The Old Tobacco Shop

He went to a wall and drew from behind the hangings a box, which he opened on the table. From this box he took six white linen gowns, and at his direction each put on one of the gowns. Freddie's was much too long, and he was obliged to hold it up.

"Well," said Toby, "I always did look ridiculous in a night-gown, but this beats – "

"Peace," said Shiraz. "The Fire will not harm you now. Two things only are necessary: to fear nothing, and to hold tight to the hour-glasses."

With these words he clapped his hands, and from behind the hangings on the rear wall stepped a black man, clad in a robe similar to the others. To this man the Persian spoke in some strange tongue, and the man bowed.

"Now," said Shiraz, "you will follow my servant. Farewell, and peace be with you."

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.