Five Children and It
Breathless and beaten, the wretched children now awaited their fate.
Sharp knives and axes gleamed round them, but worse than these was the
cruel light in the eyes of Golden Eagle and his followers.
"Ye have lied to us, O Black Panther of the Mazawattees--and thou, too,
Squirrel of the Moning Congos. These also, Pussy Ferox of the Phiteezi,
and Bobs of the Cape Mounted Police,--these also have lied to us, if not
with their tongues, yet by their silence. Ye have lied under the cover
of the Truce-flag of the Pale-face. Ye have no followers. Your tribes
are far away--following the hunting trail. What shall be their doom?" he
concluded, turning with a bitter smile to the other Red Indians.
"Build we the fire!" shouted his followers; and at once a dozen ready
volunteers started to look for fuel. The four children, each held
between two strong little Indians, cast despairing glances round them.
Oh, if they could only see the Psammead!
"Do you mean to scalp us first and then roast us?" asked Anthea
desperately.
"Of course!" Redskin opened his eyes at her. "It's always done."
The Indians had formed a ring round the children, and now sat on the
ground gazing at their captives. There was a threatening silence.
Then slowly, by twos and threes, the Indians who had gone to look for
firewood came back, and they came back empty-handed. They had not been
able to find a single stick of wood for a fire! No one ever can, as a
matter of fact, in that part of Kent.
The children drew a deep breath of relief, but it ended in a moan of
terror. For bright knives were being brandished all about them. Next
moment each child was seized by an Indian; each closed its eyes and
tried not to scream. They waited for the sharp agony of the knife. It
did not come. Next moment they were released, and fell in a trembling
heap. Their heads did not hurt at all. They only felt strangely cool!
Wild war-whoops rang in their ears. When they ventured to open their
eyes they saw four of their foes dancing round them with wild leaps and
screams, and each of the four brandished in his hand a scalp of long
flowing black hair. They put their hands to their heads--their own
scalps were safe! The poor untutored savages had indeed scalped the
children. But they had only, so to speak, scalped them of the black
calico ringlets!
The children fell into each other's arms, sobbing and laughing.
"Their scalps are ours," chanted the chief; "ill-rooted were their
ill-fated hairs! They came off in the hands of the victors--without
struggle, without resistance, they yielded their scalps to the
conquering Rock-dwellers! Oh, how little a thing is a scalp so lightly
won!"
"They'll take our real ones in a minute; you see if they don't," said
Robert, trying to rub some of the red ochre off his face and hands on to
his hair.
"Cheated of our just and fiery revenge are we," the chant went on,--"but
there are other torments than the scalping-knife and the flames. Yet is
the slow fire the correct thing. O strange unnatural country, wherein a
man may find no wood to burn his enemy!--Ah for the boundless forests of
my native land, where the great trees for thousands of miles grow but to
furnish firewood wherewithal to burn our foes. Ah, would we were but in
our native forest once more!"
Suddenly like a flash of lightning, the golden gravel shone all round
the four children instead of the dusky figures. For every single
Indian had vanished on the instant at their leader's word. The Psammead
must have been there all the time. And it had given the Indian chief his
wish.
* * * * *
Martha brought home a jug with a pattern of storks and long grasses on
it. Also she brought back all Anthea's money.
"My cousin, she gave me the jug for luck; she said it was an odd one
what the basin of had got smashed."
"Oh, Martha, you are a dear!" sighed Anthea, throwing her arms round
her.
"Yes," giggled Martha, "you'd better make the most of me while you've
got me. I shall give your ma notice directly minute she comes back."
"Oh, Martha, we haven't been so _very_ horrid to you, have we?" asked
Anthea, aghast.
"Oh, it isn't that, miss." Martha giggled more than ever. "I'm a-goin'
to be married. It's Beale the gamekeeper. He's been a-proposin' to me
off and on ever since you come home from the clergyman's where you got
locked up on the church-tower. And to-day I said the word an' made him a
happy man."
* * * * *
Anthea put the seven-and-fourpence back in the missionary-box, and
pasted paper over the place where the poker had broken it. She was very
glad to be able to do this, and she does not know to this day whether
breaking open a missionary-box is or is not a hanging matter!
CHAPTER XI (AND LAST)
THE LAST WISH
Of course you, who see above that this is the eleventh (and last)
chapter, know very well that the day of which this chapter tells must be
the last on which Cyril, Anthea, Robert, and Jane will have a chance of
getting anything out of the Psammead, or Sand-fairy.
But the children themselves did not know this. They were full of rosy
visions, and, whereas on the other days they had often found it
extremely difficult to think of anything really nice to wish for, their
brains were now full of the most beautiful and sensible ideas. "This,"
as Jane remarked afterwards, "is always the way." Everyone was up extra
early that morning, and these plans were hopefully discussed in the
garden before breakfast. The old idea of one hundred pounds in modern
florins was still first favourite, but there were others that ran it
close--the chief of these being the "pony-each" idea. This had a great
advantage. You could wish for a pony each during the morning, ride it
all day, have it vanish at sunset, and wish it back again next day.
Which would be an economy of litter and stabling. But at breakfast two
things happened. First, there was a letter from mother. Granny was
better, and mother and father hoped to be home that very afternoon. A
cheer arose. And of course this news at once scattered all the
before-breakfast wish-ideas. For everyone saw quite plainly that the
wish of the day must be something to please mother and not to please
themselves.
"I wonder what she _would_ like," pondered Cyril.
"She'd like us all to be good," said Jane primly.
"Yes--but that's so dull for us," Cyril rejoined; "and besides, I should
hope we could be that without sand-fairies to help us. No; it must be
something splendid, that we couldn't possibly get without wishing for."
"Look out," said Anthea in a warning voice; "don't forget yesterday.
Remember, we get our wishes now just wherever we happen to be when we
say 'I wish.' Don't let's let ourselves in for anything silly--to-day of
all days."
"All right," said Cyril. "You needn't talk so much."
Just then Martha came in with a jug full of hot water for the
tea-pot--and a face full of importance for the children.
"A blessing we're all alive to eat our breakfast!" she said darkly.
"Why, whatever's happened?" everybody asked.
"Oh, nothing," said Martha, "only it seems nobody's safe from being
murdered in their beds nowadays."
"Why," said Jane as an agreeable thrill of horror ran down her back and
legs and out at her toes, "_has_ anyone been murdered in their beds?"
"Well--not exactly," said Martha; "but they might just as well. There's
been burglars over at Peasemarsh Place--Beale's just told me--and
they've took every single one of Lady Chittenden's diamonds and jewels
and things, and she's a-goin out of one fainting fit into another, with
hardly time to say 'Oh, my diamonds!' in between. And Lord Chittenden's
away in London."
"Lady Chittenden," said Anthea; "we've seen her. She wears a
red-and-white dress, and she has no children of her own and can't abide
other folkses'."
"That's her," said Martha. "Well, she's put all her trust in riches, and
you see how she's served. They say the diamonds and things was worth
thousands of pounds. There was a necklace and a river--whatever that
is--and no end of bracelets; and a tarrer and ever so many rings. But
there, I mustn't stand talking and all the place to clean down afore
your ma comes home."
"I don't see why she should ever have had such lots of diamonds," said
Anthea when Martha had flounced off. "She was not at all a nice lady, I
thought. And mother hasn't any diamonds, and hardly any jewels--the
topaz necklace, and the sapphire ring daddy gave her when they were
engaged, and the garnet star, and the little pearl brooch with
great-grandpapa's hair in it,--that's about all."
"When I'm grown up I'll buy mother no end of diamonds," said Robert, "if
she wants them. I shall make so much money exploring in Africa I shan't
know what to do with it."
"Wouldn't it be jolly," said Jane dreamily, "if mother could find all
these lovely things, necklaces and rivers of diamonds and tarrers?"
"_Ti--aras_," said Cyril.
"Ti--aras, then,--and rings and everything in her room when she came
home. I wish she would"--
The others gazed at her in horror.
"Well, she _will_," said Robert; "you've wished, my good Jane--and our
only chance now is to find the Psammead, and if it's in a good temper
it _may_ take back the wish and give us another. If not--well--goodness
knows what we're in for!--the police of course, and---- Don't cry,
silly! We'll stand by you. Father says we need never to be afraid if we
don't do anything wrong and always speak the truth."
But Cyril and Anthea exchanged gloomy glances. They remembered how
convincing the truth about the Psammead had been once before when told
to the police.
It was a day of misfortunes. Of course the Psammead could not be found.
Nor the jewels, though every one of the children searched the mother's
room again and again.
"Of course," Robert said, "_we_ couldn't find them. It'll be mother
who'll do that. Perhaps she'll think they've been in the house for years
and years, and never know they are the stolen ones at all."
"Oh yes!" Cyril was very scornful; "then mother will be a receiver of
stolen goods, and you know jolly well what _that's_ worse than."
Another and exhaustive search of the sand-pit failed to reveal the
Psammead, so the children went back to the house slowly and sadly.
"I don't care," said Anthea stoutly, "we'll tell mother the truth, and
she'll give back the jewels--and make everything all right."
"Do you think so?" said Cyril slowly. "Do you think she'll believe us?
Could anyone believe about a Sammyadd unless they'd seen it? She'll
think we're pretending. Or else she'll think we're raving mad, and then
we shall be sent to the mad-house. How would you like it?"--he turned
suddenly on the miserable Jane,--"how would you like it, to be shut up
in an iron cage with bars and padded walls, and nothing to do but stick
straws in your hair all day, and listen to the howlings and ravings of
the other maniacs? Make up your minds to it, all of you. It's no use
telling mother."
"But it's true," said Jane.
"Of course it is, but it's not true enough for grown-up people to
believe it," said Anthea.
"Cyril's right. Let's put flowers in all the vases, and try not to think
about the diamonds. After all, everything has come right in the end all
the other times."
So they filled all the pots they could find with flowers--asters and
zinnias, and loose-leaved late red roses from the wall of the
stableyard, till the house was a perfect bower.
And almost as soon as dinner was cleared away mother arrived, and was
clasped in eight loving arms. It was very difficult indeed not to tell
her all about the Psammead at once, because they had got into the habit