by Edith Nesbit
The Princess was the last to close her eyes. She looked long at the sleeping children.
“Oh, why don’t they think of it?” she said, “and why mustn’t I tell them?”
There was no answer to either question, and presently she too slept.
I must own that I share the Princess’s wonder that the children did not spend the night in saying “Sabrina fair” over and over again. Because of course each invocation would have been answered by an inhabitant of Merland, and thus a small army could easily have been collected, the Gaoler overpowered and a rush made for freedom.
I wish I had time to tell you all that happened to Kathleen, because the daily life of a pampered lap-child to a reigning Queen is one that you would find most interesting to read about. As interesting as your Rover or Binkie would find it to read — if he could read — about the life of one of Queen Alexandra’s Japanese Spaniels. But time is getting on, and I must make a long story short. And anyhow you can never tell all about everything, can you?
The next day the Gaolers brought food to the prison, as well as a second draught of oblivion, which, of course, had no effect, and they spent the day wondering how they could escape. In the evening the Gaoler’s son brought more food and more oblivion-cup, and he lingered while they ate. He did not look at all unkind, and Francis ventured to speak to him.
“I say,” he said.
“What do you say?” the Under-lad asked.
“Are you forbidden to talk to us?”
“No.”
“Then do tell us what they will do with us.”
“I do not know. But we shall have to know before long. The prisons are filling up quickly, they will soon be quite full. Then we shall have to let some of you out on what is called ticket-of-leave — that means with your artificial tails on, which prevent you getting away, even if the oblivion-cup doesn’t take effect.”
“I say,” Bernard’s turn to ask.
“What do you say?”
“Why don’t the King and Queen go and fight, like the Mer Royal Family do?”
“Against the law,” said the Under-lad. “We took a King prisoner once, and our people were afraid our King and Queen might be taken, so they made that rule.”
“What did you do with him — the prisoner King?” the Princess asked.
“Put him in an Iswater,” said the lad, “a piece of water entirely surrounded by land.”
“I should like to see him,” said the Princess.
“Nothing easier,” said the Mer-lad, “as soon as you get your tickets-of-leaves. It’s a good long passage to the lake — nearly all water, of course, but lots of our young people go there three times a week. Of course he can’t be a King any more now-but they made him Professor of Conchology.”
“And has he forgotten he was a King?” asked the Princess.
“Of course: but he was so learned the oblivion-cup wasn’t deep enough to make him forget everything: that’s why he’s a Professor.”
“What was he King of?” the Princess asked anxiously.
“He was King of the Barbarians,” said the Gaoler’s son — and the Princess sighed.
“I thought it might have been my father,” she said, “he was lost at sea, you know.”
The Under-lad nodded sympathetically and went away.
“He doesn’t seem such a bad sort,” said Mavis.
“No,” said the Princess, “I can’t understand it. I thought all the Under Folk were terrible fierce creatures, cruel and implacable.”
“And they don’t seem so very different from us — except to look at,” said Bernard.
“I wonder,” said Mavis, “what the war began about?”
“Oh — we’ve always been enemies,” said the Princess, carelessly.
“Yes — but how did you begin being enemies-?”
“Oh, that,” said the Princess, “is lost in the mists of antiquity, before the dawn of history and all that.”
“Oh,” said Mavis.
But when Ulfin came with the next meal — did I tell you that the Gaoler’s son’s name was Ulfin? — Mavis asked him the same question.
“I don’t know — little land-lady,” said Ulfin, “but I will find out — my uncle is the Keeper of the National Archives, graven on tables of stone, so many that no one can count them, but there are smaller tables telling what is on the big ones—” he hesitated. “If I could get leave to show you the Hall of the Archives, would you promise not to try to escape?”
They had now been shut up for two days and would have promised anything in reason.
“You see, the prisons are quite full now,” he said, “and I don’t see why you shouldn’t be the first to get your leaves-tickets. I’ll ask my father.”
“I say!” said Mavis.
“What do you say?” said Ulfin.
“Do you know anything about my sister?”
“The Queen’s new lap-child? Oh — she’s a great pet — her gold collar with her name on it came home to-day. My cousin’s brother-in-law made it.”
“The name — Kathleen?” said Mavis.
“The name on the collar is Fido,” said Ulfin.
The next day Ulfin brought their tickets-of-leaves, made of the leaves of the tree of Liberty which grows at the bottom of the well where Truth lies.
“Don’t lose them,” he said, “and come with me.” They found it quite possible to move along slowly on hands and tails, though they looked rather like seals as they did so.
He led them through the strange streets of massive passages, pointing out the buildings, giving them their names as you might do if you were showing the marvels of your own city to a stranger.
“That’s the Astrologers’ Tower,” he said, pointing to a huge building high above the others. “The wise men sit there and observe the stars.”
“But you can’t see the stars down here.”
“Oh, yes, we can — the tower is fitted up with tubes and mirrors and water — transparence apparatus. The wisest men in the country are there — all but the Professor of Conchology. He’s the wisest of all. He invented the nets that caught you-or rather, making nets was one of the things that he had learned and couldn’t forget.”
“But who thought of using them for catching prisoners?”
“I did,” said Ulfin proudly, “I’m to have a glass medal for it.”
“Do you have glass down here?”
“A little comes down, you know. It is very precious. We engrave it. That is the Library — millions of tables of stone — the Hall of Public Joy is next it — that garden is the mothers’ garden where they go to rest while their children are at school-that’s one of our schools. And here’s the Hall of Public Archives.”
The Keeper of the Records received them with grave courtesy. The daily services of Ulfin had accustomed the children to the appearance of the Under Folk, and they no longer found their strange, mournful faces terrifying, and the great hall where, on shelves cut out of the sheer rock, were stored the graven tables of Underworld Records, was very wonderful and impressive.
“What is it you want to know?” said the Keeper, rolling away some of the stones he had been showing them. “Ulfin said there was something special.”
“Why the war began?” said Francis.
“Why the King and Queen are different?” said Mavis.
“The war,” said the Keeper of the Records, “began exactly three million five hundred and seventy-nine thousand three hundred and eight years ago. An Under-man, getting off his Seahorse in a hurry trod on the tail of a sleeping Herman. He did not apologize because he was under a vow not to speak for a year and a day. If the Mer-people had only waited he would have explained, but they went to war at once, and, of course; after that you couldn’t expect him to apologize. And the war has gone on, off and on and on and off, ever since.”
“And won’t it ever stop?” asked Bernard.
“Not till we apologize, which, of course, we can’t until they find out why the war began and that it was
n’t our fault.”
“How awful!” said Mavis; “then it’s all really about nothing.”
“Quite so,” said the Keeper, “what are your wars about? The other question I shouldn’t answer only I know you’ll forget it when the oblivion-cup begins to work. Ulfin tells me it hasn’t begun yet. Our King and Queen are imported. We used to be a Republic, but Presidents were so uppish and so grasping, and all their friends and relations too; so we decided to be a Monarchy, and that all jealousies might be taken away we imported the two handsomest Land Folk we could find. They’ve been a great success, and as they have no relations we find it much less expensive.”
When the Keeper had thus kindly gratified the curiosity of the prisoners the Princess said suddenly:
“Couldn’t we learn Concholovy?”
And the Keeper said kindly, “Why not? It’s the Professor’s day, to-morrow.”
“Couldn’t we go there to-day?” asked the Princess, “just to arrange about times and terms and all that?”
“If my Uncle says I may take you there,” said Ulfin, “I will, for I have never known any pleasure so great as doing anything that you wish will give me.”
The Uncle looked a little anxious, but he said he thought there could be no harm in calling on the Professor. So they went. The way was long for people who were not seals by nature and were yet compelled to walk after the manner of those charming and intelligent animals. The Mer Princess alone was at her ease. But when they passed a building, as long as from here to the end of the Mile End Road, which Ulfin told them was the Cavalry Barracks, a young Under-man leaned out of a window and said:
“What ho! Ulf.”
“What ho! yourself,” said Ulfin, and approaching the window spoke in whispers. Two minutes later the young Cavalry Officer who had leaned out of the window gave an order, and almost at once some magnificent Seahorses, richly caparisoned, came out from under an arched gateway. The three children were mounted on these, and the crowd which had collected in the street seemed to find it most amusing to see people in fetter-tails riding on the chargers of the Horse Marines. But their laughter was not ill-natured. And the horses were indeed a boon to the weary tails of the amateur seals.
Riding along the bottom of the sea was a wonderful experience — but soon the open country was left behind and they began to go up ways cut in the heart of the rock-ways long and steep, and lighted, as all that great Underworld was, with phosphorescent light.
When they had been travelling for some hours and the children were beginning to think that you could perhaps have too much even of such an excellent thing as Sea-horse exercise, the phosphorescent lights suddenly stopped, and yet the sea was not dark. There seemed to be a light ahead, and it got stronger and stronger as they advanced, and presently it streamed down on them from shallow water above their heads.
“We leave the Sea-horses here,” said Ulfin, “they cannot live in the air. Come.”
They dismounted and swam up. At least Ulfin and the Princess swam and the others held hands and were pulled by the two swimmers. Almost at once their heads struck the surface of the water, and there they were, on the verge of a rocky shore. They landed, and walked — if you can call what seals do walking — across a ridge of land, then plunged into a land-locked lake that lay beyond.
“This is the Iswater,” said Ulfin as they touched bottom, “and yonder is the King.” And indeed a stately figure in long robes was coming towards them.
“But this,” said the Princess, trembling, “is just like our garden at home, only smaller.”
“It was made as it is,” said Ulfin, “by wish of the captive King. Majesty is Majesty, be it never so conquered.”
The advancing figure was now quite near them. It saluted them with royal courtesy.
“We wanted to know,” said Mavis, “please, your Majesty, if we might have lessons from you.”
The King answered, but the Princess did not hear. She was speaking with Ulfin, apart.
“Ulfin,” she said, “this captive King is my Father.”
“Yes, Princess,” said Ulfin.
“And be does not know me-”
“He will,” said Ulfin strongly.
“Did you know?”
“Yes.”
“But the people of your land will punish you for bringing us here, if they find out that he is my father and that you have brought us together. They will kill you. Why did you do it, Ulfin?”
“Because you wished it, Princess,” he said, “and because I would rather die for you than live without you.”
CHAPTER XI. THE PEACEMAKER
THE children thought they had never seen a kinder face or more noble bearing than that of the Professor of Conchology, but the Mer Princess could not bear to look at him. She now felt what Mavis had felt when Cathay failed to recognize her — the misery of being looked at without recognition by the eyes that we know and love. She turned away, and pretended to be looking at the leaves of the seaweed hedge while Mavis and Francis were arranging to take lessons in Conchology three days a week, from two to four.
“You had better join a class,” said the Professor, “you will learn less that way.”
“But we want to learn,” said Mavis.
And the Professor looked at her very searchingly and said, “Do you?”
“Yes,” she said, “at least-”
“Yes,” he said, “I quite understand. I am only an exiled Professor, teaching Conchology to youthful aliens, but I retain some remains of the wisdom of my many years. I know that I am not what I seem, and that you are not what you seem, and that your desire to learn my special subject is not sincere and whole-hearted, but is merely, or mainly, the cloak to some other design. Is it not so, my child?”
No one answered. His question was so plainly addressed to the Princess. And she must have felt the question, for she turned and said, “Yes, O most wise King.”
“I am no King,” said the Professor, “rather I am a weak child picking up pebbles by the shore of an infinite sea of knowledge.”
“You are,” the Princess was beginning impulsively, when Ulfin interrupted her.
“Lady, lady!” he said, “all will be lost! Can you not play your part better than this? If you continue these indiscretions my head will undoubtedly pay the forfeit. Not that I should for a moment grudge that trifling service, but if my head is cut off you will be left without a friend in this strange country, and I shall die with the annoying consciousness that I shall no longer be able to serve you.”
He whispered this into the Princess’s ear while the Professor of Conchology looked on with mild surprise.
“Your attendant,” he observed, “is eloquent but inaudible.”
“I mean to be,” said Ulfin, with a sudden change of manner. “Look here, sir, I don’t suppose you care what becomes of you.”
“Not in the least,” said the Professor.
“But I suppose you would be sorry if anything uncomfortable happened to your new pupils?”
“Yes,” said the Professor, and his eye dwelt on Freia.
“Then please concentrate your powerful mind on being a Professor. Think of nothing else. More depends on this than you can easily believe.”
“Believing is easy,” said the Professor. “To-morrow at two, I think you said?” and with a grave salutation he turned his back on the company and walked away through his garden.
It was a thoughtful party that rode home on the borrowed chargers of the Deep Sea Cavalry. No one spoke. The minds of all were busy with the strange words of Ulfin, and even the least imaginative of them, which in this case was Bernard, could not but think that Ulfin had in that strange oddly-shaped head of his, some plan for helping the prisoners, to one of whom at least he was so obviously attached. He also was silent, and the others could not help encouraging the hope that he was maturing plans.
They reached the many-windowed prison, gave up their tickets-of-leaves and re-entered it. It was not till they were in the saloon and the evening was
all but over that Bernard spoke of what was in every head.
“Look here,” he said, “I think Ulfin means to help us to escape.”
“Do you,” said Mavis. “I think he means to help us to something, but I don’t somehow think it’s as simple as that.”
“Nothing near,” said Francis simply, “But that’s all we want, isn’t it?” said Bernard.
“It’s not all I want,” said Mavis, finishing the last of a fine bunch of sea-grapes, “what I want is to get the Mer King restored to his sorrowing relations.”
The Mer Princess pressed her hand affectionately.
“So do I,” said Francis, “but I want something more than that even. I want to stop this war. For always. So that there’ll never be any more of it.”
“But how can you,” said the Mer Princess, leaning her elbows on the table, “there’s always been war; there always will be.”
“Why?” asked Francis.
“I don’t know; it’s Merman nature, I suppose.
“I don’t believe it,” said Francis earnestly, “not for a minute I don’t. Why, don’t you see, all these people you’re at war with are nice. Look how kind the Queen is to Cathay — look how kind Ulfin is to us — and the Librarian, and the Keeper of the Archives, and the soldiers who lent us the horses. They’re all as decent as they can stick, and all the Mer-people are nice too — and then they all go killing each other, and all those brave, jolly soldier-fish too, just all about nothing. I call it simply rot.”
“But there always has been war I tell you,” said the Mer Princess, “people would get slack and silly and cowardly if there were no wars.”
“If I were King,” said Francis, who was now thoroughly roused, “there should never be any more wars. There are plenty of things to be brave about without hurting other brave people — exploring and rescuing and saving your comrades in mines and in fires and floods and things and—” his eloquence suddenly gave way to a breathless shyness—”oh, well,” he ended, “it’s no use gassing; you know what I mean.”
