THE MEANS OF ESCAPE
A week passed, and Jimbo began to wonder if the pains he so much
dreaded, yet so eagerly longed for, were ever coming at all. The
imprisonment was telling upon him, and he grew very thin, and
consequently very light.
The nights, though he spent them alone, were easily borne, for he was
then intensely occupied, and the time passed swiftly; the moment it was
dark he stepped into the Gallery of Memories, and in a little while
passed into a new world of wonder and delight. But the daytime seemed
always long. He stood for hours by the window watching the trees and the
sky, and what he saw always set painful currents running through his
blood--unsatisfied longings, yearnings, and immense desires he never
could understand.
The white clouds on their swift journeys took with them something from
his heart every time he looked upon them; they melted into air and blue
sky, and lo! that "something" came back to him charged with all the wild
freedom and magic of open spaces, distance, and rushing winds.
But the change was close at hand.
One night, as he was standing by the open window listening to the drip
of the rain, he felt a deadly weakness steal over him; the strength went
out of his legs. First he turned hot, and then he turned cold; clammy
perspiration broke out all over him, and it was all he could do to crawl
across the room and throw himself on to the bed. But no sooner was he
stretched out on the mattress than the feelings passed entirely, and
left behind them an intoxicating sense of strength and lightness. His
muscles became like steel springs; his bones were strong as iron and
light as cork; a wonderful vigour had suddenly come into him, and he
felt as if he had just stepped from a dungeon into fresh air. He was
ready to face anything in the world.
But, before he had time to realise the full enjoyment of these new
sensations, a stinging, blinding pain shot suddenly through his right
shoulder as if a red-hot iron had pierced to the very bone. He screamed
out in agony; though, even while he screamed, the pain passed. Then the
same thing happened in his other shoulder. It shot through his back with
equal swiftness, and was gone, leaving him lying on the bed trembling
with pain. But the instant it was gone the delightful sensations of
strength and lightness returned, and he felt as if his whole body were
charged with some new and potent force.
The pains had come at last! Jimbo had no notion how they could possibly
be connected with escape, but Miss Lake--his kind and faithful friend,
Miss Lake--had said that no escape was possible without them; and had
promised that they should be brief. And this was true, for the entire
episode had not taken a minute of time.
"ESCAPE, ESCAPE!"--the words rushed through him like a flame of fire.
Out of this dreadful Empty House, into the open spaces; beyond the
prison wall; out where the wind and the rain could touch him; where he
could feel the grass beneath his feet, and could see the whole sky at
once, instead of this narrow strip through the window. His thoughts flew
to the stars and the clouds....
But a strange humming of voices interrupted his flight of imagination,
and he saw that the room was suddenly full of moving figures. They were
passing before him with silent footsteps, across the window from door to
door. How they had come in, or how they went out, he never knew; but his
heart stood still for an instant as he recognised the mournful figures
of the Frightened Children filing before him in a slow procession. They
were singing--though it sounded more like a chorus of whispering than
actual singing--and as they moved past with the measured steps of their
sorrowful dance, he caught the words of the song he had heard them sing
when he first came into the house:--
"We hear the little voices in the wind
Singing of freedom we may never find."
Jimbo put his fingers into his ears, but still the sound came through.
He heard the words almost as if they were inside himself--his own
thoughts singing:--
"We hear the little footsteps in the rain
Running to help us, though they run in vain,
Tapping in hundreds on the window-pane."
The horrible procession filed past and melted away near the door. They
were gone as mysteriously as they had come, and almost before he
realised it.
He sprang from the bed and tried the doors; both were locked. How in
the world had the children got in and out? The whispering voices rose
again on the night air, and this time he was sure they came from
outside. He ran to the open window and thrust his head out cautiously.
Sure enough, the procession was moving slowly, still with the steps of
that impish dance across the courtyard stones. He could just make out
the slow waving arms, the thin bodies, and the white little faces as
they passed on silent feet through the darkness, and again a fragment of
the song rose to his ears as he watched, and filled him with an
overpowering sadness:--
"We have no joy in any children's game,
For happiness to us is but a name,
Since Terror kissed us with his lips of flame."
Then he noticed that the group was growing smaller. Already the numbers
were less. Somewhere, over there in the dark corner of the yard, the
children disappeared, though it was too dark to see precisely how or
where.
"We dance with phantoms, and with shadows play," rose to his ears.
Suddenly he remembered the little white upright stones he had seen in
that corner of the yard, and understood. One by one they vanished just
behind those stones.
Jimbo shivered, and drew his head in. He did not like those upright
stones; they made him uncomfortable and afraid. Now, however, the last
child had disappeared and the song had ceased. He realised what his fate
would be if the escape were not successful; he would become one of this
band of Frightened Children; dwelling somewhere behind the upright
stones; a terrified shadow, waiting in vain to be rescued, waiting
perhaps for ever and ever. The thought brought the tears to his eyes,
but he somehow managed to choke them down. He knew it was the young
portion of him only that felt afraid--the body; the older self could not
feel fear, and had nothing to do with tears.
He lay down again upon the hard mattress and waited; and soon afterwards
the first crimson streaks of sunrise appeared behind the high elms, and
rooks began to caw and shake their wings in the upper branches. A little
later the governess came in.
Before he could move out of the way--for he disliked being embraced--she
had her arms round his neck, and was covering him with kisses. He saw
tears in her eyes.
"You darling Jimbo!" she cried, "they've come at last."
"How do you know?" he asked, surprised at her knowledge and puzzled by
her display of emotion.
"I heard you scream to begin with. Besides, I've been watching."
"Watching?"
"Yes, and listening too, every night, every single night. You've hardly
been a minute out of my sight," she added.
"I think it's awfully good of you," he said doubtfully, "but----"
A flood of questions followed--about the upright stones, the shadowy
children, where she spent the night "watching him," and a hundred other
things besides. But he got little satisfaction out of her. He never did
when it was Jimbo, the child, that asked; and he remained Jimbo, the
child, all that day. She only told him that all was going well. The
pains had come; he had grown nice and thin, and light; the children had
come into his room as a hint that he belonged to their band, and other
things had happened about which she would tell him later. The crisis was
close at hand. That was all he could get out of her.
"It won't be long now," she said excitedly. "They'll come to-night, I
expect."
"What will come to-night?" he asked, with querulous wonder.
"Wait and see!" was all the answer he got. "Wait and see!"
She told him to lie quietly on the bed and to have patience.
With asking questions, and thinking, and wondering, the day passed very
quickly. With the lengthening shadows his excitement began to grow.
Presently Miss Lake took her departure and went off to her unknown and
mysterious abode; he watched her disappear through the floor with
mingled feelings, wondering what would have happened before he saw her
again. She gave him a long, last look as she sank away below the boards,
but it was a look that brought him fresh courage, and her eyes were
happy and smiling.
Tingling already with expectancy he got into the bed and lay down, his
brain alive with one word--ESCAPE.
From where he lay he saw the stars in the narrow strip of sky; he heard
the wind whispering in the branches; he even smelt the perfume of the
fields and hedges--grass, flowers, dew, and the sweet earth--the odours
of freedom.
The governess had, for some reason she refused to explain, taken his
blouse away with her. For a long time he puzzled over this, seeking
reasons and finding none. But, while in the act of stroking his bare
arms, the pains of the night before suddenly returned to both shoulders
at once. Fire seemed to run down his back, splitting his bones apart,
and then passed even more quickly than before, leaving him with the same
wonderful sensations of lightness and strength. He felt inclined to
shout and run and jump, and it was only the memory of the governess's
earnest caution to "lie quietly" that prevented his new emotions passing
into acts.
With very great effort he lay still all night long; and it was only when
the room at last began to get light again that he turned on his side,
preparatory to getting up.
But there was something new--something different! He rested on his
elbow, waiting. Something had happened to him. Cautiously he sat on the
edge of the bed, and stretched out one foot and touched the floor.
Excitement ran through him like a wave. There was a great change, a
tremendous change; for as he stepped out gingerly on to the floor
_something followed him from the bed_. It clung to his back; it touched
both shoulders at once; it stroked his ribs, and tickled the skin of his
arms.
Half frightened, he brought the other leg over, and stood boldly upright
on both feet. But the weight still clung to his back. He looked over his
shoulder. Yes! it was trailing after him from the bed; it was
fan-shaped, and brilliant in colour. He put out a hand and touched it;
it was soft and glossy; then he took it deliberately between his
fingers; it was smooth as velvet, and had numerous tiny ribs running
along it.
Seizing it at last with all his courage, he pulled it forward in front
of him for a better view, only to discover that it would not come out
beyond a certain distance, and seemed to have got caught somehow between
his shoulders--just where the pains had been. A second pull, more
vigorous than the first, showed that it was not caught, but _fastened_
to his skin; it divided itself, moreover, into two portions, one half
coming from each shoulder.
"I do believe they're feathers!" he exclaimed, his eyes almost popping
out of his head.
Then, with a sudden flash of comprehension, he saw it all, and
understood. They were, indeed, feathers; but they were something more
than feathers merely. _They were wings!_
Jimbo caught his breath and stared in silence. He felt dazed. Then bit
by bit the fragments of the weird mosaic fell into their proper places,
and he began to understand. Escape was to be by flight. It filled him
with such a whirlwind of delight and excitement that he could scarcely
keep from screaming aloud.
Lost in wonder, he took a step forward, and watched with bulging eyes
how the wings followed him, their tips trailing along the floor. They
were a beautiful deep red, and hung down close and warm beside his body;
glossy, sleek, magical. And when, later, the sun burst into the room and
turned their colour into living flame, he could not resist the
temptation to kiss them. He seized them, and rubbed their soft surfaces
over his face. Such colours he had never seen before, and he wanted to
be sure that they really belonged to him and were intended for actual
use.
Slowly, without using his hands, he raised them into the air. The effort
was a perfectly easy muscular effort from the shoulders that came
naturally, though he did not quite understand how he accomplished it.
The wings rose in a fine, graceful sweep, curving over his head till the
tips of the feathers met, touching the walls as they rose, and almost
reaching to the ceiling.
He gave a howl of delight, for this sight was more than he could manage
without some outlet for his pent-up emotion; and at the same moment the
trap-door shot open, and the governess came into the room with such a
bang and a clatter that Jimbo knew at once her excitement was as great
as his own. In her hands she carried the blouse she had taken away the
night before. She held it out to him without a word. Her eyes were
shining like electric lamps. In less than a second he had slipped his
wings through the neatly-made slits, but before he could practise them
again, Miss Lake rushed over to him, her face radiant with happiness.
"Jimbo! My darling Jimbo!" she cried--and then stopped short, apparently
unable to express her emotion.
The next instant he was enveloped, wings and all, in a warm confusion of
kisses, congratulations and folds of hood.
When they became disentangled again the governess went down on her
knees and made a careful examination; she pulled the wings out to their
full extent and found that they stretched about four feet and a half
from tip to tip.
"They _are_ beauties!" she exclaimed enthusiastically, "and full grown
and strong. I'm not surprised they took so long coming."
"Long!" he echoed, "I thought they came awfully quickly."
"Not half so quickly as they'll go," she interrupted; adding, when she
saw his expression of dismay, "I mean, you'll fly like the wind with
them."
Jimbo was simply breathless with excitement. He wanted to jump out of
the window and escape at once. The blue sky and the sunshine and the
white flying clouds sent him an irresistible invitation. He could not
wait a minute longer.
"Quick," he cried, "I can't wait! They may go again. Show me how to use
them. Oh! do show me."
"I'll show you everything in time," she answered. There was something in
her voice that made him pause in his excitement. He looked at her in
silence for some minutes.
"But how are _you_ going to escape?" he asked at length. "You haven't
got"----he stopped short.
The governess stepped back a few paces from him. She threw back the hood
from her face. Then she lifted the long black cloak that hung like a
cassock almost to her ankles and had always enveloped her hitherto.
Jimbo stared. Falling from her shoulders, and folding over her hips, he
saw long red feathers clinging to her; and when he dashed forward to
touch them with his hands, he found they were just as sleek and smooth
and glossy as his own.
"And you never told me all this time?" he gasped.
"It was safer not," she said. "You'd have been stroking and feeling your
shoulders the whole time, and the wings might never have come at all."
She spread out her wings as she spoke to their full extent; they were
nearly six feet across, and the deep crimson on the under side was so
exquisite, gleaming in the sunlight, that Jimbo ran in and nestled
beneath the feathers, tickling his cheeks with the fluffy surface and
running his fingers with childish delight along the slender red quills.
"You precious child," she said, tenderly folding her wings round him
and kissing the top of his head. "Always remember that I really love
you; no matter what happens, remember that, and I'll save you."
"And we shall escape together?" he asked, submitting for once to the
caresses with a good grace.
"We shall escape from the Empty House together," she replied evasively.
"How far we can go after that depends--on you."
"On me?"
"If you love me enough--as I love you, Jimbo--we can never separate
again, because love ties us together for ever. Only," she added, "it
must be mutual."
"I love you very much," he said, puzzled a little. "Of course I do."
"If you've really forgiven me for being the cause of your coming here,"
she said, "we can always be together, but----"
"I don't remember, but I've forgiven you--that _other you_--long ago,"
he said simply. "If you hadn't brought me here, I should never have met
you."
"That's not real forgiveness--quite," she sighed, half to herself.
But Jimbo could not follow this sort of conversation for long; he was
too anxious to try his wings for one thing.
"Is it _very_ difficult to use them?" he asked.
"Try," she said.
He stood in the centre of the floor and raised them again and again.
They swept up easily, meeting over his head, and the air whistled
musically through them. Evidently, they had their proper muscles, for it
was no great effort, and when he folded them again by his side they fell
into natural curves over his arms as if they had been there all his
life. The sound of the feathers threshing the air filled him with
delight and made him think of the big night-bird that had flown past the
window during the night. He told the governess about it, and she burst
out laughing.
"I was that big bird!" she said.
"You!"
"I perched on the roof every night to watch over you. I flew down that
time because I was afraid you were trying to climb out of the window."
This was indeed a proof of devotion, and Jimbo felt that he could never
doubt her again; and when she went on to tell him about his wings and
how to use them he listened with his very best attention and tried hard
to learn and understand.
"The great difficulty is that you can't practise properly," she
explained. "There's no room in here, and yet you can't get out till you
_fly_ out. It's the first swoop that decides all. You have to drop
straight out of this window, and if you use the wings properly they will
carry you in a single swoop over the wall and right up into the sky."
"But if I miss----?"
"You can't miss," she said with decision, "but, if you did, you would be
a prisoner here for ever. HE would catch you in the yard and tear your
wings off. It is just as well that you should know this at once."
Jimbo shuddered as he heard her.
"When can we try?" he asked anxiously.
"Very soon now. The muscles must harden first, and that takes a little
time. You must practise flapping your wings until you can do it easily
four hundred times a minute. When you can do that it will be time for
the first start. You must keep your head steady and not get giddy; the
novelty of the motion--the ground rushing up into your face and the
whistling of the wind--are apt to confuse at first, but it soon passes,
and you must have confidence. I can only help you up to a certain
point; the rest depends on you."
"And the first jump?"
"You'll have to make that by yourself," she said; "but you'll do it all
right. You're very light, and won't go too near the ground. You see,
we're like bats, and cannot rise from the earth. We can only fly by
dropping from a height, and that's what makes the first plunge rather
trying. But you won't fall," she added, "and remember, I shall always be
within reach."
"You're awfully kind to me," said Jimbo, feeling his little soul more
than ever invaded by the force of her unselfish care. "I promise you
I'll do my best." He climbed on to her knee and stared into her anxious
face.
"Then you are beginning to love me a little, aren't you?" she asked
softly, putting her arms round him.
"Yes," he said decidedly. "I love you very much already."
Four hundred times a minute sounded a very great deal of wing-flapping;
but Jimbo practised eagerly, and though at first he could only manage
about twice a second, or one hundred and twenty times a minute, he found
this increased very soon to a great deal more, and before long he was
able to do the full four hundred, though only for a few minutes at a
time.
He stuck to it pluckily, getting stronger every day. The governess
encouraged him as much as possible, but there was very little room for
her while he was at work, and he found the best way to practise was at
night when she was out of the way. She told him that a large bird moved
its wings about four times a second, two up-strokes and two
down-strokes; but a small bird like a partridge moved its wings so
rapidly it was impossible for the eye to distinguish or count the
strokes. A middle course of four hundred suited his own case best, and
he bent all his energies to acquire it.
He also learned that the convex outside curve of wings allowed the wind
to escape over them, while the under side, being concave, held every
breath. Thus the upward stroke did not simply counterbalance the
downward and keep him stationary. Moreover, she showed him how the
feathers underlapped each other so that the downward stroke pressed them
closely together to hold the wind, whereas in the upward stroke they
opened and separated, letting the air slip easily through them, thus
offering less resistance to the atmosphere.
By the end of a week Jimbo had practised so hard that he could keep
himself off the floor in mid-air for half an hour at a time, and even
then without feeling any great fatigue. His excitement became intense;
and, meanwhile, in his body on the nursery bed, though he did not know
it, the fever was reaching its crisis. He could think of nothing else
but the joys of flying, and what the first, awful plunge would be like,
and when Miss Lake came up to him one afternoon and whispered something
in his ear, he was so wildly happy that he hugged her for several
minutes without the slightest coaxing.
"It's bright and clear," she explained, "and Fright will not come after
us, for he fears the light, and can only fly on dark and gloomy nights."
"So we can start----?" he stammered joyfully.
"To-night," she answered, "for our first practice-flight."