The E. Nesbit MEGAPACK ®: 26 Classic Novels and Stories. E. Nesbit
The ark’s water-tight
And the crew are inside.
“Up, up with the flag
Let it wave o’er the sea;
We’re afloat, we’re afloat—
And what else should we be?”
“I don’t know,” said Lucy; “but there isn’t any flag, is there?”
“The principle’s the same,” said Mr. Noah; “but I’m afraid we didn’t think of a flag.”
“I did,” said Mr. Perrin; “it’s only a Jubilee hankey”—he drew it slowly from his breast-pocket, a cotton Union Jack it was—“but it shall wave all right. But not till daylight, I think, sir. Discretion’s the better part of—don’t you think, Mr. Noah, sir? Wouldn’t do to open the ark out of hours, so to speak!”
“Just so,” said Mr. Noah. “One, two, three! Bed!”
The ark swayed easily on a sea not too rough. The saloon passengers staggered to their cabins. And silence reigned in the ark.
* * * *
I am sorry to say that the Pretenderette dropped the wicker cage containing the parrot into the sea—an unpardonable piece of cruelty and revenge; unpardonable, that is, unless you consider that she did not really know any better. The Hippogriff’s white wings swept on; Philip, now laid across the knees of the Pretenderette (a most undignified attitude for any boy, and I hope none of you may be placed in such a position), screamed as the cage struck the water, and, “Oh, Polly!” he cried.
“All right,” the parrot answered; “keep your pecker up!”
“What did it say?” the Pretenderette asked.
“Something about peck,” said Philip upside down.
“Ah!” said the Pretenderette with satisfaction, “he won’t do any more pecking for some time to come.” And the wide Hippogriff wings swept on over the wide sea.
Polly’s cage fell and floated. And it floated alone till the dawn, when, with wheelings and waftings and cries, the gulls came from far and near to see what this new strange thing might be that bobbed up and down in their waters in the light of the new-born day.
“Hullo!” said Polly in bird-talk, clinging upside down to the top bars of the cage.
“Hullo, yourself,” replied the eldest gull; “what’s up? And who are you? And what are you doing in that unnatural lobster pot?”
“I conjure you,” said the parrot earnestly, “I conjure you by our common birdhood to help me in my misfortune.”
“No gull who is a gull can resist that appeal,” said the master of the sea birds; “what can we do, brother-bird?”
“The matter is urgent,” said Polly, but quite calmly. “I am getting very wet and I dislike salt water. It is bad for my plumage. May I give an order to your followers, bird-brother?”
“Give,” said the master gull, with a graceful wheel and whirl of his splendid wings.
“Let four of my brothers raise this detested trap high above the waves,” said the parrot, “and let others of you, with your brave strong beaks, break through the bars and set me free.”
“Delighted,” said the master gull; “any little thing, you know,” and his own high-bred beak was the first to take hold of the cage, which presently the gulls lifted in the air and broke through, setting the parrot free.
“Thank you, brother-birds,” the parrot said, shaking wet wings and spreading them; “one good turn deserves another. The beach yonder was white with cockles but yesterday.”
“Thank you, brother-bird,” they all said, and flew fleetly cocklewards.
And that was how the parrot got free from the cage and went back to the shore to have that little talk with the blugraiwee which I told you about in the last chapter.
* * * *
The ark was really very pleasant by daylight with the sun shining in at its windows. The sun shone outside as well, of course, and the Union Jack waved cheerfully in the wind. Breakfast was served on the terrace at the end of the ark—you know—that terrace where the boat part turns up. It was a very nice breakfast, and the sea was quite smooth—a quite perfect sea. This was rather fortunate, for there was nothing else. Sea on every side of the ark. No land at all.
“However shall we find the way,” Lucy asked the Lord High Islander, “with nothing but sea?”
“Oh,” he answered, “that’s all the better, really. Mr. Noah steers much better when there’s no land in sight. It’s all practice, you know.”
“And when we come in sight of land, will he steer badly then?”
“Oh, anybody can steer then,” said Billy; “you if you like.” So it was Lucy who steered the ark into harbour, under Mr. Noah’s directions. Arks are very easy to steer if you only know the way. Of course arks are not like other vessels; they require neither sails nor steam engines, nor oars to make them move. The very arkishness of the ark makes it move just as the steersman wishes. He only has to say “Port,” “Starboard,” “Right ahead,” “Slow” and so on, and the ark (unlike many people I know) immediately does as it is told. So steering was easy and pleasant; one just had to keep the ark’s nose towards the distant domes and pinnacles of a town that shone and glittered on the shore a few miles away. And the town grew nearer and nearer, and the black streak that was the people of the town began to show white dots that were the people’s faces. And then the ark was moored against a quay side, and a friendly populace cheered as Mr. Noah stepped on to firm land, to be welcomed by the governor of the town and a choice selection of eminent citizens.
“It’s quite an event for them,” said Mr. Perrin. “They don’t have much happening here. A very lazy lot they be, almost as bad as Somnolentia.”
“What makes them lazy?” Lucy asked.
“It’s owing to the onions and potatoes growing wild in these parts, I believe,” said the Lord High Islander. “They get enough to eat without working. And the onions make them sleepy.”
They talked apart while Mr. Noah was arranging things with the Governor of the town, who had come down to the harbour in a hurry and a flurry and a furry gown.
“I’ve arranged everything,” said Mr. Noah at last. “The islanders and the M.A.’s and the animals are to be allowed to camp in the public park till we’ve consulted the oracle and decided what’s to be done with them. They must live somewhere, I suppose. Life has become much too eventful for me lately. However there are only three more deeds for the Earl of Ark to do, and then perhaps we shall have a little peace and quietness.”
“The Earl of Ark?” Lucy repeated.
“Philip, you know. I do wish you’d try to remember that he’s an earl now. Now you and I must take camel and be off.”
And now came seven long days of camel travelling, through desert and forest and over hill and through valley, till at last Lucy and Mr. Noah came to the Hidden Place where the oracle is, and where that is I may not tell you—because it’s one of the eleven mysteries. And I must not tell you what the oracle is because that is another of the mysteries. But I may tell you that if you want to consult the oracle you have to go a long way between rows of round pillars, rather like those in Egyptian tombs. And as you go it gets darker and darker, and when it is quite dark you see a little, little light a very long way off, and you hear very far away, a beautiful music, and you smell the scent of flowers that do not grow in any wood or field or garden of this earth. Mixed with this scent is the scent of incense and of old tapestried rooms, where no one has lived for a very long time. And you remember all the sad and beautiful things you have ever seen or heard, and you fall down on the ground and hide your face in your hands and call on the oracle,