And Mr. Noah gravely recited the following lines. I agree with him that, for an oracle, they were extremely straightforward.
“You had better embark
Once again in the Ark,
And sailing from dryland
Make straight for the Island.”
“Did it really say that?” Lucy asked.
“Of course it did,” said Mr. Noah; “that’s a special instruction to me, but I daresay you heard something quite different. The oracle doesn’t say the same thing to everyone, of course. Didn’t you get any special instruction?”
“Only to try to be brave and good,” said Lucy shyly.
“Well, then,” said Mr. Noah, “you carry out your instructions and I’ll carry out mine.”
“But what’s the use of going to the island if you can’t land when you get there?” Lucy insisted. “You know only two people can land there, and we’re not them, are we?”
“Oh, if you begin asking what’s the use, we shan’t get anywhere,” said Mr. Noah. “And more than half the things you say are questions.”
I’m sorry this chapter is cut up into bits with lines of stars,3 but stars are difficult to avoid when you have to tell about a lot of different things happening all at once. That is why it is much better always to keep your party together if you can. And I have allowed mine to get separated so that Philip, the parrot and the rest of the company are going through three sets of adventures all at the same time. This is most trying for me, and fully accounts for the stars. Which I hope you’ll excuse. However.
We now come back by way of the stars to Philip wrong way up in the clutches of the Pretenderette. She had breathed the magic word in the Hippogriff’s ear, but she had not added any special order. So the Hippogriff was entirely its own master as far as the choice of where it was to go was concerned. It tossed its white mane after circling three times between air and sky, made straight for the Island-where-you-mayn’t-go. The Pretenderette didn’t know that it was the Island-where-you-mayn’t-go, and as they got nearer and she could see plainly its rainbow-coloured sands, its palms and its waterfalls, its cool green thickets and many tinted flowers and glowing fruits, it seemed to her that she might do worse than land there and rest for a little while. For even the most disagreeable people get tired sometimes, and the Pretenderette had had a hard day of it. So she made no attempt to check the Hippogriff or alter its course. And when the Hippogriff was hovering but a few inches from the grass of the most beautiful of the island glades, she jerked Philip roughly off her knee and he fell all in a heap on the ground. With great presence of mind our hero—if he isn’t a hero by now he never will be—picked himself up and bolted into the bushes. No rabbit could have bolted more instantly and fleetly.
“I’ll teach you,” said the furious Pretenderette, preparing to alight. She looked down to find a soft place to jump on. And then she saw that every blade of grass was a tiny spear of steel, and every spear was pointed at her. She made the Hippogriff take her to another glade—more little steel spears. To the rainbow sands—but on looking at them she saw that they were quivering quicksands. Wherever green grass had grown the spears now grew; and wherever the sand was it was a terrible trap of quicksand. She tried to dismount in a little pool, but fortunately for her she noticed in time that what shone in it so silvery was not water but white-hot molten metal.
“What a nasty place,” said the Pretenderette; “I don’t know that I could have chosen a nastier place to leave that naughty child in. He’ll know who’s master by the time I send to fetch him back to prison. Here, you, get back to Polistopolis as fast as you can. See? Please, I mean,” she added, and then she spoke the magic word.
Philip was peeping through the bushes close by, and he heard that magic word (I dare not tell you what it is) and he saw for the first time the face of the Pretenderette. And he trembled and shivered in his bushy lurking-place. For the Pretenderette was the only really unpleasant person Philip had ever met in the world. It was Lucy’s nurse, the nurse with the grey dress and the big fat feet, who had been so cross to him and had pulled down his city.
“How on earth,” Philip wondered to himself, “did she get here? And how on earth shall I get away from her?” He had not seen the spears and the quicksands and the molten metal, and he was waiting unhappily for her to alight, and for a game of hide and seek to begin, which he was not at all anxious to play.
Even as he wondered, the Hippogriff spread wings and flew away. And Philip was left alone on the island. But what did that matter? It was much better to be alone than with that Pretenderette. And for Philip there were no white-hot metal and spears and snares of quicksand, only dewy grass and sweet flowers and trees and safety and delight.
“If only Lucy were here,” he said.
When he was quite sure that the Pretenderette was really gone, he came out and explored the island. It had on it every kind of flower and fruit that you can think of, all growing together. There were gold oranges and white orange flowers, pink apple-blossom and red apples, cherries and cherry-blossom, strawberry flowers and strawberries, all growing together, wild and sweet.
At the back of his mind Philip remembered that he had, at some time or other, heard of an island where fruit and blossoms grew together at the same time, but that was all he could remember. He passed through the lovely orchards and came to a lake. It
