I said that, that
Jane said she wished it would be a fine day.'
'It wasn't,' said Jane briefly.
'Why, if it was Indians,' Cyril went on - 'salt, please, and
mustard - I must have something to make this mush go down - if it
was Indians, they'd have been infesting the place long before this
- you know they would. I believe it's the fine day.'
'Then why did the Sammyadd say we'd let ourselves in for a nice
thing?' asked Anthea. She was feeling very cross. She knew she
had acted with nobility and discretion, and after that it was very
hard to be called a little silly, especially when she had the
weight of a burglared missionary-box and about seven-and-fourpence,
mostly in coppers, lying like lead upon her conscience.
There was a silence, during which cook took away the mincy plates
and brought in the treacle-pudding. As soon as she had retired,
Cyril began again.
'Of course I don't mean to say,' he admitted, 'that it wasn't a
good thing to get Martha and the Lamb out of the light for the
afternoon; but as for Red Indians - why, you know jolly well the
wishes always come that very minute. If there was going to be Red
Indians, they'd be here now.'
'I expect they are,' said Anthea; 'they're lurking amid the
undergrowth, for anything you know. I do think you're most beastly
unkind.'
'Indians almost always DO lurk, really, though, don't they?' put in
Jane, anxious for peace.
No, they don't,' said Cyril tartly. 'And I'm not unkind, I'm only
truthful. And I say it was utter rot breaking the water-jug; and
as for the missionary-box, I believe it's a treason-crime, and I
shouldn't wonder if you could be hanged for it, if any of us was to
split -'
'Shut up, can't you?' said Robert; but Cyril couldn't. You see, he
felt in his heart that if there SHOULD be Indians they would be
entirely his own fault, so he did not wish to believe in them. And
trying not to believe things when in your heart you are almost sure
they are true, is as bad for the temper as anything I know.
'It's simply idiotic,' he said, 'talking about Indians, when you
can see for yourselves that it's Jane who's got her wish. Look
what a fine day it is - OH - '
He had turned towards the window to point out the fineness of the
day - the others turned too - and a frozen silence caught at Cyril,
and none of the others felt at all like breaking it. For there,
peering round the corner of the window, among the red leaves of the
Virginia creeper, was a face - a brown face, with a long nose and
a tight mouth and very bright eyes. And the face was painted in
coloured patches. It had long black hair, and in the hair were
feathers!
Every child's mouth in the room opened, and stayed open. The
treacle-pudding was growing white and cold on their plates. No one
could move.
Suddenly the feathered head was cautiously withdrawn, and the spell
was broken. I am sorry to say that Anthea's first words were very
like a girl.
'There, now!' she said. 'I told you so!'
Treacle-pudding had now definitely ceased to charm. Hastily
wrapping their portions in a Spectator of the week before the week
before last, they hid them behind the crinkled-paper
stove-ornament, and fled upstairs to reconnoitre and to hold a
hurried council.
'Pax,' said Cyril handsomely when they reached their mother's
bedroom. 'Panther, I'm sorry if I was a brute.'
'All right,' said Anthea, 'but you see now!'
No further trace of Indians, however, could be discerned from the
windows.
'Well,' said Robert, 'what are we to do?'
'The only thing I can think of,' said Anthea, who was now generally
admitted to be the heroine of the day, 'is - if we dressed up as
like Indians as we can, and looked out of the windows, or even went
out. They might think we were the powerful leaders of a large
neighbouring tribe, and - and not do anything to us, you know, for
fear of awful vengeance.'
'But Eliza, and the cook?' said Jane.
'You forget - they can't notice anything,' said Robert. 'They
wouldn't notice anything out of the way, even if they were scalped
or roasted at a slow fire.'
'But would they come right at sunset?'
'Of course. You can't be really scalped or burned to death without
noticing it, and you'd be sure to notice it next day, even if it
escaped your attention at the time,' said Cyril. 'I think Anthea's
right, but we shall want a most awful lot of feathers.'
'I'll go down to the hen-house,' said Robert. 'There's one of the
turkeys in there - it's not very well. I could cut its feathers
without it minding much. It's very bad - doesn't seem to care what
happens to it. Get me the cutting-out scissors.'
Earnest reconnoitring convinced them all that no Indians were in
the poultry-yard. Robert went. In five minutes he came back -
pale, but with many feathers.
'Look here,' he said, 'this is jolly serious. I cut off the
feathers, and when I turned to come out there was an Indian
squinting at me from under the old hen-coop. I just brandished the
feathers and yelled, and got away before he could get the coop off
the top of himself. Panther, get the coloured blankets off our
beds, and look slippy, can't you?'
It is wonderful how like an Indian you can make yourselves with
blankets and feathers and coloured scarves. Of course none of the
children happened to have long black hair, but there was a lot of
black calico that had been got to cover school-books with. They
cut strips of this into a sort of fine fringe, and fastened it
round their heads with the amber-coloured ribbons off the girls'
Sunday dresses. Then they stuck turkeys' feathers in the ribbons.
The calico looked very like long black hair, especially when the
strips began to curl up a bit.
'But our faces,' said Anthea, 'they're not at all the right colour.
We're all rather pale, and I'm sure I don't know why, but Cyril is
the colour of putty.'
'I'm not,' said Cyril.
'The real Indians outside seem to be brownish,' said Robert
hastily. 'I think we ought to be really RED - it's sort of
superior to have a red skin, if you are one.'
The red ochre cook used for the kitchen bricks seemed to be about
the reddest thing in the house. The children mixed some in a
saucer with milk, as they had seen cook do for the kitchen floor.
Then they carefully painted each other's faces and hands with it,
till they were quite as red as any Red Indian need be - if not
redder.
They knew at once that they must look very terrible when they met
Eliza in the passage, and she screamed aloud. This unsolicited
testimonial pleased them very much. Hastily telling her not to be
a goose, and that it was only a game, the four blanketed,
feathered, really and truly Redskins went boldly out to meet the
foe. I say boldly. That is because I wish to be polite. At any
rate, they went.
Along the hedge dividing the wilderness from the garden was a row
of dark heads, all highly feathered.
'It's our only chance,' whispered Anthea. 'Much better than to
wait for their blood-freezing attack. We must pretend like mad.
Like that game of cards where you pretend you've got aces when you
haven't. Fluffing they call it, I think. Now then. Whoop!'
With four wild war-whoops - or as near them as English children
could be expected to go without any previous practice - they rushed
through the gate and struck four warlike attitudes in face of the
line of Red Indians. These were all about the same height, and
that height was Cyril's.
'I hope to goodness they can talk English,' said Cyril through his
attitude.
Anthea knew they could, though she never knew how she came to know
it. She had a white towel tied to a walking-stick. This was a
flag of truce, and she waved it, in the hope that the Indians would
know what it was. Apparently they did - for one who was browner
than the others stepped forward.
'Ye seek a pow-wow?' he said in excellent English. 'I am Golden
Eagle, of the mighty tribe of Rock-dwellers.'
'And I,' said Anthea, with a sudden inspiration, 'am the Black
Panther - chief of the - the - the - Mazawattee tribe. My brothers
- I don't mean - yes, I do - the tribe - I mean the Mazawattees -
are in ambush below the brow of yonder hill.'
'And what mighty warriors be these?' asked Golden Eagle, turning to
the others.
Cyril said he was the great chief Squirrel, of the Moning Congo
tribe, and, seeing that Jane was sucking her thumb and could
evidently think of no name for herself, he added, 'This great
warrior is Wild Cat - Pussy Ferox we call it in this land - leader
of the vast Phiteezi tribe.'
And thou, valorous Redskin?' Golden Eagle inquired suddenly of
Robert, who, taken unawares, could only reply that he was Bobs,
leader of the Cape Mounted Police.
'And now,' said Black Panther, 'our tribes, if we just whistle them
up, will far outnumber your puny forces; so resistance is useless.
Return, therefore, to your own land, O brother, and smoke pipes of
peace in your wampums with your squaws and your medicine-men, and
dress yourselves in the gayest wigwams, and eat happily of the
juicy fresh-caught moccasins.'
'You've got it all wrong,' murmured Cyril angrily. But Golden
Eagle only looked inquiringly at her.
'Thy customs are other than ours, O Black Panther,' he said.
'Bring up thy tribe, that we may hold pow-wow in state before them,
as becomes great chiefs.'
'We'll bring them up right enough,' said Anthea, 'with their bows
and arrows, and tomahawks, and scalping-knives, and everything you
can think of, if you don't look sharp and go.'
She spoke bravely enough, but the hearts of all the children were
beating furiously, and their breath came in shorter and shorter
gasps. For the little real Red Indians were closing up round them
- coming nearer and nearer with angry murmurs - so that they were
the centre of a crowd of dark, cruel faces.
'It's no go,' whispered Robert. 'I knew it wouldn't be. We must
make a bolt for the Psammead. It might help us. If it doesn't -
well, I suppose we shall come alive again at sunset. I wonder if
scalping hurts as much as they say.'
'I'll wave the flag again,' said Anthea. 'If they stand back,
we'll run for it.'
She waved the towel, and the chief commanded his followers to stand
back. Then, charging wildly at the place where the line of Indians
was thinnest, the four children started to run. Their first rush
knocked down some half-dozen Indians, over whose blanketed bodies
the children leaped, and made straight for the sand-Pit. This was
no time for the safe easy way by which carts go down - right over
the edge of the sand-pit they went, among the yellow and pale
purple flowers and dried grasses, past the little sand-martins'
little front doors, skipping, clinging, bounding, stumbling,
sprawling, and finally rolling.
Yellow Eagle and his followers came up with them just at the very
spot where they had seen the Psammead that morning.
Breathless and beaten, the wretched children now awaited their
fate. Sharp knives and axes gleamed round them, but worse than
these was the cruel light in the eyes of Golden Eagle and his
followers.
'Ye have lied to us, O Black Panther of the Mazawattees - and thou,
too, Squirrel of the Moning Congos. These also, Pussy Ferox of the
Phiteezi, and Bobs of the Cape Mounted Police - these also have
lied to us, if not with their tongue, yet by their silence. Ye
have lied under the cover of the Truce-flag of the Pale-face. Ye
have no followers. Your tribes are far away - following the
hunting trail. What shall be their doom?' he concluded, turning
with a bitter smile to the other Red Indians.
'Build we the fire!' shouted his followers; and at once a dozen
ready volunteers started to look for fuel. The four children, each
held between two strong little Indians, cast despairing glances
round them. Oh, if they could only see the Psammead!
'Do you mean to scalp us first and then roast us?' asked Anthea
desperately.
'Of course!' Redskin opened his eyes at her. 'It's always done.'
The Indians had formed a ring round the children, and now sat on
the ground gazing at their captives. There was a threatening
silence.
Then slowly, by twos and threes, the Indians who had gone to look
for firewood came back, and they came back empty-handed. They had
not been able to find a single stick of wood, for a fire! No one
ever can, as a matter of fact, in that part of Kent.
The children drew a deep breath of relief, but it ended in a moan
of terror. For bright knives were being brandished all about them.
Next moment each child was seized by an Indian; each closed its
eyes and tried not to scream. They waited for the sharp agony of
the knife. It did not come. Next moment they were released, and
fell in a trembling heap. Their heads did not hurt at all. They
only felt strangely cool! Wild war-whoops rang in their ears.
When they ventured to open their eyes they saw four of their foes
dancing round them with wild leaps and screams, and each of the
four brandished in his hand a scalp of long flowing black hair.
They put their hands to their heads - their own scalps were safe!
The poor untutored savages had indeed scalped the children. But
they had only, so to speak, scalped them of the black calico
ringlets!
The children fell into each other's arms, sobbing and laughing.
'Their scalps are ours,' chanted the chief; 'ill-rooted were their
ill-fated hairs! They came off in the hands of the victors -
without struggle, without resistance, they yielded their scalps to
the conquering Rock-dwellers! Oh, how little a thing is a scalp so
lightly won!'
'They'll take our real ones in a minute; you see if they don't,'
said Robert, trying to rub some of the red ochre off his face and
hands on to his hair.
'Cheated of our just and fiery revenge are we,' the chant went on
- 'but there are other torments than the scalping-knife and the
flames. Yet is the slow fire the correct thing. O strange
unnatural country, wherein a man may find no wood to burn his
enemy! - Ah, for the boundless forests of my native land, where the
great trees for thousands of miles grow but to furnish firewood
wherewithal to burn our foes. Ah, would we were but in our native
forest once more!'
Suddenly, like a flash of lightning, the golden gravel shone all
round the four children instead of the dusky figures. For every
single Indian had vanished on the instant at their leader's word.
The Psammead must have been there all the time. And it had given
the Indian chief his wish.
Martha brought home a jug with a pattern of storks and long grasses
on it. Also she brought back all Anthea's money.
'My cousin, she give me the jug for luck; she said it was an odd
one what the basin of had got smashed.'
'Oh, Martha, you arc a dear!' sighed Anthea, throwing her arms
round her.
'Yes,' giggled Martha, 'you'd better make the most of me while
you've got me. I shall give your ma notice directly minute she
comes back.'
'Oh, Martha, we haven't been so very horrid to you, have we?' asked
Anthea, aghast.
'Oh, it ain't that, miss.' Martha giggled more than ever. 'I'm
a-goin' to be married. It's Beale the gamekeeper. He's been
a-proposin' to me off and on ever since you come home from the
clergyman's where you got locked up on the church-tower. And
to-day I said the word an' made him a happy man.'
Anthea put the seven-and-fourpence back in the missionary-box, and
pasted paper over the place where the poker had broken it. She was
very glad to be able to do this, and she does not know to this day
whether breaking open a missionary-box is or is not a hanging
matter.