"GET UP!!" the Phoenix bellowed.
The Gryffen struggled into a sitting position and yawned a tremendous
and noisy yawn. Then it squinted blearily at David and murmured,
"What day is it?"
[Illustration]
"Wednesday," David said. "Could you please tell us--"
"Oh, Wednesday," said the Gryffen. It thought about this for a while,
mumbling "Wednesday ... Wednesday ..." to itself. It lifted one leg as
if to scratch the fly bites, changed its mind in mid-gesture, and
dropped the leg again. "Oh, _Wednesday_," it said at last. "So it
isn't Saturday?"
"No," said David. "What we want to know is--"
"Not Saturday," said the Gryffen, sinking down to the ground with a
huge sigh of relief. "Ah! Come back on Saturday. Saturday afternoon. I
generally get up on Saturday ... in the ... afternoon...." The words
faded into a snore.
"There you are, my dear fellow," said the Phoenix. "Just as I said.
Oaf! Boor!"
"A _very_ annoying animal," said David angrily.
"I agree, my boy. But the Gryffins are different, I assure you. Now,
let me see. Where should we look--"
"There they come!" David cried suddenly. "Look!" And indeed, a number
of winged creatures were loping down a hillside toward them.
"Good heavens!" the Phoenix shouted. "Those are the ones we do _not_
want to meet! On my back, _quick_!"
"What are they?" David gasped as he threw himself on the bird's back.
"Gryffons!"
The Phoenix rushed along the ground a few feet and sprang into the
air. But it was too late. The foremost Gryffons, with powerful strokes
of their wings, shot up to meet them. The Phoenix swerved sharply.
They missed the snapping beak of the first Gryffon by half an inch and
dodged the second--only to smash into a third. David was stunned by
the blow and the fall. When he regained consciousness, he found
himself in the tight grip of two Gryffons. The Phoenix was struggling
feebly with another, and still more were crowding around them,
screaming like hawks.
They looked like the sleeping Gryffen, but were as large as ponies.
Their eyes were yellow and unblinking, and their tails twitched like
an angry cat's. Their smell, like the lion house in the zoo, made
David feel faint.
"Well, Phoenix," said the largest Gryffon coldly, "you know the Rule,
I believe?"
The Phoenix smiled weakly and cleared its throat. "Ah, there,
Gryffon," it said unsteadily. "Fancy meeting you here. Ah--ah--rule?
What rule?"
"Rule 26," said the Gryffon. "'No human being shall be allowed to
enter the--'"
"Oh, that rule," said the Phoenix, with a careless laugh. "I thought
everyone knew that the Council of 1935 had changed it. Can it be that
you have not yet heard?"
"That won't do, Phoenix. You have also heard, of course, of the
penalty for breaking the Rule, which you must suffer along with this
human boy?"
"Now, one moment, my dear Gryffon! I--ah--"
"Death!"
The Phoenix quailed, and David's legs went limp under him. But they
had no chance to plead with the Gryffons. Their captors formed two
lines, one on each side of them, and at a scream of command from the
leader, all began to march. The Gryffon that had been holding the
Phoenix winked horribly at David and made a throat-cutting gesture
with its wing.
"Courage, my boy," the Phoenix whispered. "It is always darkest before
dawn."
Presently they reached a hillside. David and the Phoenix were marched
up to a cave and thrown in. Two of the Gryffons sat down at the
entrance to guard them while the others went off to consider the best
method of carrying out the penalty.
David was terribly frightened now, but he did not want to let the
Phoenix know it. In a voice which trembled a little he asked, "What
are we going to do?"
The Phoenix frowned. "Do not be downcast, my boy. My brain is equal to
any occasion. I shall Think. Silence, please."
And the Phoenix, covering its eyes with one wing, Thought.
To keep himself occupied, David explored the cave. But there was
nothing to see. The cave was small and bare. He tested the walls
thoroughly to see if there were any places where they might dig their
way out. There were none. His feet raised a cloud of fine dust, which
got into his eyes and nose and made him sneeze violently. Discouraged,
he went back to the Phoenix and sat down. There was a long silence.
Gradually an idea came to David. It started as a small, faint thought
at the back of his mind, wavered, began to grow and expand and fill
out--became bigger and clearer and better and--
"Phoenix!" cried David, jumping to his feet.
"My boy, my very dear boy," said the Phoenix, its voice breaking with
emotion, "I have Thought, I have Pondered, I have--well, to be brief,
it is no use. Stiff upper lip, my boy! We are Doomed."
"Phoenix, I--"
"Let this be a lesson to you, my boy, even though it be your last one.
Fools rush in where angels fear to tread. Ah! who could have said, in
the golden days of my youth, that I should come to such an end! Oh,
miserable bird! Oh, unhappy boy!"
"Phoenix--"
"But we can show them how to die, my boy! We still have that--the last
magnificent gesture. Let those who have lived wisely and well show
that they can die in the same way! I hope I am to go first, so that
you may have an example to follow."
"_Phoenix!_"
"My boy?"
"Listen, please!" And David whispered in the Phoenix's ear.
The plan had seemed like a good one while it was still in his mind,
but put into words it sounded a little too simple. As he whispered,
David began to feel more and more foolish, so that finally he stopped
altogether.
"I--I guess it's really kind of silly," he stammered.
But the Phoenix was looking at him with hope and admiration in its
eyes. "My very dear chap," it said solemnly, "I salute you. I humbly
await your signal."
"Do you really think it will work?"
"My boy, it must--it can--it shall. Proceed."
Poor as the plan now seemed to David, he prepared to carry it out.
Holding his breath so as not to sneeze again, he scooped up as much
dust as he could hold in two hands. Then he took his position on one
side of the cave, nodded the Phoenix toward the other, and glanced out
to see if the guardian Gryffons were looking. They were not.
"Now," he whispered.
The cave rocked with their uproar. David screamed at the top of his
voice and kicked the walls. The Phoenix let out a series of
ear-splitting whistles and squawks and beat its wings frantically.
Echoes bounced from wall to wall. The two Gryffons came rushing into
the cave, adding to the racket with their shrieking. "Now!" David
shouted, and he flung the double handful of dust into the Gryffons'
faces. Instantly they were all choking and sneezing in the thick
cloud. He plunged between the legs of the two Gryffons, who in the
confusion began to bite and tear savagely at each other.
David and the Phoenix burst out of the cave together. The other
Gryffons, aroused by the noise, were bounding toward them. David flung
himself on the Phoenix's back and shouted "Fly!" and sneezed. From
somewhere behind him a set of talons snatched out and ripped through
the back of his shirt. He kicked blindly and felt his foot crunch into
something which shrieked. "Fly, Phoenix!" he sobbed. The Phoenix was
already in the air and needed no encouragement. They heard raucous
cries and the thunder of wings behind them. David looked back over his
shoulder. The Gryffons were rising from the ground in pursuit, their
legs drawn up under them and their wings beating. "Faster!" he
screamed.
[Illustration]
"You have seen nothing in the way of flying until now, my boy," the
Phoenix shouted back. "Watch this!" Its wings were two blurs slicing
through the air and roaring like kettledrums. The ground below
streamed backwards. David looked back again. The Gryffons were falling
into the distance. Their cries were getting fainter. Now they looked
like a flock of starlings ... now like a cluster of flies ... now
like gnats. And then they had faded out of sight, and David and the
Phoenix were streaking over the grassland alone.
Ten minutes later they reached a shore and landed. They flopped on the
sand, panting. And David, suddenly feeling very faint, closed his eyes
and put his head between his knees. After they had got their breath,
the Phoenix patted David on the shoulder and said huskily:
"I congratulate you, my boy. Your plan was magnificent--precisely what
_I_ should have done, had I thought of it first. Needless to say, we
shall not go on looking for the Gryffins. But now you know exactly
what they are like: midway in size between the Gryffens and Gryffons,
and reddish in color. Most amiable souls, willing to do anything for
anyone. It is hard to believe that they are all related. But enough,
my boy. Let us go home."
As soon as they reached the ledge, the Phoenix put David down and
prepared to take off again.
"Where are you going, Phoenix?" David asked.
"Some business to attend to, my boy."
Muttering under its breath something that sounded like "tail feathers,
indeed!" the Phoenix soared off. And David, stiff and sore and
thoroughly tired, started down the mountainside for home.
5: _In Which the Scientist Arrives in Pursuit of the Phoenix, and
There Are Alarums and Excursions by Night_
[Illustration]
The lights downstairs were all on when David got home, and as soon as
he opened the front door he could tell that they had company.
He shouted, "I'm home!" and sneezed. The dust from the Gryffons' cave
still clung to him, tickling his nose.
"Well, here he is at last," said Dad's voice. "Come on in, David."
Then, as David walked into the living room, "Good heavens, Son, what's
happened to you?"
"Your _back_, David!" Mother said in a horrified voice. "Your poor
back! What _happened_ to you?"
[Illustration]
David felt himself. The back of his shirt was ripped to tatters, and
there were three lines of caked blood across his shoulders. He
remembered now: it was the Gryffon that had tried to grab him as he
and the Phoenix made their escape. But he had promised the Phoenix to
keep its secret.