The Greatest Works of E. Nesbit (220+ Titles in One Illustrated Edition). Эдит Несбит
not much time,’ said Richard again; ‘they’ve only let us come here just to see if you know us. I expect they’re listening. You are Lord Arden now – the old lord is dead. I can get you out if you do exactly as I say.’
‘It’s worth trying,’ said Uncle Jim, – ‘it’s worth trying anyhow, whatever it is.’
‘Are you free to go where you like?’
‘Yes,’ said Lord Arden – not Edred, but Edred’s father, for Edred was now no longer Lord Arden. ‘You see there’s no way out but the one, and that’s guarded by a hundred men with poisoned arrows.’
‘There is another way,’ said Richard; ‘the way we came. The white bear can carry you, one at a time.’
‘Shall we risk it?’ said Lord Arden, a little doubtfully.
‘Rather!’ said Uncle Jim; ‘think of Edith and the kids.’
‘That’s what I am thinking of,’ said Lord Arden; ‘while we’re alive there’s a chance. If we try this and fail, they’ll kill us.’
‘You won’t fail,’ said Richard. ‘I’ll help you to get home; but I would like to know how you got into this fix. It’s only curiosity. But I wish you’d tell me. Perhaps I shan’t see you again after today.’
‘We stumbled on the entrance, the only entrance to the golden plain,’ said Lord Arden, ‘prospecting for gold among these mountains. They have kept us prisoners ever since, because they are determined not to let the world know of the existence of the plain. There are always rumours of it, but so far no “civilised” people have found it. Every King when he comes to the throne takes an oath that he will die sooner than allow the plain to be infected by the wicked cruelties of modern civilisation.’
‘I think so too,’ said Dick.
‘This is an older civilisation than that of the Incas,’ said Lord Arden, ‘and it is the most beautiful life I have ever dreamed of. If they had trusted me, I would never have betrayed them. If I escape, I will never betray them. If I let in our horrible system of trusts and syndicates, and commercialism and crime, on this golden life, I should know myself to be as great a criminal as though I had thrown a little child to wild beasts.’
The white cats noticed with wonder and respect that their father addressed Richard exactly as though he had been a grown-up.
‘We managed to send one line to a newspaper, to say that we were taken by bandits,’ Lord Arden went on; ‘it was all that they would allow us to do. But except that we have not been free, we have had everything – food, clothes, kindness, justice, affection. We must escape, if we can, because of my sister and the children, but it is like going out of Eden into the Black Country.’
‘That’s so,’ said Uncle Jim.
‘And if we’re not to see you again,’ Lord Arden went on, ‘tell me why you have come – at great risk it must be – to help us.’
‘I owe a debt,’ said Richard, in a low voice, ‘to all who bear the name of Arden.’ His voice sank so low that the two cats could only hear the words ‘head of the house.’
‘And now,’ Richard went on, ‘you see that black chink over there?’ he pointed to the crevice in the cliff. ‘Be there, both of you, at moonrise, and you shall get away safely to Arden Castle.’
‘You must come with us, of course,’ said Lord Arden. ‘I might be of service to you. We have quite a respectable little fortune in a bank at Lima – not in our own names – but we can get it out, if you can get us out. You’ve brought us luck, I’m certain of it. Won’t you go with us, and share it?’
‘I can’t,’ said Richard. ‘I must go back to my own time, my own place, I mean. Now I’ll go. Come on, cats.’
The cats looked imploringly at their father, but they went and stood by Richard.
‘I suppose we may go?’ he asked.
‘Every one is perfectly free here,’ said Lord Arden. ‘The only thing you may not do is to leave the golden plain. It is very strange. There are hardly any laws. We are all free to do as we like, and no one seems to like to do anything that hurts anyone else. Only if anyone is caught trying to get into the outer world, or to let the outer world in, he is killed – without pain, and not as vengeance but as necessity.’
The white cats looked at each other rather ruefully. This was not at all the way in which they remembered their daddy’s talking to them.
‘But,’ said Lord Arden, ‘for the children and my sister we must risk it. I trust you completely, and we will be at the crevice when the moon rises.’
So Richard and his three white animals went out down steps cut in the solid rock, and the townspeople crowded round them with fruits and maize-cakes for Richard, and milk in golden platters for the cats.
And later Richard made signs of being sleepy, and they let him go away among the fields, followed by the three white creatures. And at the appointed hour they all met under the vast cliff that was the natural wall and guardian of the golden plain.
And the Mouldiwarp carried Uncle Jim up to the top, and then came back for Lord Arden and Richard. But before there was time to do more a shout went up, and a thousand torches sprang to life in the city they had left, and they knew that their flight had been discovered.
‘There’s no time,’ the white Bear-Mouldiwarp, to the utter astonishment of Lord Arden, opened its long mouth and spoke. And the white cats also opened their mouths and cried, ‘Oh, daddy, how awful! what shall we do?’
‘Hold your silly tongues,’ said the Mouldiwarp crossly. ‘You was told not to go gossiping. Here! scratch a way out with them white paws of yours.’
It set the example, scratching at the enormous cliff with those strong, blunt, curved front feet of it. And the cats scratched too, with their white, padded gloves that had tiger claws to them. And the rock yielded – there was a white crack – wider, wider. And the swaying, swirling torches came nearer and nearer across the plain.
‘In with you!’ cried the Mouldiwarp; ‘in with you!’
‘Jim!’ said Lord Arden. ‘I’ll not go without Jim!’
‘He’s half-way there already,’ said the Mouldiwarp, pushing Lord Arden with its great white shoulder. ‘Come, I say, come!’ It pushed them all into the crack of the rock, and the cliff closed firm and fast behind them, an unanswerable ‘No’ set up in the face of their pursuers.
‘This way out,’ said the Mouldiwarp, pointing its dusty claw to where ahead light showed.
‘Why,’ said Edred, ‘it’s the smuggler’s cave – and there’s the clock!’
Next moment there it wasn’t, for Richard had leapt on it, and he and it had vanished together, the Mouldiwarp clinging to the hour hand at the last moment.
The white cats, which were Edred and Elfrida, drew back from the whirl of the hands that was the first step towards vanishment. They saw their father and Uncle Jim go up the steps that led to the rude wooden door whose key was like a church key – the door that led to the opening among the furze that they had never been able to find again.
When the vanishing of the clock allowed them to follow, and they regained the sunny outer air where the skylark were singing as usual, they were just in time to see two figures going towards the castle and very near it.
They turned to look at each other.
‘Why,’ said Edred, ‘you’re not a cat any more!’
‘No more are you, if it comes to that,’ said Elfrida. ‘Oh, Edred, they’re going in at the big gate! Do you really think it’s real – or have we just dreamed it – this time? It was much more dreamish than any of the other things.’
‘I