by E. Nesbit
Quentin de Ward.]
III
ACCIDENTAL MAGIC; OR DON'T TELL ALL YOU KNOW
Quentin de Ward was rather a nice little boy, but he had never been withother little boys, and that made him in some ways a little differentfrom other little boys. His father was in India, and he and his motherlived in a little house in the New Forest. The house--it was a cottagereally, but even a cottage is a house, isn't it?--was very pretty andthatched and had a porch covered with honeysuckle and ivy and whiteroses, and straight red hollyhocks were trained to stand up in a rowagainst the south wall of it. The two lived quite alone, and as they hadno one else to talk to they talked to each other a good deal. Mrs. deWard read a great many books, and she used to tell Quentin about themafterwards. They were usually books about out of the way things, forMrs. de Ward was interested in all the things that people are not quitesure about--the things that are hidden and secret, wonderful andmysterious--the things people make discoveries about. So that when thetwo were having their tea on the little brick terrace in front of thehollyhocks, with the white cloth flapping in the breeze, and the waspshovering round the jam-pot, it was no uncommon thing for Quentin to saythickly through his bread and jam:--
'I say, mother, tell me some more about Atlantis.' Or, 'Mother, tell mesome more about ancient Egypt and the little toy-boats they made fortheir little boys.' Or, 'Mother, tell me about the people who think LordBacon wrote Shakespeare.'
And his mother always told him as much as she thought he couldunderstand, and he always understood quite half of what she told him.
They always talked the things out thoroughly, and thus he learned to befond of arguing, and to enjoy using his brains, just as you enjoy usingyour muscles in the football field or the gymnasium.
Also he came to know quite a lot of odd, out of the way things, and tohave opinions of his own concerning the lost Kingdom of Atlantis, andthe Man with the Iron Mask, the building of Stonehenge, the Pre-dynasticEgyptians, cuneiform writings and Assyrian sculptures, the Mexicanpyramids and the shipping activities of Tyre and Sidon.
Quentin did no regular lessons, such as most boys have, but he read allsorts of books and made notes from them, in a large and stragglinghandwriting.
You will already have supposed that Quentin was a prig. But he wasn't,and you would have owned this if you had seen him scampering through thegreenwood on his quiet New Forest pony, or setting snares for therabbits that _would_ get into the garden and eat the precious lettucesand parsley. Also he fished in the little streams that run through thatlovely land, and shot with a bow and arrows. And he was a very goodshot too.
Besides this he collected stamps and birds' eggs and picture post-cards,and kept guinea-pigs and bantams, and climbed trees and tore his clothesin twenty different ways. And once he fought the grocer's boy and gotlicked and didn't cry, and made friends with the grocer's boyafterwards, and got him to show him all he knew about fighting, so yousee he was really not a mug. He was ten years old and he had enjoyedevery moment of his ten years, even the sleeping ones, because he alwaysdreamed jolly dreams, though he could not always remember what theywere.
I tell you all this so that you may understand why he said what he didwhen his mother broke the news to him.
He was sitting by the stream that ran along the end of the garden,making bricks of the clay that the stream's banks were made of. He driedthem in the sun, and then baked them under the kitchen stove. (It isquite a good way to make bricks--you might try it sometimes.) His mothercame out, looking just as usual, in her pink cotton gown and her pinksunbonnet; and she had a letter in her hand.
'Hullo, boy of my heart,' she said, 'very busy?'
'Yes,' said Quentin importantly, not looking up, and going on with hiswork. 'I'm making stones to build Stonehenge with. You'll show me how tobuild it, won't you, mother.'
'Yes, dear,' she said absently. 'Yes, if I can.'
'Of course you can,' he said, 'you can do everything.'
She sat down on a tuft of grass near him.
'Quentin dear,' she said, and something in her voice made him look upsuddenly.
'Oh, mother, what is it?' he asked.
'Daddy's been wounded,' she said; 'he's all right now, dear--don't befrightened. Only I've got to go out to him. I shall meet him in Egypt.And you must go to school in Salisbury, a very nice school, dear, till Icome back.'
'Can't I come too?' he asked.
And when he understood that he could not he went on with the bricks insilence, with his mouth shut very tight.
After a moment he said, 'Salisbury? Then I shall see Stonehenge?'
'Yes,' said his mother, pleased that he took the news so calmly, 'youwill be sure to see Stonehenge some time.'
He stood still, looking down at the little mould of clay in his hand--sostill that his mother got up and came close to him.
'Quentin,' she said, 'darling, what is it?'
He leaned his head against her.
'I won't make a fuss,' he said, 'but you can't begin to be brave thevery first minute. Or, if you do, you can't go on being.'
And with that he began to cry, though he had not cried after the affairof the grocer's boy.
* * * * *
The thought of school was not so terrible to Quentin as Mrs. de Ward hadthought it would be. In fact, he rather liked it, with half his mind;but the other half didn't like it, because it meant parting from hismother who, so far, had been his only friend. But it was exciting to betaken to Southampton, and have all sorts of new clothes bought for you,and a school trunk, and a little polished box that locked up, to keepyour money in and your gold sleeve links, and your watch and chain whenyou were not wearing them.
Also the journey to Salisbury was made in a motor, which was veryexciting of course, and rather took Quentin's mind off the parting withhis mother, as she meant it should. And there was a very grand lunch atThe White Hart Hotel at Salisbury, and then, very suddenly indeed, itwas good-bye, good-bye, and the motor snorted, and hooted, and throbbed,and rushed away, and mother was gone, and Quentin was at school.
I believe it was quite a nice school. It was in a very nice house with alarge quiet garden, and there were only about twenty boys. And themasters were kind, and the boys no worse than other boys of their age.But Quentin hated it from the very beginning. For when his mother hadgone the Headmaster said: 'School will be out in half-an-hour; take abook, de Ward,' and gave him _Little Eric and his Friends_, a mere babybook. It was too silly. He could not read it. He saw on a shelf nearhim, _Smith's Antiquities_, a very old friend of his, so he said: 'I'drather have this, please.'
'You should say "sir" when you speak to a master,' the Head said to him.'Take the book by all means.' To himself the Head said, 'I wish you joyof it, you little prig.'
When school was over, one of the boys was told to show Quentin his bedand his locker. The matron had already unpacked his box and his pile ofbooks was waiting for him to carry it over.
'Golly, what a lot of books,' said Smithson minor. 'What's this?_Atlantis_? Is it a jolly story?'
'It isn't a story,' said Quentin. And just then the classical mastercame by. 'What's that about _Atlantis_?' he said.
'It's a book the new chap's got,' said Smithson.
The classical master glanced at the book.
'And how much do you understand of this?' he asked, fluttering theleaves.
'Nearly all, I think,' said Quentin.
'You should say "sir" when you speak to a master,' said the classicalone; and to himself he added, 'little prig.' Then he said to Quentin: 'Iam afraid you will find yourself rather out of your element amongordinary boys.'
'I don't think so,' said Quentin calmly, adding as an afterthought'sir.'
'I'm glad you're so confident,' said the classical master and went.
'My word,' said Smithson minor in a rather awed voice, 'you did answerhim back.'
'Of course I did,' said Quentin. 'Don't _you_ answer when you're spokento?'
After supper the boys had half an hour's recreation. Quentin, who wastired, picked up a book which a big boy had just put down. It was the_Midsummer Night's Dream_.
'Hi, you kid,' said the big boy, 'don't pretend you read Shakespeare forfun. That's simple swank, you know.'
'I don't know what swank is,' said Quentin, 'but I like the _Midsummer_whoever wrote it.'
'Whoever _what_?'
'Well,' said Quentin, 'there's a good deal to be said for its beingBacon who wrote the plays.'
Of course that settled it. From that moment, he was called not de Ward,which was strange enough, but Bacon. He rather liked that. But the nextday it was Pork, and the day after Pig, and that was unbearable.
He was at the bottom of his class, for he knew no Latin as it is taughtin schools, only odd words that English words come from, and some Latinwords that are used in science. And I cannot pretend that his arithmeticwas anything but contemptible.
The book called _Atlantis_ had been looked at by most of the school, andSmithson major, not nearly such an agreeable boy as his brother, hit ona new nickname.
'Atlantic Pork's a good name for a swanker,' he said. 'You know therotten meat they have in Chicago.'
This was in the playground before dinner. Quentin, who had to keep hismouth shut very tight these days, because, of course, a boy of tencannot cry before other chaps, shut the book he was reading and lookedup.
'I won't be called that,' he said quietly.
'Who said you wouldn't?' said Smithson major, who, after all, was onlytwelve. 'I say you will.'
'If you call me that I shall hit you,' said Quentin, 'as hard as I can.'
A roar of laughter went up, and cries of, 'Poor oldSmithson'--'Apologise, Smithie, and leave the omnibus.'
'And what should I be doing while you were hitting me?' asked Smithsoncontemptuously.
It landed on the point of the chin of Smithson major.]
'I don't know and I don't care,' said Quentin.
Smithson looked round. No master was in sight. It seemed an excellentopportunity to teach young de Ward his place.
'Atlantic pig-swine,' he said very deliberately. And Quentin sprang athim, and instantly it was a fight.
Now Quentin had only once fought--really fought--before. Then it wasthe grocer's boy and he had been beaten. But he had learned somethingsince. And the chief conclusion he now drew from his memories of thatfight was that he had not hit half hard enough, an opinion almostuniversal among those who have fought and not won.
As the fist of Smithson major described a half circle and hurt his earvery much, Quentin suddenly screwed himself up and hit out with hisright hand, straight, and with his whole weight behind the blow as thegrocer's boy had shown him. All his grief for his wounded father, hissorrow at the parting from his mother, all his hatred of his school, andhis contempt for his schoolfellows went into that blow. It landed on thepoint of the chin of Smithson major who fell together like a heap ofrags.
'Oh,' said Quentin, gazing with interest at his hand--it hurt a gooddeal but he looked at it with respect--'I'm afraid I've hurt him.'
He had forgotten for a moment that he was in an enemies' country, andso, apparently, had his enemies.
'Well done, Piggy! Bravo, young 'un! Well hit, by Jove!'
Friendly hands thumped him on the back. Smithson major was no popularhero.
Quentin felt--as his schoolfellows would have put it--bucked. It is onething to be called Pig in enmity and derision. Another to be calledPiggy--an affectionate diminutive, after all--to the chorus of admiringsmacks.
'Get up, Smithie,' cried the ring. 'Want any more?'
It appeared that Smithie did not want any more. He lay, not moving atall, and very white.
'I say,' the crowd's temper veered, 'you've killed him, I expect. Iwouldn't like to be you, Bacon.'
Pig, you notice, for aggravation--Piggy in enthusiastic applause. In themoment of possible tragedy the more formal Bacon.
'I haven't,' said Quentin, very white himself, 'but if I have hebegan--by calling names.'
Smithson moved and grunted. A sigh of relief swept the ring as a breezesweeps a cornfield.
'He's all right. A fair knock out. Piggy's got the use of 'em. DoSmithie good.' The voices hushed suddenly. A master was on thescene--the classical master.
'Fighting?' he said. 'The new boy? Who began it?'
'I did,' said Quentin, 'but he began with calling names.'
'Sneak!' murmured the entire school, and Quentin, who had seen no reasonfor not speaking the truth, perceived that one should not tell all oneknows, and that once more he stood alone in the world.
'You will go to your room, de Ward,' said the classical master, bendingover Smithson, who having been 'knocked silly' still remained in thatcondition, 'and the headmaster will consider your case to-morrow. Youwill probably be expelled.'
Quentin went to his room and thought over his position. It seemed to bedesperate. How was he to know that the classical master was even thensaying to the Head:
'He's got something in him, prig or no prig, sir.'
'You were quite right to send him to his room,' said the Head,'discipline must be maintained, as Mr. Ducket says. But it will doSmithson major a world of good. A boy who reads Shakespeare for fun, andhas views about Atlantis, and can knock out a bully as well.... He'll bea power in the school. But we mustn't let him know it.'
That was rather a pity. Because Quentin, furious at the injustice of thewhole thing--Smithson, the aggressor, consoled with; himself punished;expulsion threatened--was maturing plans.
'If mother had known what it was like,' he said to himself, 'she wouldnever have left me here. I've got the two pounds she gave me. I shallgo to the White Hart at Salisbury ... no, they'd find me then. I'll goto Lyndhurst; and write to her. It's better to run away than to beexpelled. Quentin Durward would never have waited to be expelled fromanywhere.'
Of course Quentin Durward was my hero's hero. It could not be otherwisesince his own name was so like that of the Scottish guardsman.
Now the school in Salisbury was a little school for little boys--boyswho were used to schools and took the rough with the smooth. But Quentinwas not used to schools, and he had taken the rough very much to heart.So much that he did not mean to take any more of it.
His dinner was brought up on a tray--bread and water. He put the breadin his pocket. Then when he knew that every one was at dinner in thelong dining-room at the back of the house, he just walked very quietlydown the stairs, opened the side door and marched out, down the gardenpath and out at the tradesmen's gate. He knew better than to shut eithergate or door.
He went quickly down the street, turned the first corner he came to soas to get out of sight of the school. He turned another corner, wentthrough an archway, and found himself in an inn-yard--very quiet indeed.Only a liver-coloured lurcher dog wagged a sleepy tail on the hotflag-stones.
Quentin was just turning to go back through the arch, for there was noother way out of the yard, when he saw a big covered cart, whose horsewore a nose-bag and looked as if there was no hurry. The cart bore thename, 'Miles, Carrier, Lyndhurst.'
Quentin knew all about lifts. He had often begged them and got them. Nowthere was no one to ask. But he felt he could very well explain laterthat he had wanted a lift, much better than now, in fact, when he mightbe caught at any moment by some one from the school.
He climbed up by the shaft. There were boxes and packages of all sortsin the cart, and at the back an empty crate with sacking over it. He gotinto the crate, pulled the sacking over himself, and settled down to eathis bread.
Presently the carrier came out, and there was talk, slow, long-drawntalk. After a long while the cart shook to the carrier's heavy climbinto it, the harness rattled, the cart lurched, and the wheels were loudand bumpy over the cobble stones of the yard.
The black horse seemed as sleepy as the streets, and went very slowly.Also it stopped very often, and wherever there were parcels to leavethere was slow, long talkings to be exchanged. I think, perhaps, Quentindozed a good deal under his sacks. At any rate it was with a shock ofsurprise that he suddenly heard the carrier's voice saying, as the horsestopped with a jerk:
'There's a crate for you, Mrs. Baddock, returned empty,' and knew thatthat crate was not empty, but full--full of boy.
'I'll go and call Joe,' said a voice--Mrs. Baddock's, Quentin supposed,and slow feet stumped away over stones. Mr. Miles leisurely untied thetail of the cart, ready to let the crate be taken out.
Quentin spent a paralytic moment. What could he do?
And then, luckily or unluckily, a reckless motor tore past, and theblack horse plunged and Mr. Miles had to go to its head and 'talkpretty' to it for a minute. And in that minute Quentin lifted thesacking, and looked out. It was low sunset, and the street was deserted.He stepped out of the crate, dropped to the ground, and slipped behind astout and friendly water-butt that seemed to offer protective shelter.
Joe came, and the crate was taken down.
'You haven't seen nothing of that there runaway boy by chance?' said anew voice--Joe's no doubt.
'What boy?' said Mr. Miles.
'Run away from school, Salisbury,' said Joe. 'Telegrams far and near, sothey be. Little varmint.'
'I ain't seen no boys, not more'n ordinary,' said Mr. Miles. 'Thick asflies they be, here, there, and everywhere, drat 'em. Sixpence--Correct.So long, Joe.'
The cart rattled away. Joe and the crate blundered out of hearing, andQuentin looked cautiously round the water-butt.
This was an adventure. But he was cooler now than he had been atstarting--his hot anger had died down. He would have been contented, hecould not help feeling, with a less adventurous adventure.
But he was in for it now. He felt, as I suppose people feel when theyjump off cliffs with parachutes, that return was impossible.
Hastily turning his school cap inside out--the only disguise he couldthink of, he emerged from the water-butt seclusion and into the street,trying to look as if there was no reason why he should not be there. Hedid not know the village. It was not Lyndhurst. And of course asking theway was not to be thought of.
There was a piece of sacking lying on the road; it must have droppedfrom the carrier's cart. He picked it up and put it over his shoulders.
'A deeper disguise,' he said, and walked on.
He walked steadily for a long, long way as it seemed, and the world gotdarker and darker. But he kept on. Surely he must presently come to somevillage, or some signpost.
Anyhow, whatever happened, he could not go back. That was the onecertain thing. The broad stretches of country to right and left held noshapes of houses, no glimmer of warm candle-light; they were bare andbleak, only broken by circles of trees that stood out like black islandsin the misty grey of the twilight.
'I shall have to sleep behind a hedge,' he said bravely enough; butthere did not seem to be any hedges. And then, quite suddenly, he cameupon it.
A scattered building, half transparent as it seemed, showing blackagainst the last faint pink and primrose of the sunset. He stopped, tooka few steps off the road on short, crisp turf that rose in a gentleslope. And at the end of a dozen paces he knew it. Stonehenge!Stonehenge he had always wanted so desperately to see. Well, he saw itnow, more or less.
He stopped to think. He knew that Stonehenge stands all alone onSalisbury Plain. He was very tired. His mother had told him about a girlin a book who slept all night on the altar stone at Stonehenge. So itwas a thing that people did--to sleep there. He was not afraid, as youor I might have been--of that lonely desolate ruin of a temple of longago. He was used to the forest, and, compared with the forest, anybuilding is homelike.
There was just enough light left amid the stones of the wonderful brokencircle to guide him to its centre. As he went his hand brushed a plant;he caught at it, and a little group of flowers came away in his hand.
'St. John's wort,' he said, 'that's the magic flower.' And he rememberedthat it is only magic when you pluck it on Midsummer Eve.
'And this _is_ Midsummer Eve,' he told himself, and put it in hisbuttonhole.
'I don't know where the altar stone is,' he said, 'but that looks a cosylittle crack between those two big stones.'
He crept into it, and lay down on a flat stone that stretched betweenand under two fallen pillars.
The night was soft and warm; it was Midsummer Eve.
'Mother isn't going till the twenty-sixth,' he told himself. 'I sha'n'tbother about hotels. I shall send her a telegram in the morning, and geta carriage at the nearest stables and go straight back to her. No, shewon't be angry when she hears all about it. I'll ask her to let me go tosea instead of to school. It's much more manly. Much more manly ... muchmuch more, much.'
He was asleep. And the wild west wind that swept across the plain sparedthe little corner where he lay asleep, curled up in his sacking with theinside-out school cap, doubled twice, for pillow.
He fell asleep on the smooth, solid, steady stone.
He awoke on the stone in a world that rocked as sea-boats rock on achoppy sea.
He went to sleep between fallen moveless pillars of a ruin older thanany world that history knows.
He awoke in the shade of a purple awning through which strong sunlightfiltered, and purple curtains that flapped and strained in the wind; andthere was a smell, a sweet familiar smell, of tarred ropes and the sea.
'I say,' said Quentin to himself, 'here's a rum go.'
He had learned that expression in a school in Salisbury, a long time agoas it seemed.
The stone on which he lay dipped and rose to a rhythm which he knew wellenough. He had felt it when he and his mother went in a little boat fromKeyhaven to Alum Bay in the Isle of Wight. There was no doubt in hismind. He was on a ship. But how, but why? Who could have carried him allthat way without waking him? Was it magic? Accidental magic? The St.John's wort perhaps? And the stone--it was not the same. It was new,clean cut, and, where the wind displaced a corner of the curtain,dazzlingly white in the sunlight.
There was the pat pat of bare feet on the deck, a dull sort of shufflingas though people were arranging themselves. And then people outside theawning began to sing. It was a strange song, not at all like any musicyou or I have ever heard. It had no tune, no more tune than a drum has,or a trumpet, but it had a sort of wild rough glorious excitingsplendour about it, and gave you the sort of intense all-alive feelingthat drums and trumpets give.
Quentin lifted a corner of the purple curtain and looked out.
Instantly the song stopped, drowned in the deepest silence Quentin hadever imagined. It was only broken by the flip-flapping of the sheetsagainst the masts of the ship. For it was a ship, Quentin saw that asthe bulwark dipped to show him an unending waste of sea, broken bybigger waves than he had ever dreamed of. He saw also a crowd of men,dressed in white and blue and purple and gold. Their right arms wereraised towards the sun, half of whose face showed across the sea--butthey seemed to be, as my old nurse used to say, 'struck so,' for theireyes were not fixed on the sun, but on Quentin. And not in anger, henoticed curiously, but with surprise and ... could it be that they wereafraid of him?
'Who are you?' he said. 'Answer, I adjure you by thesacred Tau!']
Quentin was shivering with the surprise and newness of it all. He hadread about magic, but he had not wholly believed in it, and yet, now, ifthis was not magic, what was it? You go to sleep on an old stone in aruin. You
wake on the same stone, quite new, on a ship. Magic, magic, ifever there was magic in this wonderful, mysterious world!
The silence became awkward. Some one had to say something.
'Good-morning,' said Quentin, feeling that he ought perhaps to be theone.
Instantly every one in sight fell on his face on the deck.
Only one, a tall man with a black beard and a blue mantle, stood up andlooked Quentin in the eyes.
'Who are you?' he said. 'Answer, I adjure you by the Sacred Tau!' Nowthis was very odd, and Quentin could never understand it, but when thisman spoke Quentin understood _him_ perfectly, and yet at the same timehe knew that the man was speaking a foreign language. So that histhought was not, 'Hullo, you speak English!' but 'Hullo, I canunderstand your language.'
'I am Quentin de Ward,' he said.
'A name from other stars! How came you here?' asked the blue-mantledman.
'_I_ don't know,' said Quentin.
'He does not know. He did not sail with us. It is by magic that he ishere,' said Blue Mantle. 'Rise, all, and greet the Chosen of theGods.'
They rose from the deck, and Quentin saw that they were all beardedmen, with bright, earnest eyes, dressed in strange dress of somethinglike jersey and tunic and heavy golden ornaments.
'Hail! Chosen of the Gods,' cried Blue Mantle, who seemed to be theleader.
'Hail, Chosen of the Gods!' echoed the rest.
'Thank you very much, I'm sure,' said Quentin.
'And what is this stone?' asked Blue Mantle, pointing to the stone onwhich Quentin sat.
And Quentin, anxious to show off his knowledge, said:
'I'm not quite sure, but I _think_ it's the altar stone of Stonehenge.'
'It is proved,' said Blue Mantle. 'Thou art the Chosen of the Gods. Isthere anything my Lord needs?' he added humbly.
'I ... I'm rather hungry,' said Quentin; 'it's a long time since dinner,you know.'
They brought him bread and bananas, and oranges.
'Take,' said Blue Mantle, 'of the fruits of the earth, and specially ofthis, which gives drink and meat and ointment to man,' suddenlyoffering a large cocoa-nut.
Quentin took, with appropriate 'Thank you's' and 'You're very kind's.'
'Nothing,' said Blue Mantle, 'is too good for the Chosen of the Gods.All that we have is yours, to the very last day of your life you haveonly to command, and we obey. You will like to eat in seclusion. Andafterwards you will let us behold the whole person of the Chosen of theGods.'
Quentin retired into the purple tent, with the fruits and the cocoa-nut.As you know, a cocoa-nut is not handy to get at the inside of, at thebest of times, so Quentin set that aside, meaning to ask Blue Mantlelater on for a gimlet and a hammer.
When he had had enough to eat he peeped out again. Blue Mantle was onthe watch and came quickly forward.
'Now,' said he, very crossly indeed, 'tell me how you got here. ThisChosen of the Gods business is all very well for the vulgar. But you andI know that there is no such thing as magic.'
'Speak for yourself,' said Quentin. 'If I'm not here by magic I'm nothere at all.'
'Yes, you are,' said Blue Mantle.
'I know I am,' said Quentin, 'but if I'm not here by magic what am Ihere by?'
'Stowawayishness,' said Blue Mantle.
'If you think that why don't you treat me as a stowaway?'
'Because of public opinion,' said Blue Mantle, rubbing his nose in anangry sort of perplexedness.
'Very well,' said Quentin, who was feeling so surprised and bewilderedthat it was a real relief to him to bully somebody. 'Now look here. Icame here by magic, accidental magic. I belong to quite a differentworld from yours. But perhaps you are right about my being the Chosen ofthe Gods. And I sha'n't tell you anything about my world. But I commandyou, by the Sacred Tau' (he had been quick enough to catch and rememberthe word), 'to tell me who you are, and where you come from, and whereyou are going.'
Blue Mantle shrugged his shoulders. 'Oh, well,' he said, 'if you invokethe sacred names of Power.... But I don't call it fair play. Especiallyas you know perfectly well, and just want to browbeat me into tellinglies. I shall not tell lies. I shall tell you the truth.'
'I hoped you would,' said Quentin gently.
'Well then,' said Blue Mantle, 'I am a Priest of Poseidon, and I comefrom the great and immortal kingdom of Atlantis.'
'From the temple where the gold statue is, with the twelve sea-horses ingold?' Quentin asked eagerly.
'Ah, I knew you knew all about it,' said Blue Mantle, 'so I don't needto tell you that I am taking the sacred stone, on which you are sitting(profanely if you are a mere stowaway, and not the Chosen of the Gods)to complete the splendid structure of a temple built on a great plain inthe second of the islands which are our colonies in the North East.'
'Tell me all about Atlantis,' said Quentin. And the priest, protestingthat Quentin knew as much about it as he did, told.
And all the time the ship was ploughing through the waves, sometimessailing, sometimes rowed by hidden rowers with long oars. And Quentinwas served in all things as though he had been a king. If he hadinsisted that he was not the Chosen of the Gods everything might havebeen different. But he did not. And he was very anxious to show how muchhe knew about Atlantis. And sometimes he was wrong, the Priest said, butmuch more often he was right.
'We are less than three days' journey now from the Eastern Isles,' BlueMantle said one day, 'and I warn you that if you are a mere stowaway youhad better own it. Because if you persist in calling yourself the Chosenof the Gods you will be expected to act as such--to the very end.'
'I don't call myself anything,' said Quentin, 'though I am not astowaway, anyhow, and I don't know how I came here--so of course it wasmagic. It's simply silly your being so cross. _I_ can't help being here.Let's be friends.'
'Well,' said Blue Mantle, much less crossly, 'I never believed in magic,though I _am_ a priest, but if it is, it is. We may as well be friends,as you call it. It isn't for very long, anyway,' he added mysteriously.
The cart was drawn by an enormous creature, more like anelephant than anything else.]
And then to show his friendliness he took Quentin all over the ship, andexplained it all to him. And Quentin enjoyed himself thoroughly, thoughevery now and then he had to pinch himself to make sure that he wasawake. And he was fed well all the time, and all the time made much of,so that when the ship reached land he was quite sorry. The ship anchoredby a stone quay, most solid and serviceable, and every one was verybusy.
Quentin kept out of sight behind the purple curtains. The sailors andthe priests and the priests' attendants and everybody on the boat hadasked him so many questions, and been so curious about his clothes, thathe was not anxious to hear any more questions asked, or to have toinvent answers to them.
And after a very great deal of talk--almost as much as Mr. Miles'scarrying had needed--the altar stone was lifted, Quentin, curtains,awning and all, and carried along a gangway to the shore, and there itwas put on a sort of cart, more like what people in Manchester call alurry than anything else I can think of. The wheels were made of solidcircles of wood bound round with copper. And the cart was drawn by--nothorses or donkeys or oxen or even dogs--but by an enormous creature morelike an elephant than anything else, only it had long hair rather likethe hair worn by goats.
You, perhaps, would not have known what this vast creature was, butQuentin, who had all sorts of out-of-the-way information packed in hishead, knew at once that it was a mammoth.
And by that he knew, too, that he had slipped back many thousands ofyears, because, of course, it is a very long time indeed since therewere any mammoths alive, and able to draw lurries. And the car and thepriest and the priest's retinue and the stone and Quentin and themammoth journeyed slowly away from the coast, passing through greatgreen forests and among strange gray mountains.
Where were they journeying?
Quentin asked the same question you may be sure, and Blue Mantle toldhim--<
br />
'To Stonehenge.' And Quentin understood him perfectly, thoughStonehenge was not the word Blue Mantle used, or anything like it.
'The great temple is now complete,' he said, 'all but the altar stone.It will be the most wonderful temple ever built in any of the coloniesof Atlantis. And it will be consecrated on the longest day of the year.'
'Midsummer Day,' said Quentin thoughtlessly--and, as usual, anxious totell all he knew. 'I know. The sun strikes through the arch on to thealtar stone at sunrise. Hundreds of people go to see it: the ruins arequite crowded sometimes, I believe.'
'Ruins?' said the priest in a terrible voice. 'Crowded? Ruins?'
'I mean,' said Quentin hastily, 'the sun will still shine the same wayeven when the temple is in ruins, won't it?'
'The temple,' said the priest, 'is built to defy time. It will never bein ruins.'
'That's all _you_ know,' said Quentin, not very politely.
'It is not by any means all I know,' said the priest. 'I do not tell allI know. Nor do you.'
'I used to,' said Quentin, 'but I sha'n't any more. It only leads totrouble--I see that now.'
Now, though Quentin had been intensely interested in everything he hadseen in the ship and on the journey, you may be sure he had not lostsight of the need there was to get back out of this time of Atlantisinto his own time. He knew that he must have got into these Atlanteantimes by some very simple accidental magic, and he felt no doubt that heshould get back in the same way. He felt almost sure that thereverse-action, so to speak, of the magic would begin when the stone gotback to the place where it had lain for so many thousand years before hehappened to go to sleep on it, and to start--perhaps by the St. John'swort--the accidental magic. If only, when he got back there he couldthink of the compelling, the magic word!
And now the slow procession wound over the downs, and far away acrossthe plain, which was almost just the same then as it is now, Quentin sawwhat he knew must be Stonehenge. But it was no longer the grey pile ofruins that you have perhaps seen--or have, at any rate, seen picturesof.
From afar one could see the gleam of yellow gold and red copper; theflutter of purple curtains, the glitter and dazzle of shimmering silver.
As they drew near to the spot Quentin perceived that the great stones heremembered were overlaid with ornamental work, with vivid,bright-coloured paintings. The whole thing was a great circularbuilding, every stone in its place. At a mile or two distant lay a town.And in that town, with every possible luxury, served with everycircumstance of servile homage, Quentin ate and slept.
I wish I had time to tell you what that town was like where he slept andate, but I have not. You can read for yourself, some day, what Atlantiswas like. Plato tells us a good deal, and the Colonies of Atlantis musthave had at least a reasonable second-rate copy of the cities of thatfair and lovely land.
That night, for the first time since he had first gone to sleep on thealtar stone, Quentin slept apart from it. He lay on a wooden couchstrewn with soft bear-skins, and a woollen coverlet was laid over him.And he slept soundly.
In the middle of the night, as it seemed, Blue Mantle woke him.
'Come,' he said, 'Chosen of the Gods--since you _will_ be that, and nostowaway--the hour draws nigh.'
The mammoth was waiting. Quentin and Blue Mantle rode on its back to theouter porch of the new temple of Stonehenge. Rows of priests andattendants, robed in white and blue and purple, formed a sort of avenueup which Blue Mantle led the Chosen of the Gods, who was Quentin. Theytook off his jacket and put a white dress on him, rather like anight-shirt without sleeves. And they put a thick wreath of London Prideon his head and another, larger and longer, round his neck.
'If only the chaps at school could see me now!' he said to himselfproudly.
And by this time it was gray dawn.
'Lie down now,' said Blue Mantle, 'lie down, O Beloved of the Gods, uponthe altar stone, for the last time.'
'I shall be able to go, then?' Quentin asked. This accidental magic was,he perceived, a tricky thing, and he wanted to be sure.
'You will not be able to stay,' said the priest. 'If going is what youdesire, the desire of the Chosen of the Gods is fully granted.'
The grass on the plain far and near rustled with the tread of many feet;the cold air of dawn thrilled to the awed murmured of many voices.
Quentin lay down, with his pink wreaths and his white robe, and watchedthe quickening pinkiness of the East. And slowly the great circle of thetemple filled with white-robed folk, all carrying in their hands thefaint pinkiness of the flowers which we nowadays call London Pride.
And all eyes were fixed on the arch through which, at sunrise onMidsummer Day, the sun's first beam should fall upon the white, new,clean altar stone. The stone is still there, after all these thousandsof years, and at sunrise on Midsummer Day the sun's first ray stillfalls on it.
'Silence,' cried the priest. 'Chosen of the Immortals,close your eyes!']
The sky grew lighter and lighter, and at last the sun peered redly overthe down, and the first ray of the morning sunlight fell full on thealtar stone and on the face of Quentin.
And, as it did so, a very tall, white-robed priest with a deer-skinapron and a curious winged head-dress stepped forward. He carried agreat bronze knife, and he waved it ten times in the shaft of sunlightthat shot through the arch and on to the altar stone.
'Thus,' he cried, 'thus do I bathe the sacred blade in the pure fountainof all light, all wisdom, all splendour. In the name of the ten kings,the ten virtues, the ten hopes, the ten fears I make my weapon clean!May this temple of our love and our desire endure for ever, so long asthe glory of our Lord the Sun is shed upon this earth. May the sacrificeI now humbly and proudly offer be acceptable to the gods by whom it hasbeen so miraculously provided. Chosen of the Gods! return to the godswho sent thee!'
A roar of voices rang through the temple. The bronze knife was raisedover Quentin. He could not believe that this, this horror, was the endof all these wonderful happenings.
'No--no,' he cried, 'it's not true. I'm not the Chosen of the Gods! I'monly a little boy that's got here by accidental magic!'
'Silence,' cried the priest, 'Chosen of the Immortals, close your eyes!It will not hurt. This life is only a dream; the other life is the reallife. Be strong, be brave!'
Quentin was not brave. But he shut his eyes. He could not help it. Theglitter of the bronze knife in the sunlight was too strong for him.
He could not believe that this could really have happened to him. Everyone had been so kind--so friendly to him. And it was all for this!
Suddenly a sharp touch at his side told him that for this, indeed, ithad all been. He felt the point of the knife.
'Mother!' he cried. And opened his eyes again.
He always felt quite sure afterwards that 'Mother' was the master-word,the spell of spells. For when he opened his eyes there was no priest, nowhite-robed worshippers, no splendour of colour and metal, no Chosen ofthe Gods, no knife--only a little boy with a piece of sacking over him,damp with the night dews, lying on a stone amid the grey ruins ofStonehenge, and, all about him, a crowd of tourists who had come to seethe sun's first shaft strike the age-old altar of Stonehenge onMidsummer Day in the morning. And instead of a knife point at his sidethere was only the ferrule of the umbrella of an elderly and retired teamerchant in a mackintosh and an Alpine hat,--a ferrule which had proddedthe sleeping boy so unexpectedly surprised on the very altar stone wherethe sun's ray now lingered.
And then, in a moment, he knew that he had not uttered the spell invain, the word of compelling, the word of power: for his mother wasthere kneeling beside him. I am sorry to say that he cried as he clungto her. _We_ cannot all of us be brave, always.
The tourists were very kind and interested, and the tea merchantinsisted on giving Quentin something out of a flask, which was so nastythat Quentin only pretended to drink, out of politeness. His mother hada carriage waiting, and they escaped to it while the tourists weresayin
g, 'How romantic!' and asking each other whatever in the world hadhappened.
* * * * *
'But how _did_ you come to be there, darling?' said his mother with warmhands comfortingly round him. 'I've been looking for you all night. Iwent to say good-bye to you yesterday--Oh, Quentin--and I found you'drun away. How _could_ you?'
'I'm sorry,' said Quentin, 'if it worried you, I'm sorry. Very, very. Iwas going to telegraph to-day.'
'But where have you been? What have you been doing all night?' sheasked, caressing him.
'Is it only one night?' said Quentin. 'I don't know exactly what'shappened. It was accidental magic, I think, mother. I'm glad I thoughtof the right word to get back, though.' And then he told her all aboutit. She held him very tightly and let him talk.
Perhaps she thought that a little boy to whom accidental magic happenedall in a minute, like that, was not exactly the right little boy forthat excellent school in Salisbury. Anyhow she took him to Egypt withher to meet his father, and, on the way, they happened to see a doctorin London who said: 'Nerves' which is a poor name for accidental magic,and Quentin does not believe it means the same thing at all.
Quentin's father is well now, and he has left the army, and father andmother and Quentin live in a jolly, little, old house in Salisbury, andQuentin is a 'day boy' at that very same school. He and Smithson minorare the greatest of friends. But he has never told Smithson minor aboutthe accidental magic. He has learned now, and learned very thoroughly,that it is not always wise to tell all you know. If he had not ownedthat he knew that it was the Stonehenge altar stone!
* * * * *
You may think that the accidental magic was all a dream, and thatQuentin dreamed it because his mother had told him so much aboutAtlantis. But then, how do you account for his dreaming so much that hismother had never told him? You think that that part wasn't true, well,it may have been true for anything I know. And I am sure you don't knowmore about it than I do.
