“Oh, please don’t,” said Anthea. “I can’t understand all these beginnings of stories, and you seem to be getting deeper and deeper in them every minute. Do tell us your own story. That’s what we really want to hear.”
“Well,” said the Phoenix, seeming on the whole rather flattered, “to cut about seventy long stories short (though I had to listen to them all—but to be sure in the wilderness there is plenty of time), this prince and princess were so fond of each other that they did not want anyone else, and the enchanter—don’t be alarmed, I won’t go into his history—had given them a magic carpet (you’ve heard of a magic carpet?), and they had just sat on it and told it to take them right away from everyone—and it had brought them to the wilderness. And as they meant to stay there they had no further use for the carpet, so they gave it to me. That was indeed the chance of a lifetime!”
“I don’t see what you wanted with a carpet,” said Jane, “when you’ve got those lovely wings.”
“They are nice wings, aren’t they?” said the Phoenix, simpering and spreading them out. “Well, I got the prince to lay out the carpet, and I laid my egg on it; then I said to the carpet, ‘Now, my excellent carpet, prove your worth. Take that egg somewhere where it can’t be hatched for two thousand years, and where, when that time’s up, someone will light a fire of sweet wood and aromatic gums, and put the egg in to hatch;’ and you see it’s all come out exactly as I said. The words were no sooner out of my beak than egg and carpet disappeared. The royal lovers assisted to arrange my pile, and soothed my last moments. I burnt myself up and knew no more till I awoke on yonder altar.”
It pointed its claw at the grate.
“But the carpet,” said Robert, “the magic carpet that takes you anywhere you wish. What became of that?”
“Oh, that?” said the Phoenix, carelessly—“I should say that that is the carpet. I remember the pattern perfectly.”
It pointed as it spoke to the floor, where lay the carpet which mother had bought in the Kentish Town Road for twenty-two shillings and ninepence.
At that instant father’s latchkey was heard in the door.
“Oh,” whispered Cyril, “now we shall catch it for not being in bed!”
“Wish yourself there,” said the Phoenix, in a hurried whisper, “and then wish the carpet back in its place.”
No sooner said than done. It made one a little giddy, certainly, and a little breathless; but when things seemed right way up again, there the children were, in bed, and the lights were out.
They heard the soft voice of the Phoenix through the darkness.
“I shall sleep on the cornice above your curtains,” it said. “Please don’t mention me to your kinsfolk.”
“Not much good,” said Robert, “they’d never believe us. I say,” he called through the half-open door to the girls; “talk about adventures and things happening. We ought to be able to get some fun out of a magic carpet and a Phoenix.”
“Rather,” said the girls, in bed.
“Children,” said father, on the stairs, “go to sleep at once. What do you mean by talking at this time of night?”
No answer was expected to this question, but under the bedclothes Cyril murmured one.
“Mean?” he said. “Don’t know what we mean. I don’t know what anything means.”
“But we’ve got a magic carpet and a Phoenix,” said Robert.
“You’ll get something else if father comes in and catches you,” said Cyril. “Shut up, I tell you.”
Robert shut up. But he knew as well as you do that the adventures of that carpet and that Phoenix were only just beginning.
Father and mother had not the least idea of what had happened in their absence. This is often the case, even when there are no magic carpets or Phoenixes in the house.
The next morning—but I am sure you would rather wait till the next chapter before you hear about that.
II
The Topless Tower
The children had seen the Phoenix-egg hatched in the flames in their own nursery grate, and had heard from it how the carpet on their own nursery floor was really the wishing carpet, which would take them anywhere they chose. The carpet had transported them to bed just at the right moment, and the Phoenix had gone to roost on the cornice supporting the window-curtains of the boys’ room.
“Excuse me,” said a gentle voice, and a courteous beak opened, very kindly and delicately, the right eye of Cyril. “I hear the slaves below preparing food. Awaken! A word of explanation and arrangement … I do wish you wouldn’t—”
The Phoenix stopped speaking and fluttered away crossly to the cornice-pole; for Cyril had hit out, as boys do when they are awakened suddenly, and the Phoenix was not used to boys, and his feelings, if not his wings, were hurt.
“Sorry,” said Cyril, coming awake all in a minute. “Do come back! What was it you were saying? Something about bacon
