"IF," said Kathleen, sitting disconsolate in her marble, "if I am really
a statue come alive, I wonder you're not afraid of me."
"I've got the ring," said Mabel with decision. "Cheer up, dear! you will
soon be better. Try not to think about it."
She spoke as you speak to a child that has cut its finger, or fallen
down on the garden path, and rises up with grazed knees to which gravel
sticks intimately.
"I know," Kathleen absently answered.
"And I've been thinking," said Mabel brightly, "we might find out a lot
about this magic place, if the other statues aren't too proud to talk to
us."
"They aren't," Kathleen assured her; "at least, Phoebus wasn't, he was
most awfully polite and nice."
"Where is he?" Mabel asked.
"In the lake--he was," said Kathleen.
"Then let's go down there," said Mabel. "Oh, Cathy! it is jolly being
your own proper thickness again." She jumped up, and the withered ferns
and branches that had covered her long length and had been gathered
closely upon her as she shrank to her proper size fell as forest leaves
do when sudden storms tear them. But the white Kathleen did not move.
The two sat on the grey moonlit grass with the quiet of the night all
about them. The great park was still as a painted picture; only the
splash of the fountains and the far-off whistle of the Western express
broke the silence, which, at the same time, they deepened.
"What cheer, little sister!" said a voice behind them--a golden voice.
They turned quick, startled heads, as birds, surprised, might turn.
There in the moonlight stood Phoebus, dripping still from the lake,
and smiling at them, very gentle, very friendly.
"Oh, it's you!" said Kathleen.
"None other," said Phoebus cheerfully. "Who is your friend, the
earth-child?"
"This is Mabel," said Kathleen.
Mabel got up and bowed, hesitated, and held out a hand.
"I am your slave, little lady," said Phoebus, enclosing it in marble
fingers. "But I fail to understand how you can see us, and why you do
not fear."
Mabel held up the hand that wore the ring.
"Quite sufficient explanation," said Phoebus; "but since you have
that, why retain your mottled earthy appearance? Become a statue, and
swim with us in the lake."
"I can't swim," said Mabel evasively.
"Nor yet me," said Kathleen.
"_You_ can," said Phoebus. "All statues that come to life are
proficient in all athletic exercises. And you, child of the dark eyes
and hair like night, wish yourself a statue and join our revels."
"I'd rather not, if you will excuse me," said Mabel cautiously. "You see
... this ring ... you wish for things, and you never know how long
they're going to last. It would be jolly and all that to be a statue
_now_, but in the morning I should wish I hadn't."
"Earth-folk often do, they say," mused Phoebus. "But, child, you seem
ignorant of the powers of your ring. Wish exactly, and the ring will
exactly perform. If you give no limit of time, strange enchantments
woven by Arithmos the outcast god of numbers will creep in and spoil the
spell. Say thus: 'I wish that till the dawn I may be a statue of living
marble, even as my child friend, and that after that time I may be as
before, Mabel of the dark eyes and night-coloured hair."
"Oh, yes, do, it would be so jolly!" cried Kathleen. "Do, Mabel! And if
we're both statues, shall we be afraid of the dinosaurus?"
"In the world of living marble fear is not," said Phoebus. "Are we not
brothers, we and the dinosaurus, brethren alike wrought of stone and
life?"
"And could I swim if I did?"
"Swim, and float, and dive--and with the ladies of Olympus spread the
nightly feast, eat of the food of the gods, drink their cup, listen to
the song that is undying, and catch the laughter of immortal lips."
"A feast!" said Kathleen. "Oh, Mabel, do! You would if you were as
hungry as I am."
"But it won't be real food," urged Mabel.
"It will be real to you, as to us," said Phoebus; "there is no other
realness even in your many-coloured world."
Still Mabel hesitated. Then she looked at Kathleen's legs and suddenly
said:--
"Very well, I will. But first I'll take off my shoes and stockings.
Marble boots look simply awful--especially the laces. And a marble,
stocking that's coming down--and mine _do_!"
She had pulled off shoes and stockings and pinafore.
"Mabel has the sense of beauty," said Phoebus approvingly. "Speak the
spell, child, and I will lead you to the ladies of Olympus."
Mabel, trembling a little, spoke it, and there were two little live
statues in the moonlit glade. Tall Phoebus took a hand of each.
"Come--run!" he cried. And they ran.
"Oh--it is jolly!" Mabel panted. "Look at my white feet in the grass! I
thought it would feel stiff to be a statue, but it doesn't."
"There is no stiffness about the immortals," laughed the Sun-god. "For
to-night you are one of us."
And with that they ran down the slope to the lake.
"Jump!" he cried, and they jumped, and the water splashed up round
three white, gleaming shapes.
"Oh! I _can_ swim!" breathed Kathleen.
"So can I," said Mabel.
"Of course you can," said Phoebus. "Now three times round the lake,
and then make for the island."
Side by side the three swam, Phoebus swimming gently to keep pace with
the children. Their marble clothes did not seem to interfere at all with
their swimming, as your clothes would if you suddenly jumped into the
basin of the Trafalgar Square fountains and tried to swim there. And
they swam most beautifully, with that perfect ease and absence of effort
or tiredness which you must have noticed about your own swimming--in
dreams. And it was the most lovely place to swim in; the water-lilies,
whose long, snaky stalks are so inconvenient to ordinary swimmers, did
not in the least interfere with the movements of marble arms and legs.
The moon was high in the clear sky-dome. The weeping willows, cypresses,
temples, terraces, banks of trees and shrubs, and the wonderful old
house, all added to the romantic charm of the scene.
"This is the nicest thing the ring has brought us yet," said Mabel,
through a languid but perfect side-stroke.
"I thought you'd enjoy it," said Phoebus kindly; "now once more round,
and then the island."
[Illustration: SIDE BY SIDE THE THREE SWAM.]
They landed on the island amid a fringe of rushes, yarrow,
willow-herb, loose-strife, and a few late, scented, powdery, creamy
heads of meadow-sweet. The island was bigger than it looked from the
bank, and it seemed covered with trees and shrubs. But when, Phoebus
leading the way, they went into the shadow of these, they perceived that
beyond the trees lay a light, much nearer to them than the other side of
the island could possibly be. And almost at once they were through the
belt of trees, and could see where the light came from. The trees they
had just passed among made a dark circle round a big cleared space,
standing up thick and dark, like a crowd round a football field, as
Kathleen remarked.
First came a wide, smooth ring of lawn, then marble steps going down to
a round pool, where there were no water-lilies, only gold and silver
fish that darted here and there like flashes of quicksilver and dark
flames. And the enclosed space of water and marble and grass was lighted
with a clear, white, radiant light, seven times stronger than the
whitest moonlight, and in the still waters of the pool seven moons lay
reflected. One could see that they were only reflections by the way
their shape broke and changed as the gold and silver fish rippled the
water with moving fin and tail that steered.
The girls looked up at the sky, almost expecting to see seven moons
there. But no, the old moon shone alone, as she had always shone on
them.
"There are seven moons," said Mabel blankly, and pointed, which is not
manners.
"Of course," said Phoebus kindly; "everything in our world is seven
times as much so as in yours."
"But there aren't seven of you," said Mabel.
"No, but I am seven times as much," said the Sun God. "You see, there's
numbers, and there's quantity, to say nothing of quality. You see that,
I'm sure."
"Not quite," said Kathleen.
"Explanations always weary me," Phoebus interrupted. "Shall we join
the ladies?"
On the further side of the pool was a large group, so white, that it
seemed to make a great white hole in the trees. Some twenty or thirty
figures there were in the group--all statues and all alive. Some were
dipping their white feet among the gold and silver fish, and sending
ripples across the faces of the seven moons. Some were pelting each
other with roses--roses so sweet that the girls could smell them even
across the pool. Others were holding hands and dancing in a ring, and
two were sitting on the steps playing cat's-cradle--which is a very
ancient game indeed--with a thread of white marble.
As the new-comers advanced a shout of greeting and gay laughter went up.
"Late again, Phoebus!" some one called out. And another: "Did one of
your horses cast a shoe?" And yet another called out something about
laurels.
"I bring two guests," said Phoebus, and instantly the statues crowded
round, stroking the girls' hair, patting their cheeks, and calling them
the prettiest love-names.
"Are the wreaths ready, Hebe?" the tallest and most splendid of the
ladies called out. "Make two more!"
And almost directly Hebe came down the steps, her round arms hung thick
with rose-wreaths. There was one for each marble head.
Every one now looked seven times more beautiful than before, which, in
the case of the gods and goddesses, is saying a good deal. The children
remembered how at the raspberry vinegar feast Mademoiselle had said that
gods and goddesses always wore wreaths for meals.
Hebe herself arranged the roses on the girls' heads--and Aphrodite
Urania, the dearest lady in the world, with a voice like mother's at
those moments when you love her most, took them by the hands and said:--
"Come, we must get the feast ready. Eros--Psyche--Hebe--Ganymede--all
you young people can arrange the fruit."
"I don't see any fruit," said Kathleen, as four slender forms disengaged
themselves from the white crowd and came toward them.
"You will though," said Eros, a really nice boy, as the girls instantly
agreed; "you've only got to pick it."
"Like this," said Psyche, lifting her marble arms to a willow branch.
She reached out her hand to the children--it held a ripe pomegranate.
"I see," said Mabel. "You just----" She laid her fingers to the willow
branch and the firm softness of a big peach was within them.
"Yes, just that," laughed Psyche, who was a darling, as any one could
see.
After this Hebe gathered a few silver baskets from a convenient alder,
and the four picked fruit industriously. Meanwhile the elder statues
were busy plucking golden goblets and jugs and dishes from the branches
of ash-trees and young oaks and filling them with everything nice to eat
and drink that any one could possibly want, and these were spread on the
steps. It was a celestial picnic. Then everyone sat or lay down and the
feast began. And oh! the taste of the food served on those dishes, the
sweet wonder of the drink that melted from those gold cups on the white
lips of the company! And the fruit--there is no fruit like it grown on
earth, just as there is no laughter like the laughter of those lips, no
songs like the songs that stirred the silence of that night of wonder.
"Oh!" cried Kathleen, and through her fingers the juice of her third
peach fell like tears on the marble steps. "I do wish the boys were
here!"
"I do wonder what they're doing," said Mabel.
[Illustration: IT WAS A CELESTIAL PICNIC.]
"At this moment," said Hermes, who had just made a wide ring of flight,
as a pigeon does, and come back into the circle--"at this moment they
are wandering desolately near the home of the dinosaurus, having escaped
from their home by a window, in search of you. They fear that you have
perished, and they would weep if they did not know that tears do not
become a man, however youthful."
Kathleen stood up and brushed the crumbs of ambrosia from her marble
lap.
"Thank you all very much," she said. "It was very kind of you to have
us, and we've enjoyed ourselves very much, but I think we ought to go
now, please."
"If it is anxiety about your brothers," said Phoebus obligingly, "it
is the easiest thing in the world for them to join you. Lend me your
ring a moment."
He took it from Kathleen's half-reluctant hand, dipped it in the
reflection of one of the seven moons, and gave it back. She clutched it.
"Now," said the Sun-god, "wish for them that which Mabel wished for
herself. Say----"
"I know," Kathleen interrupted. "I wish that the boys may be statues of
living marble like Mabel and me till dawn, and afterwards be like they
are now."
"If you hadn't interrupted," said Phoebus--"but there, we can't expect
old heads on shoulders of young marble. You should have wished them
_here_--and--but no matter. Hermes, old chap, cut across and fetch them,
and explain things as you come."
He dipped the ring again in one of the reflected moons before he gave
it back to Kathleen.
"There," he said, "now it's washed clean ready for the next magic."
"It is not our custom to question guests," said Hera the queen, turning
her great eyes on the children; "but that ring excites, I am sure, the
interest of us all."
"It is _the_ ring," said Phoebus.
"That, of course," said Hera; "but if it were not inhospitable to ask
questions I should ask, How came it into the hands of these
earth-children?"
"That," said Phoebus, "is a long tale. After the feast the story, and
after the story the song."
Hermes seemed to have "explained everything" quite fully; for when
Gerald and Jimmy in marble whiteness arrived, each clinging to one of
the god's winged feet, and so borne through the air, they were certainly
quite at ease. They made their best bows to the goddesses and took their
places as unembarrassed as though they had had Olympian suppers every
night of their lives. Hebe had woven wreaths of roses ready for them,
and as Kathleen watched them eating and drinking, perfectly at home in
their marble, she was very glad that amid the welling springs of
immortal peach-juice she had not forgotten her brothers.
"And now," said Hera, when the boys had been supplied with everything
they could possibly desire, and more than they could eat--"now for the
story."
"Yes," said Mabel intensely; and Kathleen said, "Oh _yes_; now for the
story. How splendid!"
"The story," said Phoebus unexpectedly, "will be told by our guests."
"Oh _no_!" said Kathleen, shrinking.
"The lads, maybe, are bolder," said Zeus the king, taking off his
rose-wreath, which was a little tight, and rubbing his compressed ears.
"I really can't," said Gerald; "besides, I don't know any stories."
"Nor yet me," said Jimmy.
"It's the story of how we got the ring that they want," said Mabel in a
hurry. "I'll tell it if you like. Once upon a time there was a little
girl called Mabel," she added yet more hastily, and went on with the
tale--all the tale of the enchanted castle, or almost all, that you have
read in these pages. The marble Olympians listened enchanted--almost as
enchanted as the castle itself, and the soft moonlit moments fell past
like pearls dropping into a deep pool.
"And so," Mabel ended abruptly, "Kathleen wished for the boys and the
Lord Hermes fetched them and here we all are."
A burst of interested comment and question blossomed out round the end
of the story, suddenly broken off short by Mabel.
"But," said she, brushing it aside, as it grew thinner, "now we want
_you_ to tell _us_."
"To tell you----?"
"How you come to be alive, and how you know about the ring--and
everything you _do_ know."
"Everything I know?" Phoebus laughed--it was to him that she had
spoken--and not his lips only but all the white lips curled in laughter.
"The span of your life, my earth-child, would not contain the words I
should speak, to tell you all I know."
"Well, about the ring anyhow, and how you come alive," said Gerald; "you
see, it's very puzzling to us."
"Tell them, Phoebus," said the dearest lady in the world; "don't tease
the children."
So Phoebus, leaning back against a heap of leopard-skins that Dionysus
had lavishly plucked from a spruce fir, told.
"All statues," he said, "can come alive when the moon shines, if they so
choose. But statues that are placed in ugly cities do not choose. Why
should they weary themselves with the contemplation of the hideous?"
"Quite so," said Gerald politely, to fill the pause.
"In your beautiful temples," the Sun-god went on, "the images of your
priests and of your warriors who lie cross-legged on their tombs come
alive and walk in their marble about their temples, and through the
woods and fields. But only on one night in all the year can any see
them. You have beheld us because you held the ring, and are of one
brotherhood with us in your marble, but on that one night all may behold
us."
"And when is that?" Gerald asked, again polite, in a pause.
"At the festival of the harvest," said Phoebus. "On that night as the
moon rises it strikes one beam of perfect light on to the altar in
certain temples. One of these temples is in Hellas, buried under the
fall of a mountain which Zeus, being angry, hurled down upon it. One is
in this land; it is in this great garden."
"Then," said Gerald, much interested, "if we were to come up to that
temple on that night, we could see you, even without being statues or
having the ring?"
"Even so," said Phoebus. "More, any question asked by a mortal we are
on that night bound to answer."
"And the night is--when?"
"Ah!" said Phoebus, and laughed. "Wouldn't you like to know!"
Then the great marble King of the Gods yawned, stroked his long beard,
and said: "Enough of stories, Phoebus. Tune your lyre."
"But the ring," said Mabel in a whisper, as the Sun-god tuned the white
strings of a sort of marble harp that lay at his feet--"about how you
know all about the ring?"
"Presently," the Sun-god whispered back. "Zeus must be obeyed; but ask
me again before dawn, and I will tell you all I know of it." Mabel drew
back, and leaned against the comfortable knees of one Demeter--Kathleen
and Psyche sat holding hands. Gerald and Jimmy lay at full length, chins
on elbows, gazing at the Sun-god; and even as he held the lyre, before
ever his fingers began to sweep the strings, the spirit of music hung in
the air, enchanting, enslaving, silencing all thought but the thought of
itself, all desire but the desire to listen to it.
Then Phoebus struck the strings and softly plucked melody from them,
and all the beautiful dreams of all the world came fluttering close with
wings like doves' wings; and all the lovely thoughts that sometimes
hover near, but not so near that you can catch them, now came home as to
their nests in the hearts of those who listened. And those who listened
forgot time and space, and how to be sad, and how to be naughty, and it
seemed that the whole world lay like a magic apple in the hand of each
listener, and that the whole world was good and beautiful.
And then, suddenly, the spell was shattered. Phoebus struck a broken
chord, followed by an instant of silence; then he sprang up, crying,
"The dawn! the dawn! To your pedestals, O gods!"
In an instant the whole crowd of beautiful marble people had leaped to
its feet, had rushed through the belt of wood that cracked and rustled
as they went, and the children heard them splash in the water beyond.
They heard, too, the gurgling breathing of a great beast, and knew that
the dinosaurus, too, was returning to his own place.
Only Hermes had time, since one flies more swiftly than one swims, to
hover above them for one moment, and to whisper with a mischievous
laugh:--
"In fourteen days from now, at the Temple of Strange Stones."
"What's the secret of the ring?" gasped Mabel.
"The ring is the heart of the magic," said Hermes. "Ask at the moonrise
on the fourteenth day, and you shall know all."
With that he waved the snowy caduceus and rose in the air supported by
his winged feet. And as he went the seven reflected moons died out and a
chill wind began to blow, a grey light grew and grew, the birds stirred
and twittered, and the marble slipped away from the children like a skin
that shrivels in fire, and they were statues no more, but flesh and
blood children as they used to be, standing knee-deep in brambles and
long coarse grass. There was no smooth lawn, no marble steps, no
seven-mooned fish-pond. The dew lay thick on the grass and the brambles,
and it was very cold.
"We ought to have gone with them," said Mabel with chattering teeth. "We
can't swim now we're not marble. And I suppose this _is_ the island?"
It was--and they couldn't swim.
They knew it. One always knows those sort of things somehow without
trying. For instance, you know perfectly that you can't fly. There are
some things that there is no mistake about.
The dawn grew brighter and the outlook more black every moment.
"There isn't a boat, I suppose?" Jimmy asked.
"No," said Mabel, "not on this side of the lake; there's one in the
boat-house, of course--if you could swim there."
"You know I can't," said Jimmy.
"Can't any one think of anything?" Gerald asked, shivering.
"When they find we've disappeared they'll drag all the water for miles
round," said Jimmy hopefully, "in case we've fallen in and sunk to the
bottom. When they come to drag this we can yell and be rescued."
"Yes, dear, that _will_ be nice," was Gerald's bitter comment.
"Don't be so disagreeable," said Mabel with a tone so strangely cheerful
that the rest stared at her in amazement.
"The ring," she said. "Of course we've only got to wish ourselves home
with it. Phoebus washed it in the moon ready for the next wish."
"You didn't tell us about that," said Gerald in accents of perfect good
temper. "Never mind. Where _is_ the ring?"
"_You_ had it," Mabel reminded Kathleen.
"I know I had," said that child in stricken tones, "but I gave it to
Psyche to look at--and--and she's got it on her finger!"
Every one tried not to be angry with Kathleen. All partly succeeded.
"If we ever get off this beastly island," said Gerald, "I suppose you
can find Psyche's statue and get it off again?"
"No I can't," Mabel moaned. "I don't know where the statue is. I've
never seen it. It may be in Hellas, wherever that is--or anywhere, for
anything _I_ know."
No one had anything kind to say, and it is pleasant to record that
nobody said anything. And now it was grey daylight, and the sky to the
north was flushing in pale pink and lavender.
The boys stood moodily, hands in pockets. Mabel and Kathleen seemed to
find it impossible not to cling together, and all about their legs the
long grass was icy with dew.
A faint sniff and a caught breath broke the silence.
"Now, look here," said Gerald briskly, "I won't have it. Do you hear?
Snivelling's no good at all. No, I'm not a pig. It's for your own good.
Lets make a tour of the island. Perhaps there's a boat hidden somewhere
among the overhanging boughs."
"How could there be?" Mabel asked.
"Some one might have left it there, I suppose," said Gerald.
"But how would they have got off the island?"
"In another boat, of course," said Gerald; "come on."
Downheartedly, and quite sure that there wasn't and couldn't be any
boat, the four children started to explore the island. How often each
one of them had dreamed of islands, how often wished to be stranded on
one! Well, now they were. Reality is sometimes quite different from
dreams, and not half so nice. It was worst of all for Mabel, whose shoes
and stockings were far away on the mainland. The coarse grass and
brambles were very cruel to bare legs and feet.
They stumbled through the wood to the edge of the water, but it was
impossible to keep close to the edge of the island, the branches grew
too thickly. There was a narrow, grassy path that wound in and out among
the trees, and this they followed, dejected and mournful. Every moment
made it less possible for them to hope to get back to the school-house
unnoticed. And if they were missed and beds found in their present
unslept-in state--well, there would be a row of some sort, and, as
Gerald said, "Farewell to liberty!"
"Of course we can get off all right," said Gerald. "Just all shout when
we see a gardener or a keeper on the mainland. But if we do, concealment
is at an end and all is absolutely up!"
"Yes," said everyone gloomily.
"Come, buck up!" said Gerald, the spirit of the born general beginning
to reawaken in him. "We shall get out of this scrape all right, as we've
got out of others; you know we shall. See, the sun's coming out. You
feel all right and jolly now, don't you?"
"Yes, oh yes!" said everyone, in tones of unmixed misery.
The sun was now risen, and through a deep cleft in the hills it sent a
strong shaft of light straight at the island. The yellow light, almost
level, struck through the stems of the trees and dazzled the children's
eyes. This, with the fact that he was not looking where he was going, as
Jimmy did not fail to point out later, was enough to account for what
now happened to Gerald, who was leading the melancholy little
procession. He stumbled, clutched at a tree-trunk, missed his clutch,
and disappeared, with a yell and a clatter; and Mabel, who came next,
only pulled herself up just in time not to fall down a steep flight of
moss-grown steps that seemed to open suddenly in the ground at her feet.
"Oh, Gerald!" she called down the steps: "are you hurt?"
"No," said Gerald, out of sight and crossly, for he _was_ hurt, rather
severely; "it's steps, and there's a passage."
"There always is," said Jimmy.
"I knew there was a passage," said Mabel; "it goes under the water and
comes out at the Temple of Flora. Even the gardeners know that, but they
won't go down, for fear of snakes."
"Then we can get out that way--I do think you might have said so,"
Gerald's voice came up to say.
"I didn't think of it," said Mabel. "At least---- And I suppose it goes
past the place where the Ugly-Wugly found its good hotel."
"I'm not going," said Kathleen positively, "not in the dark, I'm not. So
I tell you!"
"Very well, baby," said Gerald sternly, and his head appeared from below
very suddenly through interlacing brambles. "No one asked you to go in
the dark. We'll leave you here if you like, and return and rescue you
with a boat. Jimmy, the bicycle lamp!" He reached up a hand for it.
Jimmy produced from his bosom, the place where lamps are always kept in
fairy stories--see Aladdin and others--a bicycle lamp.
"We brought it," he explained, "so as not to break our shins over bits
of long Mabel among the rhododendrons."
"Now," said Gerald very firmly, striking a match and opening the thick,
rounded glass front of the bicycle lamp, "I don't know what the rest of
you are going to do, but I'm going down these steps and along this
passage. If we find the good hotel--well, a good hotel never hurt any
one yet."
"It's no good, you know," said Jimmy weakly; "you know jolly well you
can't get out of that Temple of Flora door, even if you get to it."
"I _don't_ know," said Gerald, still brisk and commander-like; "there's
a secret spring inside that door most likely. We hadn't a lamp last time
to look for it, remember."
"If there's one thing I do hate it's under-groundness," said Mabel.
"_You're_ not a coward," said Gerald, with what is known as diplomacy.
"_You're_ brave, Mabel. Don't I know it! You hold Jimmy's hand and I'll
hold Cathy's. Now then."
"I won't have _my_ hand held," said Jimmy, of course. "I'm not a kid."
"Well, Cathy will. Poor little Cathy! Nice brother Jerry'll hold poor
Cathy's hand."
Gerald's bitter sarcasm missed fire here, for Cathy gratefully caught
the hand he held out in mockery. She was too miserable to read his mood,
as she mostly did. "Oh, thank you, Jerry dear," she said gratefully;
"you _are_ a dear, and I _will_ try not to be frightened." And for quite
a minute Gerald shamedly felt that he had not been quite, quite kind.
So now, leaving the growing goldness of the sunrise, the four went down
the stone steps that led to the underground and underwater passage, and
everything seemed to grow dark and then to grow into a poor pretence of
light again, as the splendour of dawn gave place to the small dogged
lighting of the bicycle lamp. The steps did indeed lead to a passage,
the beginnings of it choked with the drifted dead leaves of many old
autumns. But presently the passage took a turn, there were more steps,
down, down, and then the passage was empty and straight--lined above and
below and on each side with slabs of marble, very clear and clean.
Gerald held Cathy's hand with more of kindness and less of exasperation
than he had supposed possible.
And Cathy, on her part, was surprised to find it possible to be so much
less frightened than she expected.
The flame of the bull'seye threw ahead a soft circle of misty
light--the children followed it silently. Till, silently and suddenly,
the light of the bull's-eye behaved as the flame of a candle does when
you take it out into the sunlight to light a bonfire, or explode a train
of gunpowder, or what not. Because now, with feelings mixed indeed, of
wonder, and interest, and awe, but no fear, the children found
themselves in a great hall, whose arched roof was held up by two rows of
round pillars, and whose every corner was filled with a soft, searching,
lovely light, filling every cranny, as water fills the rocky secrecies
of hidden sea-caves.
"How beautiful!" Kathleen whispered, breathing hard into the tickled ear
of her brother, and Mabel caught the hand of Jimmy and whispered, "I
must hold your hand--I must hold on to something silly, or I shan't
believe it's real."
For this hall in which the children found themselves was the most
beautiful place in the world. I won't describe it, because it does not
look the same to any two people, and you wouldn't understand me if I
tried to tell you how it looked to any one of these four. But to each it
seemed the most perfect thing possible. I will only say that all round
it were great arches. Kathleen saw them as Moorish, Mabel as Tudor,
Gerald as Norman, and Jimmy as Churchwarden Gothic. (If you don't know
what these are, ask your uncle who collects brasses, and he will
explain, or perhaps Mr. Millar will draw the different kinds of arches
for you.) And through these arches one could see many things--oh! but
many things. Through one appeared an olive garden, and in it two lovers
who held each other's hands, under an Italian moon; through another a
wild sea, and a ship to whom the wild, racing sea was slave. A third
showed a king on his throne, his courtiers obsequious about him; and yet
a fourth showed a really good hotel, with the respectable Ugly-Wugly
sunning himself on the front doorsteps. There was a mother, bending over
a wooden cradle. There was an artist gazing entranced on the picture his
wet brush seemed to have that moment completed, a general dying on a
field where Victory had planted the standard he loved, and these things
were not pictures, but the truest truths, alive, and, as anyone could
see, immortal.
Many other pictures there were that these arches framed. And all showed
some moment when life had sprung to fire and flower--the best that the
soul of man could ask or man's destiny grant. And the really good hotel
had its place here too, because there are some souls that ask no higher
thing of life than "a really good hotel."
"Oh, I am glad we came; I am, I am!" Kathleen murmured, and held fast to
her brother's hand.
They went slowly up the hall, the ineffectual bull'seye, held by Jimmy,
very crooked indeed, showing almost as a shadow in this big, glorious
light.
And then, when the hall's end was almost reached, the children saw where
the light came from. It glowed and spread itself from one place, and in
that place stood the one statue that Mabel "did not know where to
find"--the statue of Psyche. They went on, slowly, quite happy, quite
bewildered. And when they came close to Psyche they saw that on her
raised hand the ring showed dark.
Gerald let go Kathleen's hand, put his foot on the pediment, his knee on
the pedestal. He stood up, dark and human, beside the white girl with
the butterfly wings.
"I do hope you don't mind," he said, and drew the ring off very gently.
Then, as he dropped to the ground, "Not here," he said. "I don't know
why, but not here."
And they all passed behind the white Psyche, and once more the bicycle
lamp seemed suddenly to come to life again as Gerald held it in front of
him, to be the pioneer in the dark passage that led from the Hall of
----, but they did not know, then, what it was the Hall of.
Then, as the twisting passage shut in on them with a darkness that
pressed close against the little light of the bicycle lamp, Kathleen
said, "Give me the ring. I know exactly what to say."
Gerald gave it with not extreme readiness.
"I wish," said Kathleen slowly, "that no one at home may know that we've
been out to-night, and I wish we were safe in our own beds, undressed,
and in our nightgowns, and asleep."
And the next thing any of them knew, it was good, strong, ordinary
daylight--not just sunrise, but the kind of daylight you are used to
being called in, and all were in their own beds. Kathleen had framed the
wish most sensibly. The only mistake had been in saying "in our own
beds," because, of course, Mabel's own bed was at Yalding Towers, and to
this day Mabel's drab-haired aunt cannot understand how Mabel, who was
staying the night with that child in the town she was so taken up with,
hadn't come home at eleven, when the aunt locked up, and yet she was in
her bed in the morning. For though not a clever woman, she was not
stupid enough to be able to believe any one of the eleven fancy
explanations which the distracted Mabel offered in the course of the
morning. The first (which makes twelve) of these explanations was The
Truth, and of course the aunt was far too clever to believe That!