The Magic City

by E. Nesbit

  CHAPTER XII

  THE END

  Philip tore back to the prison, to be met at the door by Lucy.

  'I hate you,' she said briefly, and Philip understood.

  'I couldn't help it,' he said; 'I did want to do something by myself.'

  And Lucy understood.

  'And besides,' he said, 'I was coming back for you. Don't be snarkyabout it, Lu. I've called up Caesar himself. And you shall see himbefore he goes back into the book. Come on; if we're sharp we can hidein the ruins of the Justice Hall and see everything. I noticed there wasa bit of the gallery left standing. Come on. I want you to think whatmessage to send by the Hippogriff to Mr. Noah.'

  'Oh, you needn't trouble about that,' said Lucy in an off-hand manner.'I sent the parrot off _ages_ ago.'

  'And you never told me! Then I think that's quits; don't you?'

  Lucy had a short struggle with herself (you know those unpleasant anddifficult struggles, I am sure!) and said:

  'Right-o!'

  And together they ran back to the Justice Hall.

  The light was growing every moment, and there was now a sound ofmovement in the city. Women came down to the public fountains to drawwater, and boys swept the paths and doorsteps. That sort of work goes oneven when barbarians are surrounding a town. And the ordinary sounds ofa town's awakening came to Lucy and Philip as they waited; crowing cocksand barking dogs and cats mewing faintly for the morning milk. But itwas not for those sounds that Lucy and Philip were waiting.

  So through those homely and familiar sounds they listened, listened,listened; and very gradually, so that they could neither of them havesaid at any moment 'Now it has begun,' yet quite beyond mistake thesound for which they listened was presently loud in their ears. And itwas the sound of steel on steel; the sound of men shouting in thebreathless moment between sword-stroke and sword-stroke; the cry ofvictory and the wail of defeat.

  And, presently, the sound of feet that ran.

  And now a man shot out from a side street and ran across the squaretowards the Palace of Justice where Lucy and Philip were hidden in thegallery. And now another and another all running hard and making for theruined hall as hunted creatures make for cover. Rough, big, blond, theirlong hair flying behind them, and their tunics of beast-skins flappingas they ran, the barbarians fled before the legions of Caesar. The greatmarble-covered book that looked like a marble tomb was still open, itscover and fifteen leaves propped up against the tall broken columns ofthe gateway of the Justice Hall. Into that open book leapt the firstbarbarian, leapt and vanished, and the next after him and the next, andthen, by twos and threes and sixes and sevens, they leapt in anddisappeared, amid gasping and shouting and the nearing sound of thebucina and of the trumpets of Rome.

  Then from all quarters of the city the Roman soldiers came trooping, andas the last of the barbarians plunged headlong into the open book, theRomans formed into ordered lines and waited, while a man might countten. Then, advancing between their ranks, came the spare form and thinface of the man with the laurel crown.

  They leapt in and disappeared.]

  Twelve thousand swords flashed in air and wavered a little like reeds inthe breeze, then steadied themselves, and the shout went up from twelvethousand throats:

  'Ave Caesar!'

  And without haste and without delay the Romans filed through the ruinsto the marble-covered book, and two by two entered it and disappeared.Each as he passed the mighty conqueror saluted him with proud mutereverence.

  When the last soldier was hidden in the book, Caesar looked round him, alittle wistfully.

  'I must speak to him; I must,' Lucy cried; 'I _must_. Oh, what a darlinghe is!'

  She ran down the steps from the gallery and straight to Caesar. Hesmiled when she reached him, and gently pinched her ear. Fancy goingthrough the rest of your life hearing all the voices of the worldthrough an ear that has been pinched by Caesar!

  'Oh, thank you! thank you!' said Philip; 'how splendid you are. I'llswot up my Latin like anything next term, so as to read about you.'

  'Are they all in?' Lucy asked. 'I do hope nobody was hurt.'

  Caesar smiled.

  'A most unreasonable wish, my child, after a great battle!' he said.'But for once the unreasonable is the inevitable. Nobody was hurt. Yousee it was necessary to get every man back into the book just as he leftit, or what would the schoolmasters have done? There remain now only myown guard who have in charge the false woman who let loose thebarbarians. And here they come.'

  Surrounded by a guard with drawn swords the Pretenderette advancedslowly.

  'Hail, woman!' said Caesar.

  'Hail, whoever you are!' said the Pretenderette very sulkily.

  'I hail,' said Caesar, 'your courage.'

  Philip and Lucy looked at each other. Yes, the Pretenderette hadcourage: they had not thought of that before. All the attempts she hadmade against them--she alone in a strange land--yes, these neededcourage.

  'And I demand to know how you came here?'

  'When I found he'd been at his building again,' she said, pointing acontemptuous thumb at Philip, 'I was just going to pull it down, and Iknocked down a brick or two with my sleeve, and not thinking what I wasdoing I built them up again; and then I got a bit giddy and the wholething seemed to begin to grow--candlesticks and bricks and dominoes andeverything, bigger and bigger and bigger, and I looked in. It was as bigas a church by this time, and I saw that boy losing his way among thecandlestick pillars, and I followed him and I listened. And I thought Icould be as good a Deliverer as anybody else. And the motor veil that Iwas going to catch the 2.37 train in was a fine disguise.'

  'You tried to injure the children,' Caesar reminded her.

  'I don't want to say anything to make you let me off,' said thePretenderette, 'but at the beginning I didn't think any of it was real.I thought it was a dream. You can let your evil passions go in a dreamand it don't hurt any one.'

  'It hurts you,' Caesar said.

  'Oh! that's no odds,' said the Pretenderette scornfully.

  'You sought to injure and confound the children at every turn,' saidCaesar, 'even when you found that things were real.'

  'I saw there was a chance of being Queen,' said the Pretenderette, 'andI took it. Seems to me you've no occasion to talk if you're JuliusCaesar, the same as the bust in the library. You took what you could getright enough in your time, when all's said and done.'

  'I hail,' said Caesar again, 'your courage.'

  'You needn't trouble,' she said, tossing her head; 'my game's up now,and I'll speak my mind if I die for it. You don't understand. You'venever been a servant, to see other people get all the fat and you allthe bones. What you think it's like to know if you'd just been born in agentleman's mansion instead of in a model workman's dwelling you'd havebeen brought up as a young lady and had the openwork silk stockings andthe lace on your under-petticoats.'

  'You go too deep for me,' said Caesar, with the ghost of a smile. 'I nowpronounce your sentence. But life has pronounced on you a sentence worsethan any I can give you. Nobody loves you.'

  'Oh, you old silly,' said the Pretenderette in a burst of angry tears,'don't you see that's just why everything's happened?'

  'You are condemned,' said Caesar calmly, 'to make yourself beloved. Youwill be taken to Briskford, where you will teach the Great Sloth to likehis work and keep him awake for eight play-hours a day. In the intervalsof your toil you must try to get fond of some one. The Halma people arekind and gentle. You will not find them hard to love. And when the GreatSloth loves his work and the Halma people are so fond of you that theyfeel they cannot bear to lose you, your penance will be over and you cango where you will.'

  'You know well enough,' said the Pretenderette, still tearful andfurious, 'that if that ever happened I shouldn't want to go anywhereelse.'

  'Yes,' said Caesar slowly, 'I know.'

  Lucy would have liked to kiss the Pretenderette and say she was sorry,but you can't do that when it is all other peo
ple's fault and _they_aren't sorry. And besides, before all these people, it would have lookedlike showing off. You know, I am sure, exactly how Lucy felt.

  The Pretenderette was led away. And now Caesar stood facing thechildren, his hands held out in farewell. The growing light of earlymorning transfigured his face, and to Philip it suddenly seemed to bemost remarkably like the face of That Man, Mr. Peter Graham, whom Helenhad married. He was just telling himself not to be a duffer when Lucycried out in a loud cracked-sounding voice, 'Daddy, oh, Daddy!' andsprang forward.

  And at that moment the sun rose above the city wall, and its raysgleamed redly on the helmet and the breastplate and the shield and thesword of Caesar. The light struck at the children's eyes like a blow.Dazzled, they closed their eyes and when they opened them, blinking andconfused, Caesar was gone and the marble book was closed--for ever.

  . . . . . . .

  Three days later Mr. Noah arrived by elephant, and the meeting betweenhim and the children is, as they say, better imagined than described.Especially as there is not much time left now for describing anything.Mr. Noah explained that the freeing of Polistopolis from thePretenderette and the barbarians counted as the seventh deed and thatPhilip had now attained the rank of King, the deed of the Great Slothhaving given him the title of Prince of Pine-apples. His expression ofgratitude and admiration were of the warmest, and Philip felt that itwas rather ungrateful of him to say, as he couldn't help saying:

  'Now I've done all the deeds, mayn't I go back to Helen?'

  'All in good time,' said Mr. Noah; 'I will at once set about thearrangements for your coronation.'

  The coronation was an occasion of unexampled splendour. There was abanquet (of course) and fireworks, and all the guns fired salutes andthe soldiers presented arms, and the ladies presented bouquets. And atthe end Mr. Noah, with a few well-chosen words which brought tears toall eyes, placed the gold crown of Polistarchia upon the brow of Philip,where its diamonds and rubies shone dazzlingly.

  There was an extra crown for Lucy, made of silver and pearls and palesilvery moonstones.

  You have no idea how the Polistarchians shouted.

  'And now,' said Mr. Noah when it was all over, 'I regret to inform youthat we must part. Polistarchia is a Republic, and of course in arepublic kings and queens are not permitted to exist. Partings arepainful things. And you had better go at once.'

  He was plainly very much upset.

  'This is very sudden,' said Philip.

  And Lucy said, 'I do think it's silly. How shall we get home? All in ahurry, like this?'

  'How did you get here?'

  'By building a house and getting into it.'

  'Then build your own house. Oh, we have models of all the houses youwere ever in. The pieces are all numbered. You only have to put themtogether.'

  He led them to a large room behind the hall of Public Amusements andtook down from a shelf a stout box labelled 'The Grange.' On another boxPhilip saw 'Laburnum Cottage.'

  Mr. Noah, kneeling on his yellow mat, tumbled the contents of the boxout on the floor, and Philip and Lucy set to work to build a house withthe exquisitely finished little blocks and stones and beams and windowsand chimneys.

  'I cannot bear to see you go,' said Mr. Noah. 'Good-bye, good-bye.Remember me sometimes!'

  'We shall never forget you,' said the children, jumping up hugging him.

  'Good-bye!' said the parrot who had followed them in.

  'Good-bye, good-bye!' said everybody.

  'I wish the _Lightning Loose_ was not lost,' Philip even at this partingmoment remembered to say.

  'She isn't,' said Mr. Noah. 'She flew back to the island directly youleft her. Sails are called wings, are they not? White wings that nevergrow weary, you know. Relieved of your weight, the faithful yacht flewhome like any pigeon.'

  'Hooray!' said Philip. 'I couldn't bear to think of her rotting away ina cavern.'

  'I wish Max and Brenda had come to say good-bye,' said Lucy.

  'It is not needed,' said Mr. Noah mysteriously. And then everybody saidgood-bye again, and Mr. Noah rolled up his yellow mat, put it under hisarm again, and went--for ever.

  The children built the Grange, and when the beautiful little model ofthat house was there before them, perfect, they stood still a moment,looking at it.

  'I wish we could be two people each,' said Lucy, 'and one of each of usgo home and one of each of us stay here. Oh!' she cried suddenly, andsnatched at Philip's arm. For a slight strange giddiness had suddenlycaught her. Philip too swayed a little uncertainly and stood a momentwith his hand to his head. The children gazed about them bewildered andstill a little giddy. The room was gone, the model of the Grange wasgone. Over their heads was blue sky, under their feet was green grass,and in front stood the Grange itself, with its front door wide open andon the steps Helen and Mr. Peter Graham.

  That telegram had brought them home.

  . . . . . . .

  You will wonder how Lucy explained where she had been when she was lost.She never did explain. There are some things, as you know, that cannotbe explained. But the curious thing is that no one ever asked for anexplanation. The grown-ups must have thought they knew all about it,which, of course, was very far from being the truth.

  When the four people on the doorstep of the Grange had finished sayinghow glad they were to see each other--that day on the steps when Philipand Lucy came back from Polistarchia, Helen and Mr. Peter Graham cameback from Belgium--Helen said:

  'And we've brought you each the loveliest present. Fetch them, Peter,there's a dear.'

  Mr. Peter Graham went to the stable-yard and came back followed by twolong tan dachshunds, who rushed up to the children frisking and fawningin a way they well knew.

  'Why Max! why Brenda!' cried Philip. 'Oh, Helen! are they for us?'

  'Yes, dear, of course they are,' said Helen; 'but how did you know theirnames?'

  That was one of the things which Philip could not tell, then.

  But he told Helen the whole story later, and she said it was wonderful,and how clever of him to make all that up, and that when he was a man hewould be able to be an author and to write books.

  'And do you know,' she said, 'I _did_ dream about the island--quite along dream, only when I woke up I could only remember that I'd beenthere and seen you. But no doubt I dreamed about Mr. Noah and all therest of it as well, only I forgot it.'

  . . . . . . .

  And Max and Brenda of course loved every one. Their characters werequite unchanged. Only the children had forgotten the language ofanimals, so that conversation between them and the dogs was for everimpossible. But Max and Brenda understand every word you say--any onecan see that.

  . . . . . . .

  You want to know what became of the redheaded, steely-eyed nurse, thePretenderette, who made so much mischief and trouble? Well, I supposeshe is still living with the Halma folk, teaching the Great Sloth tolike his work and learning to be fond of people--which is the only wayto be happy. At any rate no one that I know of has ever seen her againanywhere else.

  THE END

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  Transcriber's Notes:

  Obvious punctuation errors repaired.

  The ~ symbol in the text form is used to indicate a much smaller type inthe original for a much smaller voice.

  Page 80, "delightfull" was changed to "delightful". (that delightfulchess-table)

  Page 265, "cocoanut" changed to "cocoa-nut" to conform to the rest oftext. (cocoa-nut-ice plants)