The Old Tobacco Shop

CHAPTER XXIII

FROM THE FIRE BACK TO THE FRYING PAN

The white-robed figures, having left the room by a small circular door behind the hangings, followed the black servant along a pitch-dark passage, and in a few moments came to a bridge, similar to the one they had crossed before. As they felt their way over it cautiously one by one, the sound of rushing water came to them from below, and a cold breeze fanned their cheeks. A little further on they touched the first step of a stair, and began to ascend its worn stone treads. They mounted some thirty steps, and touching the wall with their hands, moved onward along a passage. This passage made an abrupt turn to the left, and when they had cleared the corner they saw in its sides before them a gleam of light here and there.

"The Master's work-rooms," said the black servant. "Please to follow."

They passed now and then beneath a lighted window, too high to be seen through, and at the end of the passage the servant paused before a closed iron door. He opened this door with a key, and led them forth.

Before them was a garden, the most beautiful that any of them had ever seen. High over it was a dome of pale green and amber glass, through which the sunlight streamed in mild and parti-coloured rays. The walls which supported the dome were so high that it was impossible to see beyond. In the center was a fountain, dropping in a sparkling shower into a marble basin; around it spread a well-ordered carpet of flowers, of all the colours, as it seemed, of the rainbow; along the walls were cocoa palms, banana trees, and the feathery bamboo; white cockatoos sailed across from palm to palm; the air was heavy with a warm odour of moist earth and blossoms. The whole party drew a deep breath of pleasure. The dark place from which they had come seemed to fade away like a dream before the soft beauty of the garden.

The servant led them to the opposite side, and unlocked a door in the wall, making way for them to pass in before him. They entered, and heard the door locked behind them; the servant was no longer with them; they were alone in a small square room, of stone walls and an earthen floor; there was no opening, but in the opposite wall was a closed door. A pale light pervaded the place, from what source they could not discover. In the earthen floor from wall to wall grew a thicket of stiff stalks, higher than Freddie's head, and clustered closely around each stalk from bottom to top were flowers of a waxen whiteness.

"It seems a real pity," said Aunt Amanda, "to break those pretty plants, but I reckon we've got to wade into them. I'm mighty curious to see what's on the other side of that door. Probably the fire the old man was talking about. Oh, dear, I don't like fire. But we've got to get to that door, so come along."

The whole party moved in a body into the thicket of waxen stalks.

As they stepped in, the stalks broke around them with sharp reports. They moved on again, and the reports, as the stalks broke, became louder and louder; and now each one felt the hour-glass in his hand being tugged at, and found that wherever his hand touched a flower, the petals flattened themselves on the hand and the glass, and clung so tight that it took a hard jerk to get them loose. There was danger of losing the glasses, and with one accord they held the glasses high above their heads. The moment they did so, the conduct of the stalks became terrifying indeed.

As if in anger, the broken stalks spouted forth, with a hiss and a rush, blinding jets of liquid white fire, which tore at the ceiling angrily and roared and crackled. From the broken stalks it spread to the others, and in a moment jets of liquid white fire were blazing and crackling upward from all the stalks in the room, and the terrified captives were in the very midst of it.

It ran up their robes and showered on them from the ceiling; it became denser and angrier; it was all but unbearable, though they felt it in only a tiny fraction of its real strength; in another instant the frail white gowns must surely be consumed. But in some strange way the gowns shed off the liquid fire, and remained unscorched.

For a moment the sufferers were stupefied. They were unable to move. Freddie tried to scream, but he could make no sound; he almost fainted away; but he felt, through it all, the sturdy arm of Mr. Toby tight about him.

They pushed on in a close body and passed the center of the room; the white glare became more blinding, the roar and crackle more deafening; they were surrounded, cut off, in the midst of destruction; they were bewildered; they stopped again; there was no use in going back; they must get forward through the furnace at any cost; they made a new start; and in a frenzy of terror, their hands before their eyes, with a rush they gained the door. They crowded against it; they pushed and beat upon it; it gave way before them; they rushed through, and it closed behind them of its own accord.

They were standing in broad daylight on the sidewalk of a city street, under a high blank wall, with shops on the opposite side; each with an hour-glass, empty of sand, in his right hand, and each clad only in a long white night-gown.

CHAPTER XXIV

DISENCHANTMENT COMPLETE

They looked behind them. A high stone wall rose at their backs, and in it was no sign of a door.

They looked across the street. It was a narrow street, paved with cobble-stones; on the opposite side, where a row of little low shops stretched away on either hand, a few people were going in and out at the doors, and a few others were walking at some distance, before the shop-windows. An ox-cart was coming slowly down the street.

Freddie had sometimes dreamed of being out among people in broad daylight in his night-gown, and he now felt the same terror he had felt in those dreams; he looked anxiously at the shops for a place in which to hide. No one appeared to observe them yet, but they would soon be seen, and it would be dreadful, unless they could find shelter without a moment's delay.

"We had better run into one of those shops," said he, breathlessly, "and ask them to hide us until we can get some clothes."

"Ah, no," said a soft voice beside him, at his right. "It is not a shop that I must go to now. I must hurry home."

Freddie looked around at his right for Aunt Amanda. There was no Aunt Amanda. In her place, holding an empty hour-glass in her right hand, was a lady, the fairest whom Freddie had ever seen. She was young; her eyes were of the blue of summer skies; her hair was golden yellow; on her soft white cheek was a tinge of pink; two heavy braids of hair hung almost to her knees; her eyes were sparkling with happiness, and a tender and wistful smile curved her lips. As Freddie gazed at her, he thought that there could not be in the world another so radiantly beautiful. She looked about her as one who sees familiar things after a long absence.

Freddie's eyes fell to the hand which was nearest him, her left. On the third finger of her left hand was a ruby ring.

"Are you," he faltered, "are you – Aunt Amanda?"

"I think," she said, smiling on him, "I think I was, once. I think I can remember that name. And you are – let me see; what was your name? Ah, yes, your name was Freddie. But we must hurry; we must not keep them waiting."

Freddie turned, and saw beside him four strange men, all gazing at the beautiful lady in amazement. In the right hand of each was an empty hour-glass.

Freddie looked down on the two men who stood nearest him; he looked down on them; he was suddenly aware that he was not looking up. They were short, for full-grown men, and of precisely the same height; their faces were square, their cheek-bones prominent, and their noses hooked; the head of one was bald, and the hair of the other's head lay flat down on his forehead where it curved back like a hairpin; except for their heads, they were in all respects twins. There was no hump on the back of either of them.

"Mr. Punch and Mr. Toby!" said Freddie.

"The wery same," said the bald-headed one.

"That's me," said the other.

Behind Mr. Toby stood a lean man in spectacles. His night-gown hung upon him very loosely, and he was very spare indeed. His smooth-shaven cheeks were somewhat hollow; his eyes behind his glasses were deep and solemn; his frame was the frame of one who subdues the flesh by fasting; snow-white hair, curling inward at the back of his neck, made a kind of aureole around his thin face; he looked for all the world as he stood barefoot in his long white gown, like one of those saints you see in painted glass windows in a church.

"Is it," said Freddie, hesitating, "is it – the Churchwarden?"

"I have reason to believe," said the saintly looking man, "that I have been known by that name. But I am in reality, and always have been, in reality, something far more lowly than a churchwarden; I am, and always have been, at heart, a meek and humble follower of the holy Thomas à Kempis, whose life of serene and cloistered sanctity I have always wished to imitate. Now that I am myself, it is my ambition to be known, if it is not too presumptuous to say so, as Thomas the Inferior. Pax vobiscum."

"I ain't got the least idea what that means," said Toby, "but anyway it's the Churchwarden's voice, whether he calls himself Thomas the Inferior or Daniel the Deleterious. You're heartily welcome, Warden, and I hope you won't mind my saying that a good meal wouldn't do you any harm, from the looks of you. I'm pretty near starved to death myself. Mr. Punch, we've got rid of our humps, as sure as you're born. We're as straight in our bodies as we've always been in our minds, and that's as straight as a string. By crackey, I never felt so fine in my life; blamed if I couldn't lick my weight in wildcats."

"Hi 'ave no wish to do so," said Mr. Punch. "Hi do not desire to engage in any conflict whatever; Hi should regard such conduct as wery reprehensible; wery. But one cannot but admit, harfter one's back 'as been so long out of correct proportion, as one may s'y, that one enjoys a wery pronounced satisfaction when one feels one's self restored to one's rightful position as a hupright person, in common with one's fellow – "

"What about Mr. Hanlon?" said Toby, turning around.

"Michael Hanlon, prisent!" said a cheerful voice.

Behind the Inferior Thomas stood a tall and handsome man, the picture of an athlete in the prime of condition. Short curling black hair clustered on his head; his eyes were of a humorous dark blue; his cheeks were like red apples; his shoulders were muscular, his back was straight, his figure slim; and he wore his night-gown as a Greek runner in ancient times might have worn his robe after the games.

"What!" said Freddie. "Can you talk?"

"Faith," said Mr. Hanlon, "I've a tongue in me head that can wag with anny that iver come off the blarney stone, and it's no lies I'm tellin' ye. For an Irish gintleman to have to listen and listen, and kape his tongue still in his head and say niver a worrd at all, at all, 'tis a hard life, me frinds, a hard life, and it's plaised I am to be mesilf at last, and the nate bit of tongue doin' his duty like a thrue son of Erin – I could tell ye a swate little shtory that comes to me mind, of a dumb Irishman that could not spake at all, at all, and the deaf wife of him that could not hear, and their twelve pigs all lyin' down in the mud with wan of thim standing up and crying out that the wolf was comin' in through the gate, and the good wife unable to hear and the good man unable to spake – "

"I reckon you've got your tongue, all right," said Toby. "I wish we had time to hear that story, but we haven't. Now, Freddie, what do you think we'd better – Why, Freddie! What's that you've got on your lip?"

Freddie put his hand to his upper lip. What he felt there was a tiny silken mustache. He blushed.

"And 'e's taller than any of us except Mr. 'Anlon!" exclaimed Mr. Punch. "My word!"

Freddie looked down at Mr. Punch, and realized his own height. He looked at his hands, and they were almost as large as Mr. Hanlon's. His night-gown came to his ankles, and he realized that he was no longer holding it up.

"Why," he said, "I must be grown up!"

"Grown up is the word," said Toby, "but I'd 'a' known you anywhere. Twenty-one years old, I should say."

"Twenty-two," said Mr. Punch.

Everyone now fell silent. The young and lovely lady, who had said nothing during their talk, was smiling from one to another. She seemed to feel no embarrassment nor concern, nor anything indeed but happiness. She looked at Toby with a smile, and all the men looked at her.

"Do you know me?" she said to Toby.

"You are changed," said he, "that's a fact. But I always knew that Aunt Amanda was like that, down deep inside of her. If she could only have looked like what she was, that's the way she would have looked, and I always knew it. I'm glad you've come to look like yourself at last."

"Ah!" said the beautiful lady. "I am glad you don't feel that I am strange to you. I know you all now, better than I have ever known you. You have been with me a long while, under disguise. I don't seem to remember very well what your disguises were, for I seem to have known you always as you are: my loyal knight," (turning to Freddie), "my body-guard," (turning to Mr. Toby and Mr. Punch), "my confessor," (turning to Thomas the Inferior), "and my courier," (turning to Mr. Hanlon). "In my exile you have been with me, and in my homecoming you shall be with me still."

"We hope to be with you always," said the tall young knight who used to be Freddie. "But we are beginning to be noticed. I have seen one or two people stare from the shop windows. We had better hurry to one of those shops and seek refuge until we can find proper clothes."

"Ah, no!" said the lady, with a radiant smile. "I must hasten home. They have been waiting a long time, and I must not lose a moment. I know the way! This street is changed since I was here, but I know it! I know the way! Come with me! I am going home!"

She placed her empty hour-glass in Freddie's hand, and led the way up the street. Her bare feet trod the pavement swiftly; she walked as if she had never known what it was to be lame; she went swimmingly, with a motion of infinite grace. The others looked about them, uneasily, as they followed, but she seemed to care nothing for the eyes of the people. The ox-cart stopped as it came to them, and the driver who was walking beside it stopped also, and gazed at them with his mouth open. Faces appeared at shop-windows as they went by, and figures appeared at shop-doors. Two or three foot-passengers passed them, and after they had gone, went to the nearest shop-door and stood there for a moment in talk with the shop-keeper. They then began to follow the strange white-clad group up the street. In a few moments others joined them. Freddie looked behind, and wished to run; but the lady who was leading paid no attention.

A little further on she turned a corner, and the party found themselves in a much busier street. The sidewalks were alive with people. In a moment there was a great silence. When the six figures first appeared, some of the people began to laugh. Then they looked at the face of the lady who swept along in advance of her attendants, and they laughed no more. They began to whisper one to another. They fell apart, and made way for her and her attendants. They stopped; they forgot their own affairs; some ran into the shops and called out the persons who were within; they gaped, and whispered, and nodded, and held up their hands, and with one accord began to follow.

Further on, heads appeared from the windows of pleasure-towers and pleasure-domes; doors opened; all who could walk joined themselves to the crowd which was following the wondrous lady and her five strange companions.

Deeper and deeper into the city; on past the region of shops into the region of gardens and mansions; up by a gradual ascent to the place of the largest and tallest towers and domes; on they went, the six white-gowned and bare-footed figures before, and the crowd behind; and the further they went, the greater became the crowd; and still there was no sound from the people, except the sound of an awestruck whispering.

The dark cloud on the mountain-top was now plainly in view before them between the towers and domes, and they could see the great mass of the King's Tower where it rose to the cloud and lost itself within it. At the end of the street which they were now following a majestic gateway could be seen, and beyond it a park.

Behind them the street was choked from wall to wall with a vast multitude. From every house, as the multitude passed, its people poured forth and joined the throng; business was forgotten; shops and houses were deserted; it seemed as if the whole city was in the street, following the lady and her five attendants. She looked not behind her once. She seemed to be unaware of anything in the world about her; her eyes shone like stars; she had forgotten even her companions; she spoke not a word, but looked forward to the stately gateway and the park beyond. Still no sound came from the multitude, except a sound of whispering.

They reached the gateway. On each side was a great stone pillar, supporting a gate of massive bronze. The gates were open. Without an instant's hesitation she led the way within, and as she did so placed her left hand on her heart. The throng seemed to waver a moment, and then as the six barefoot and white-gowned figures moved swiftly up the driveway into the park, it flowed in silently between the gates, and followed at a respectful distance.