The Magic City Part 20

'Of course. He is called the s.h.i.+p of the desert,' Mr. Noah informed them, 'and a s.h.i.+p that wouldn't carry more than one would be simply silly.'

So _that_ was settled. Mr. Noah himself saddled and bridled the camel, which was a very large one, with his own hands.

'Let me see,' he said, standing thoughtful with the lead rope in his hand, 'you'll be wanting dogs--'

'I _always_ want dogs,' said Philip warmly.

'--to use in emergencies.' He whistled and two Noah's Ark dogs leaped from their kennels to their chains' end. They were dachshunds, very long and low, and very alike except that one was a little bigger and a little browner than the other.

'This is your master and that's your mistress,' Mr. Noah explained to the dogs, and they fawned round the children.

'Then you'll want things to eat and things to drink and tents and umbrellas in case of bad weather, and---- But let's turn down this street; just at the corner we shall find exactly what we want.'

It was a shop that said outside 'Universal Provider. Expeditions fitted out at a moment's notice. Punctuality and dispatch.' The shopkeeper came forward politely. He was so exactly like Mr. Noah that the children knew who he was even before he said, 'Well, father,' and Mr. Noah said, 'This is my son: he has had some experience in outfits.'

'What have you got to start with?' the son asked, getting to business at once.

'Two dogs, two children, and a camel,' said Mr. Noah. 'Yes, I know it's customary to have two of everything, but I a.s.sure you, my dear boy, that one camel is as much as Sir Philip can manage. It is indeed.'

Mr. Noah's son very dutifully supposed that his father knew best and willingly agreed to provide everything that was needed for the expedition, including one best-quality talking parrot, and to deliver all goods, carefully packed, within half an hour.

So now you see Philip, and Lucy who still wore her fairy dress, packed with all their belongings on the top of a very large and wobbly camel, and being led out of the city by the usual procession, with seven bands of music all playing 'See the Conquering Hero goes,' quite a different tune from the one you know, which has a name a little like that.

The camel and its load were rather a tight fit for the particular gateway that they happened to go out by, and the children had to stoop to avoid sc.r.a.ping their heads against the top of the arch. But they got through all right, and now they were well on the road which was really little more than a field path running through the flowery meadow country where the dragon had been killed. They saw the Stonehenge ruins and the big tower far away to the left, and in front lay the vast and interesting expanse of the Absolutely Unknown.

The sun was s.h.i.+ning--there was a sun, and Mr. Noah had told the children that it came out of the poetry books, together with rain and flowers and the changing seasons--and in spite of the strange, almost-tumble-no-it's-all-right-but-you'd-better-look-out way in which the camel walked, the two travellers were very happy. The dogs bounded along in the best of spirits, and even the camel seemed less a prey than usual to that proud melancholy which you must have noticed in your visits to the Zoo as his most striking quality.

It was certainly very grand to ride on a camel, and Lucy tried not to think how difficult it would be to get on and off. The parrot was interesting too. It talked extremely well. Of course you understand that, if you can only make a parrot understand, it can tell you everything you want to know about other animals; because it understands _their_ talk quite naturally and without being made. The present parrot declined ordinary conversation, and when questioned only recited poetry of a rather dull kind that went on and on. 'Arms and the man I sing' it began, and then something about haughty Juno. Its voice was soothing, and riding on the camel was not unlike being rocked in a very b.u.mpety cradle. The children were securely seated in things like padded panniers, and they had had an exciting day. As the sun set, which it did quite soon, the parrot called out to the nearest dog, 'I say, Max, they're asleep.'

[Ill.u.s.tration: On the top of a very large and wobbly camel.]

'I don't wonder,' said Max. 'But it's all right. Humpty knows the way.'

'Keep a civil tongue in your head, you young dog, can't you?' said the camel grumpily.

'Don't be cross, darling,' said the other dog, whose name was Brenda, 'and be sure you stop at a really first-cla.s.s oasis for the night. But I know we can trust _you_, dear.'

The camel muttered that it was all very well, but his voice was not quite as cross as before.

After that the expedition went on in silence through the deepening twilight.

A tumbling, shaking, dumping sensation, more like a soft railway accident than anything else, awakened our travellers, and they found that the camel was kneeling down.

'Off you come,' said the parrot, 'and make the fire and boil the kettle.'

'Polly put the kettle on,' Lucy said absently, as she slid down to the ground; to which the parrot replied, 'Certainly not. I wish you wouldn't rake up that old story. It was quite false. I never did put a kettle on, and I never will.'

Why should I describe to you the adventure of camping at an oasis in a desert? You must all have done it many times; or if you have not done it, you have read about it. You know all about the well and the palm trees and the dates and things. They had cocoa for supper. It was great fun, and they slept soundly and awoke in the morning with a heart for any fate, as a respectable poet puts it.

The next day was just the same as the first, only instead of going through fresh green fields, the way lay through dry yellow desert. And again the children slept, and again the camel chose an oasis with remarkable taste and judgment. But the second night was not at all the same as the first. For in the middle of it the parrot awakened Philip by biting his ear, and then hopping to a safe distance from his awakening fists and crying out, 'Make up the camp fire--look alive. It's lions.'

The dogs were whining and barking, and Brenda was earnestly trying to climb a palm tree. Max faced the danger, it is true, but he seemed to have no real love of sport.

Philip sprang up and heaped dead palm scales and leaves on the dying fire. It blazed up and something moved beyond the bushes. Philip wondered whether those pairs of s.h.i.+ning things, like strayed stars, that he saw in the darkness, could really be the eyes of lions.

'What a nuisance these lions are to be sure,' said the parrot. 'No, they won't come near us while the fire's burning, but really, they ought to be put down by law.'

'Why doesn't somebody kill them?' Lucy asked. She had wakened when Philip did, and, after a meditative minute, had helped with the palm scales and things.

'It's not so easy,' said the parrot; 'n.o.body knows how to do it. How would _you_ kill a lion?'

'_I_ don't know,' said Philip; but Lucy said, 'Are they Noah's Ark lions?'

'Of course they are,' said Polly; 'all the books with lions in them are kept shut up.'

'I know how you could kill Noah's Ark lions if you could catch them,'

Lucy said.

'It's easy enough to catch them,' said Polly; 'an hour after dawn they go to sleep, but it's unsportsmanlike to kill game when it's asleep.'

'I'm going to think, if you don't mind,' Lucy announced, and sat down very near the fire. 'It's just the opposite of the dragon,' she said after a minute. The parrot nodded and there was a long silence. Then suddenly Lucy jumped up.

'I know,' she cried, 'oh--I really _do_ know. And it won't hurt them either. I don't a bit mind killing things, but I do hate hurting them.

There's plenty of rope, I know.'

There was.

'Then when it's dawn we'll tie them up and then you'll see.'

'I think you might tell _me_,' said Philip, injured.

'No--they may understand what we say. Polly does.'

Philip made a natural suggestion. But Lucy replied that it was not manners to whisper, and the parrot said that it should think not indeed.

So, sitting by the fire, all faces turned to where those strange twin stars shone and those strange hidden movements and rustlings stirred, the expedition waited for the dawn. Brenda had given up the tree-climbing idea, and was cuddling up as close to Lucy as possible.

The camel, who had been trembling with fear all the while, tried to cuddle up to Philip, which would have been easier if it had been a smaller kind instead of being, as it was, what Mr. Noah's son, the Universal Provider, had called, 'an out size in camels.'

And presently dawn came, not slow and silvery as dawns come here, but sudden and red, with strong level lights and the shadows of the palm trees stretching all across the desert.

In broad daylight it did not seem so hard to have to go and look for the lions. They all went--even the camel pulled himself together to join the lion-hunt, and Brenda herself decided to come rather than be left alone.

The lions were easily found. There were only two of them, of course, and they were lying close together, each on its tawny side on the sandy desert at the edge of the oasis.

Very gently the ropes, with slip knots, were fitted over their heads, and the other end of the rope pa.s.sed round a palm tree. Other ropes round the trees were pa.s.sed round what would have been the waists of the lions if lions had such things as waists.

'Now!' whispered Lucy, and at once all four ropes were pulled tight. The lions struggled, but only in their sleep. And soon they were still. Then with more and more ropes their legs and tails were made fast.