THE GREAT SLOTH
You have heard of Indians shooting rapids in their birch-bark canoes?
And perhaps you have yourself sailed a toy boat on a stream, and made a
dam of clay, and waited with more or less patience till the water rose
nearly to the top, and then broken a bit of your dam out and made a
waterfall and let your boat drift over the edge of it. You know how it
goes slowly at first, then hesitates and sweeps on more and more
quickly. Sometimes it upsets; and sometimes it shudders and strains and
trembles and sways to one side and to the other, and at last rights
itself and makes up its mind, and rushes on down the stream, usually to
be entangled in the clump of rushes at the stream's next turn. This is
what happened to that good yacht, the _Lightning Loose_. She shot over
the edge of that dark smooth subterranean waterfall, hung a long
breathless moment between still air and falling water, slid down like a
flash, dashed into the stream below, shuddered, reeled, righted herself
and sped on. You have perhaps been down the water chute at Earl's Court?
It was rather like that.
'It's--it's all right,' said Philip, in a rather shaky whisper. 'She's
going on all right.'
'Yes,' said Lucy, holding his arm very tight; 'yes, I'm sure she's going
on all right.'
'Are we drowned?' said a trembling squeak. 'Oh, Max, are we really
drowned?'
'I don't think so,' Max replied with caution. 'And if we are, my dear,
we cannot undrown ourselves by screams.'
'Far from it,' said the parrot, who had for the moment been rendered
quite speechless by the shock. And you know a parrot is not made
speechless just by any little thing. 'So we may just as well try to
behave,' it said.
The lamps had certainly behaved, and behaved beautifully; through the
wild air of the fall, the wild splash as the _Lightning Loose_ struck
the stream below, the lamps had shone on, seemingly undisturbed.
'An example to us all,' said the parrot.
'Yes, but,' said Lucy, 'what are we to do?'
'When adventures take a turn one is far from expecting, one does what
one can,' said the parrot.
'And what's that?'
'Nothing,' said the parrot. 'Philip has relieved Max at the helm and is
steering a straight course between the banks--if you can call them
banks. There is nothing else to be done.'
There plainly wasn't. The _Lightning Loose_ rushed on through the
darkness. Lucy reflected for a moment and then made cocoa. This was real
heroism. It cheered every one up, including the cocoa-maker herself. It
was impossible to believe that anything dreadful was going to happen
when you were making that soft, sweet, ordinary drink.
'I say,' Philip remarked when she carried a cup to him at the wheel,
'I've been thinking. All this is out of a book. Some one must have let
it out. I know what book it's out of too. And if the whole story got out
of the book we're all right. Only we shall go on for ages and climb out
at last, three days' journey from Trieste.'
'I see,' said Lucy, and added that she hated geography. 'Drink your
cocoa while it's hot,' she said in motherly accents, and 'what book is
it?'
'It's _The Last Cruise of the Teal_,' he said. 'Helen gave it me just
before she went away. It's a ripping book, and I used it for the roof
of the outer court of the Hall of Justice. I remember it perfectly. The
chaps on the _Teal_ made torches of paper soaked in paraffin.'
'We haven't any,' said Lucy; 'besides our lamps light everything up all
right. Oh! there's Brenda crying again. She hasn't a shadow of pluck.'
She went quickly to the cabin where Max was trying to cheer Brenda by
remarks full of solid good sense, to which Brenda paid no attention
whatever.
'I knew how it would be,' she kept saying in a whining voice; 'I told
you so from the beginning. I wish we hadn't come. I want to go home. Oh!
what a dreadful thing to happen to dear little dogs.'
'Brenda,' said Lucy firmly, 'if you don't stop whining you shan't have
any cocoa.'
Brenda stopped at once and wagged her tail appealingly.
'Cocoa?' she said, 'did any one say cocoa? My nerves are so delicate. I
know I'm a trial, dear Max, it's no use your pretending I'm not, but
there is nothing like cocoa for the nerves. Plenty of sugar, please,
dear Lucy. Thank you _so_ much! Yes, it's _just_ as I like it.'
'There will be other things to eat by and by,' said Lucy. 'People who
whine won't get any.'
'I'm sure nobody would _dream_ of whining,' said Brenda. 'I know I'm too
sensitive; but you can do anything with dear little dogs by kindness.
And as for whining--do you know it's a thing I've never been subject to,
from a child, never. Max will tell you the same.'
Max said nothing, but only fixed his beautiful eyes hopefully on the
cocoa jug.
And all the time the yacht was speeding along the underground stream,
beneath the vast arch of the underground cavern.
'The worst of it is we may be going ever so far away from where we want
to get to,' said Philip, when Max had undertaken the steering again.
'All roads,' remarked the parrot, 'lead to Somnolentia. And besides the
ship is travelling due north--at least so the ship's compass states, and
I have no reason as yet for doubting its word.'
'Hullo!' cried more than one voice, and the ship shot out of the dark
cavern into a sheet of water that lay spread under a white dome. The
stream that had brought them there seemed to run across one side of this
pool. Max, directed by the parrot, steered the ship into smooth water,
where she lay at rest at last in the very middle of this great
underground lake.
'_This_ isn't out of _The Cruise of the Teal_,' said Philip. 'They must
have shut that book.'
'I think it's out of a book about Mexico or Peru or Ingots or some
geographical place,' said Lucy; 'it had a green-and-gold binding. I
think you used it for the other end of the outer justice court. And if
you did, this dome's solid silver, and there's a hole in it, and under
this dome there's untold treasure in gold incas.'
'What's incas?'
'Gold bars, I believe,' said Lucy; 'and Mexicans come down through the
hole in the roof and get it, and when enemies come they flood it with
water. It's flooded now,' she added unnecessarily.
'I wish adventures had never been invented,' said Brenda. 'No, dear
Lucy, I am not whining. Far from it. But if a dear little dog might
suggest it, we should all be better in a home, should we not?'
All eyes now perceived a dark hole in the roof, a round hole exactly in
the middle of the shining dome. And as they gazed the dark hole became
light. And they saw above them a white shining disk like a very large
and very bright moon. It was the light of day.
'Some one has opened the trap-door,' said Lucy. 'The Ingots always
closed their treasure-vaults with trap-doors.'
The bright disk was obscured; confused shapes broke its shining
roundness. Then another disk, small and very black appeared in the
middle of it; the black disk grew larger and larger and larger. It was
coming down to them. Slowly and steadily it came; now it reached the
level of the dome, now it hung below it; down, down, down it came, past
the level of their eager eyes and splashed in the water close by the
ship. It was a large empty bucket. The rope which held it was jerked
from above; the bucket dipped and filled and was drawn up again slowly
and steadily till it disappeared in the hole in the roof.
'Quick,' said the parrot, 'get the ship exactly under the hole, and next
time the bucket comes down you can go up in it.'
'This is out of the _Arabian Nights_, I think,' said Lucy, when the
yacht was directly under the hole in the roof. 'But who is it that keeps
on opening the books? Somebody must be pulling Polistopolis down.'
'The Pretenderette, I shouldn't wonder,' said Philip gloomily. 'She
isn't the Deliverer, so she must be the Destroyer. Nobody else can get
into Polistarchia, you know.'
'There's me.'
'Oh, you're Deliverer too.'
'Thank you,' said Lucy gratefully. 'But there's Helen.'
'She was only on the Island, you know; she couldn't come to
Polistarchia. Look out!'
The bucket was descending again, and instead of splashing in the water
it bumped on the deck.
'You go first,' said Philip to Lucy.
'And you,' said Max to Brenda.
'Oh, I'll go first if you like,' said Philip.
'Yes,' said Max, 'I'll go first if you like, Brenda.'
You see Philip felt that he ought to give Lucy the first chance of
escaping from the poor _Lightning Loose_. Yet he could not be at all
sure what it was that she would be escaping to. And if there was danger
overhead, of course he ought to be the one to go first to face it. And
the worthy Max felt the same about Brenda.
And Lucy felt just the same as they did. I don't know what Brenda felt.
She whined a little. Then for one moment Lucy and Philip stood on the
deck each grasping the handle of the bucket and looking at each other,
and the dogs looked at them, and the parrot looked at every one in turn.
An impatient jerk and shake of the rope from above reminded them that
there was no time to lose.
Lucy decided that it was more dangerous to go than to stay, just at the
same moment when Philip decided that it was more dangerous to stay than
to go, so when Lucy stepped into the bucket Philip helped her eagerly.
Max thought the same as Philip, and I am afraid Brenda agreed with them.
At any rate she leaped into Lucy's lap and curled her long length round
just as the rope tightened and the bucket began to go up. Brenda
screamed faintly, but her scream was stifled at once.
'I'll send the bucket down again the moment I get up,' Lucy called out;
and a moment later, 'it feels awfully jolly, like a swing.'
And so saying she was drawn up into the hole in the roof of the dome.
Then a sound of voices came down the shaft, a confused sound; the
anxious little party on the _Lightning Loose_ could not make out any
distinct words. They all stood staring up, expecting, waiting for the
bucket to come down again.
'I hate leaving the ship,' said Philip.
'You shall be the last to leave her,' said the parrot consolingly; 'that
is if we can manage about Max without your having to sit on him in the
bucket if he gets in first.'
'But how about you?' said Philip.
[Illustration: The bucket began to go up.]
A little arrogantly the parrot unfolded half a bright wing.
'Oh!' said Philip enlightened and reminded. 'Of course! And you might
have flown away at any time. And yet you stuck to us. I say, you know,
that was jolly decent of you.'
'Not at all,' said the parrot with conscious modesty.
'But it was,' Philip insisted. 'You might have---- hullo!' cried Philip.
The bucket came down again with a horrible rush. They held their breaths
and looked to see the form of Lucy hurtling through the air. But no, the
bucket swung loose a moment in mid-air, then it was hastily drawn up,
and a hollow metallic clang echoed through the cavern.
'Brenda!' the cry was wrung from the heart of the sober self-contained
Max.
'My wings and claws!' exclaimed the parrot.
'Oh, bother!' said Philip.
There was some excuse for these expressions of emotion. The white disk
overhead had suddenly disappeared. Some one up above had banged the lid
down. And all the manly hearts were below in the cave, and brave Lucy
and helpless Brenda were above in a strange place, whose dangers those
below could only imagine.
'I wish _I'd_ gone,' said Philip. 'Oh, I _wish_ I'd gone.'
'Yes, indeed,' said Max, with a deep sigh.
'I feel a little faint,' said the parrot; 'if some one would make a cup
of cocoa.'
Thus did the excellent bird seek to occupy their minds in that first
moment of disaster. And it was well that the captain and crew were thus
saved from despair. For before the kettle boiled, the lid of the shaft
opened about a foot and something largeish, roundish and lumpish fell
heavily and bounced upon the deck of the _Lightning Loose_.
It was a pine-apple, fresh, ripe and juicy. On its side was carved in
large letters of uncertain shape the one word 'WAIT.'
It was good advice and they took it. Really I do not see what else they
could have done in any case. And they ate the pine-apple. And presently
every one felt extremely sleepy.
'Waiting is one of those things that you can do as well asleep as awake,
or even better,' said the parrot. 'Forty winks will do us all the good
in the world.' He put his head under his wing where he sat on the
binnacle.
'May I turn in alongside you, sir?' Max asked. 'I shan't feel the
dreadful loneliness so much then.'
So Philip and Max curled up together on the deck, warmly covered with
the spare flags of all nations, and the forty winks lasted for the space
of a good night's rest--about ten hours, in fact. So ten hours' waiting
was got through quite easily. But there was more waiting to do after
they woke up, and that was not so easy.
. . . . . . .
When Lucy, sitting in the bucket with Brenda in her lap, felt the bucket
lifted from the deck and swung loose in the air, it was as much as she
could do to refrain from screaming. Brenda _did_ scream, as you know,
but Lucy stifled the sound in the folds of her frock.
Lucy bit her lips, made a great effort and called out that remark about
the bucket-swing, just as though she were quite comfortable. It was very
brave of her and helped her to go on being brave.
The bucket drew slowly up and up and up and passed from the silver dome
into the dark shaft above. Lucy looked up. Yes, it was daylight that
showed at the top of the shaft, and the rope was drawing her up towards
it. Suppose the rope broke? Brenda was quite quiet now. She said
afterwards that she must have fainted. And now the light was nearer and
nearer. Now Lucy was in it, for the bucket had been drawn right up, and
hands were reached out to draw it over the side of what seemed like a
well. At that moment Lucy saw in a flash what might happen if the owners
of the hands, in their surprise, let go the bucket and the windlass. She
caught Brenda in her hands and threw the dog out on to the dry ground,
and threw herself across the well parapet. Just in time, for a shout of
surprise went up and the bucket went down, clanging against the well
sides. The hands _had_ let go.
Lucy clambered over the well side slowly, and when her feet stood on
firm ground she saw that the hands were winding up the bucket again, and
that it came very easily.
'Oh, don't!' she said. 'Let it go right down! There are some more people
down there.'
'Sorry, but it's against the rules. The bucket only goes down this well
forty times a day. And that was the fortieth time.'
They pulled the bucket in and banged down the lid of the well. Some one
padlocked it and put the key in his pocket. And Lucy and he stood facing
each other. He was a little round-headed man in a curious stiff red
tunic, and there was something about the general shape of him and his
tunic which reminded Lucy of something, only she could not remember
what. Behind him stood two others, also red-tunicked and round-headed.
[Illustration: Lucy threw herself across the well parapet.]
Brenda crouched at Lucy's feet and whined softly, and Lucy waited for
the strangers to speak.
'You shouldn't do that,' said the red-tunicked man at last, 'it was a
great shock to us, your bobbing up as you did. It will keep us awake at
night, just remembering it.'
'I'm sorry,' said Lucy.
'You should always come into strange towns by the front gate,' said the
man; 'try to remember that, will you? Good-night.'
'But you're not going off like this,' said Lucy. 'Let me write a note
and drop it down to the others. Have you a bit of pencil, and paper?'
'No,' said the strange people, staring at her.
'Haven't you anything I can write on?' Lucy asked them.
'There's nothing here but pine-apples,' said one of them at last.
So she cut a pine-apple from among the hundreds that grew among the
rocks near by, and carved 'WAIT' on it with her penknife.
'Now,' she said, 'open that well lid.'
'It's as much as our lives are worth,' said the leader.
'No it isn't,' said Lucy; 'there's no law against dropping pine-apples
into the well. You know there isn't. It isn't like drawing water. And if
you don't I shall set my little dog at you. She is very fierce.'
Brenda was so flattered that she showed her teeth and growled.
'Oh, very well,' said the stranger; 'anything to avoid fuss.'
When the well lid was padlocked down again, Lucy said:
'What country is this?' though she was almost sure, because of the
pine-apples, that it was Somnolentia. And when they had said that word
she said:
'Now I'll tell you something. The Deliverer is coming up that well next
time you draw water. He is coming to deliver you from the bondage of the
Great Sloth.'
'It is true,' said the red round-headed leader, 'that we are in bondage.
And the Great Sloth wearies us with the singing of choric songs when we
long to be asleep. But none can deliver us. There is no hope. There is
nothing good but sleep. And of that we have never enough.'
'Oh, dear,' said Lucy despairingly, 'aren't there any women here? They
always have more sense than men.'
'What you say is rude as well as untrue,' said the red leader; 'but to
avoid fuss we will lead you and your fierce dog to the huts of the
women. And then perhaps you will allow us to go to sleep.'
The huts were poor and mean, little fenced-in corners in the ruins of
what had once been a great and beautiful city, with gardens and streams;
but now the streams were dry and nothing grew in the gardens but weeds
and pine-apples.
But the women--who all wore green tunics of the same stiff shape as the
men's--were not quite so sleepy as their husbands. They brought Lucy
fresh pine-apples to eat, and were dreamily interested in the cut of her
clothes and the begging accomplishments of Brenda. And from the women
she learned several things about the Somnolentians. They all wore the
same shaped tunics, only the colours differed. The women's were green,
the drawers of water wore red, the attendants of the Great Sloth wore
black, and the pine-apple gatherers wore yellow.
And as Lucy sat at the door of the hut and watched the people in these
four colours going lazily about among the ruins she suddenly knew what
they were, and she exclaimed:
'I know what you are; you're Halma men.'
Instantly every man within earshot made haste to get away, and the women
whispered, 'Hush! It is death to breathe that name.'
'But why?' Lucy asked.
'Halma was the great captain of our race,' said the woman, 'and the
Great Sloth fears that if we hear his name it will rouse us and we shall
break from bondage and become once more a free people.'
Lucy determined that they should hear that name pretty often; but before
she could speak it again the woman sighed, and remarking 'The Great
Sloth sleeps,' fell asleep then and there over the pine-apple she was
peeling. A vast silence settled on the city, and next moment Lucy also
slept. She slept for hours.
. . . . . . .
It took her some time to find the keeper of the padlock key, and when
she had found him he refused to use it. Nothing would move him, not even
the threat of the fierceness of Brenda.
At last, almost in despair, Lucy suddenly remembered a word of power.
'I command you to open the well and let down the bucket,' she said. 'I
command you by the great name of Halma.'
'It is death to speak that name,' said the keeper of the key, looking
over his shoulder anxiously.
'It is life to speak that name,' said Lucy. 'Halma! Halma! Halma! If you
don't open that well I'll carve the name on a pine-apple and send it in
on the golden tray with the Great Sloth's dinner.'
'It would have the lives of hundreds for that,' said the keeper in
horror.
'Open the well then,' said Lucy.
. . . . . . .
They all held a council as soon as Philip and Max had been safely drawn
up in the bucket, and Lucy told them all she knew.
'I think whatever we do we ought to be quick,' said Lucy; 'that Great
Sloth is dangerous. I'm sure it is. It's sent already to say I am to be
brought to its presence to sing songs to it while it goes to sleep. It
doesn't mind me because it knows I'm not the Deliverer. And if you'll
let me, I believe I can work everything all right. But if it knows
you're here, it'll be much harder.'
The degraded Halma men were watching them from a distance, in whispering
groups.
'I shall go and sing to the Great Sloth,' she said, 'and you must go
about and say the name of power to every one you meet, and tell them
you're the Deliverer. Then if my idea doesn't come off, we must
overpower the Great Sloth by numbers and . . . . You just go about saying
"Halma!"--see?'
'While you do the dangerous part? Likely!' said Philip.
'It's not dangerous. It never hurts the people who sing--never,' said
Lucy. 'Now I'm going.'
And she went before Philip could stop her.
'Let her go,' said the parrot; 'she is a wise child.'
The temple of the Great Sloth was built of solid gold. It had beautiful
pillars and doorways and windows and courts, one inside the other, each
paved with gold flagstones. And in the very middle of everything was a
large room which was entirely feather-bed. There the Great Sloth passed
its useless life in eating, sleeping and listening to music.
Outside the moorish arch that led to this inner room Lucy stopped and
began to sing. She had a clear little voice and she sang 'Jockey to the
Fair,' and 'Early one morning,' and then she stopped.
And a great sleepy slobbery voice came out from the room and said:
'Your songs are in very bad taste. Do you know no sleepy songs?'
'Your people sing you sleepy songs,' said Lucy. 'What a pity they can't
sing to you all the time.'
'You have a sympathetic nature,' said the Great Sloth, and it came out
and leaned on the pillar of its door and looked at her with sleepy
interest. It was enormous, as big as a young elephant, and it walked on
its hind legs like a gorilla. It was very black indeed.
'It _is_ a pity,' it said; 'but they say they cannot live without
drinking, so they waste their time in drawing water from the wells.'
'Wouldn't it be nice,' said Lucy, 'if you had a machine for drawing
water. Then they could sing to you all day--if they chose.'
'If _I_ chose,' said the Great Sloth, yawning like a hippopotamus. 'I am
sleepy. Go!'
'No,' said Lucy, and it was so long since the Great Sloth had heard that
word that the shock of the sound almost killed its sleepiness.
'_What_ did you say?' it asked, as if it could not believe its large
ears.
'I said "No,"' said Lucy. 'I mean that you are so great and grand you
have only to wish for anything and you get it.'
'Is that so?' said the Great Sloth dreamily and like an American.
'Yes,' said Lucy with firmness. 'You just say, "I wish I had a machine
to draw up water for eight hours a day." That's the proper length for a
working day. Father says so.'
'Say it all again, and slower,' said the creature. 'I didn't quite catch
what you said.'
Lucy repeated the words.
'If that's all. . . .' said the Great Sloth; 'now say it again, very
slowly indeed.'
Lucy did so and the Great Sloth repeated after her:
'I wish I had a machine to draw up water for eight hours a day.'
'Don't,' it said angrily, looking back over its shoulder into the
feather-bedded room, 'don't, I say. Where are you shoving to? Who are
you? What are you doing in my room? Come out of it.'
Something did come out of the room, pushing the Great Sloth away from
the door. And what came out was the vast feather-bed in enormous rolls
and swellings and bulges. It was being pushed out by something so big
and strong that it was stronger that the Great Sloth itself, and pushed
that mountain of lazy sloth-flesh half across its own inner courtyard.
Lucy retreated before its advancing bulk and its extreme rage.
'Push me out of my own feather-bedroom, would it?' said the Sloth, now
hardly sleepy at all. 'You wait till I get hold of it, whatever it is.'
The whole of the feather-bed was out in the courtyard now, and the Great
Sloth climbed slowly back over it into its room to find out who had
dared to outrage its Slothful Majesty.
Lucy waited, breathless with hope and fear, as the Great Sloth blundered
back into the inner room of its temple. It did not come out again.
There was a silence, and then a creaking sound and the voice of the
Great Sloth saying:
'No, no, no, I won't. Let go, I tell you.' Then more sounds of creaking
and the sound of metal on metal.
She crept to the arch and peeped round it.
The room that had been full of feather-bed was now full of wheels and
cogs and bands and screws and bars. It was full, in fact, of a large and
complicated machine. And the handle of that machine was being turned by
the Great Sloth itself.
'Let me go,' said the Great Sloth, gnashing its great teeth. 'I won't
work!'
'You must,' said a purring voice from the heart of the machinery. 'You
wished for me, and now you have to work me eight hours a day. It is the
law'; it was the machine itself which spoke.
'I'll break you,' said the Sloth.
'I am unbreakable,' said the machine with gentle pride.
'This is your doing,' said the Sloth, turning its furious eyes on Lucy
in the doorway. 'You wait till I catch you!' And all the while it had to
go on turning that handle.
'Thank you,' said Lucy politely; 'I think I will not wait. And I shall
have eight hours' start,' she added.
Even as she spoke a stream of clear water began to run from the pumping
machine. It slid down the gold steps and across the golden court. Lucy
ran out into the ruined square of the city shouting:
'Halma! Halma! Halma! To me, Halma's men!'
And the men, already excited by Philip, who had gone about saying that
name of power without a moment's pause all the time Lucy had been in the
golden temple, gathered round her in a crowd.
'Quick!' she said; 'the Great Sloth is pumping water up for you. He will
pump for eight hours a day. Quick! dig a channel for the water to run
in. The Deliverer,' she pointed to Philip, 'has given you back your
river.'
Some ran to look out old rusty half-forgotten spades and picks. But
others hesitated and said:
'The Great Sloth will work for eight hours, and then it will be free to
work vengeance on us.'
'I will go back,' said Lucy, 'and explain to it that if it does not
behave nicely you will all wish for machine guns, and it knows now
that if people wish for machinery they have to use it. It will be
awake now for eight hours and if you all work for eight hours a day
you'll soon have your city as fine as ever. And there's one new law.
Every time the clock strikes you must all say "Halma!" aloud, every one
of you, to remind yourselves of your great destiny, and that you are no
longer slaves of the Great Sloth.'
[Illustration: And all the while it had to go on turning that handle.]
She went back and explained machine guns very carefully to the now
hard-working Sloth. When she came back all the men were at work digging
a channel for the new river.
The women and children crowded round Lucy and Philip.
'Ah!' said the oldest woman of all, 'now we shall be able to wash in
water. I've heard my grandmother say water was very pleasant to wash in.
I never thought I should live to wash in water myself.'
'Why?' Lucy asked. 'What do you wash in?'
'Pine-apple juice,' said a dozen voices, 'when we _do_ wash!'
'But that must be very sticky,' said Lucy.
'It is,' said the oldest woman of all; 'very!'