"And what"s more," said Toby, "when I get back I"m going to have an _Indian_ outside my door, instead of a tripe-seller."
"Excuse me," said the Third Vice-President. "I am sorry to interrupt this interesting discussion, but we really ought to be going.
Gentlemen," to the Committee, "our steeds are waiting. To the City of Towers!"
The journey which now commenced proved to be a very long one. Day after day the pilgrims plodded through a wilderness of forest and field, over streams, across mountains, down into deep valleys and up again, camping at night wherever they happened to find water and wood, and sleeping under the stars in blankets on beds of boughs. The moon was gone before their journey was over.
One morning the trail brought them down on a mountain-side to a well-paved road. This road they followed for some hours, and it brought them finally to the top of a gentle hill, covered with trees. From the top of this hill they saw a striking scene.
Stretching away from the foot of the hill lay a great rolling valley, up which the road ran as straight as a ribbon. Far away, at the end of the road, against a dark wooded mountain, stood a great city, walled around with a high wall, and shining in the sun with white and gold domes and turrets and towers. The rear of the city rose along the lower slope of the mountain, and on the top of the mountain, concealing its peak, lay a cloud; black below, and glittering with sunlight at the edges. It hung there motionless during the time when the watchers sat watching the scene. Directly under the cloud, on the slope where the farthest portion of the city lay, was an open s.p.a.ce among the buildings, like a great garden or park, and in the midst of it a vast white building with a flat roof, great enough for the palace of a king. That which struck the strangers most, at their first look, was the great number of towers which rose at all points in the city; surely so many towers had never been gotten together in one place before; and the most remarkable one of them was the tower which rose from just behind the great white building in the park. It was dull in colour, and doubtless of brick; it was round in shape, tapering gradually upwards. It rose to a height which none of the strangers would have thought possible, had they not seen it with their own eyes; it rose straight to the cloud which hung motionless upon the mountain; it pierced the cloud, and its top was lost to view in the cloud or above it.
"The City of Towers!" said the Third Vice-President, waving his arm in that direction. "The Gate of Wanderers is before us, at the end of the road."
The party urged their animals forward down the hill-side, and pressed on until noon, when they halted for rest and refreshment in a wood beside the road. There they sat at their ease on the gra.s.s, and the Third Vice-President looked from one to another, and spoke as follows:
"My friends, I must tell you the story of the Towers. Our King, you must know, is a handsome and amiable man, in appearance about thirty years of age. When I tell you that he has been our king for more than forty years, you will be surprised. His wife was a princess of some few years less than his own, and of a beauty unequalled in the kingdom. Her wedding ring, the gift of her husband, was a single ruby in a plain gold band, and this ring she was never known to remove from her wedding-finger for a single moment. She was blessed with three beautiful children, two boys and a girl, the oldest of whom was nearly nine years of age.
"When the prince, our present King, was thirty years old, his father the King, who was then alive, gave a great ball at the palace, and at this ball the old King declared to the a.s.sembled court that he desired to build a tower; a mighty tower, higher than any other in the world, where he might seek repose from time to time; a tower so tall that it would reach the cloud that hangs perpetually on the mountain. To him who should build such a tower in the shortest time the King would give any reward which the fortunate bidder might ask. The old King laughed as he made his offer, and it was plain that he was only half serious; but many of the richest of his n.o.bility desired the prize, and contended for it earnestly. One proposed to erect the tower in ten years, another in eight, and one was found who was willing to promise it in six years and a half; but these terms were all too long. The King was old, and he would not wait so long.
""Is there no one," said the old King at last, "who will build me my tower in less than six years and a half?"
""I will build it in one night," said a voice from the rear of the ball-room.
"An old man came forward and stood before the King; an old man, dressed in a short gown tied in with a cord about the middle, with sandals on his feet, a lantern with a lighted candle in one hand, and a staff in the other. No one in that place had ever seen him before, and no one knew how he had gotten in amongst that glittering company.
""I will build your tower in one night," said the old man.
"The old King laughed outright, but he accepted the offer then and there. "In the morning," said he, "if we find the tower finished, you shall have any gift which may be in my power to give."
"The old man bowed, and made his way slowly out of the palace. A great shout of laughter went up from the company, and in this the King himself joined heartily; but the joke was, as I must tell you, my friends, that in the morning when the King rose, there stood the tower in fact, behind the palace, so tall that its top could not be seen in the cloud that hung upon the mountain; and there, my friends, the tower stands to this day.
"That evening the old man returned for his reward. He stood before the King, and on the King"s right and left stood the prince and the prince"s wife and children. The King asked the old man what reward he desired.
""I ask nothing," replied the other, with a sly smile, "except the ruby ring upon the finger of the Princess."
"The Princess turned pale, and hid her hand behind her. She would not give up her wedding-ring; nothing the King could say could move her. He offered the old man anything else he might demand; a dozen ruby rings; a box of ruby rings; anything; but the old man would have nothing but the ring upon the Princess"s finger. The Princess grew paler still, as if with fear; but she would not give up the ring. The old man smiled his sly smile again, and went away.
"The next morning the Princess and her three children were gone. Search was made everywhere, but they were not to be found. The King and the Prince, mounting the winding stair of the tower, stopped at last when they were all but exhausted, and at that moment heard a sound of weeping from above. They climbed higher, and on the stair they found the children sitting, huddled together and weeping bitterly. Their mother was gone, they knew not where; and they did not know how they came to be in the tower. The strongest climbers in the city mounted as far as they could ascend, but the top of the tower was far beyond their reach; they found no Princess. She has never been seen from that day.
"Soon after, the old King died, and his son came to the throne. As for him, our present King, and his three children, time stopped for them from the day on which the Princess disappeared. They are no older now than when she left them. It is supposed that they are awaiting her return unchanged, in order that she may not find them old on her return, if she should still be young. There are those who say that she has lived all these years, and still lives, somewhere, in some strange form, perhaps far from here, bewitched by the old man, and waiting for release from her enchantment. I do not know."
"And what was her name?" said Aunt Amanda.
"She was named," said the Third Vice-President, "the Princess Miranda."
"And what are all those other towers in the city?" said Aunt Amanda.
"It was the fashion, after the King"s Tower was built, to build towers.
The King, as you may suppose, sets the fashion in all things. But no more pleasure-towers are built nowadays; the thing had its day, and died out. There is a fashion now in pleasure-domes. They are modeled after the pleasure-dome built by Kubla Khan in Xanadu."
"Well," said Toby, "I don"t see what we"ve got to do with all this. The party I want to see is Shiraz the Rug-Merchant."
CHAPTER XXI
SHIRAZ THE RUG-MERCHANT
The wayfarers came to a halt before the Wanderers" Gate. The wall of the city stood before them, and stretched away to a great distance on either hand. People were going in and out at the gate; some on foot, driving donkeys before them, some on horseback, some in wagons, and all brisk and talkative. The Third Vice-President received a respectful greeting from several of those on horseback. He turned to his companions with a wave of the hand, and said:
"The Wanderers" Bazaar!"
On each side of the open gate, at the foot of the high thick wall, was what appeared to be a fair. As far as the eye could see, the base of the wall was lined with booths, each with an awning over it from the wall behind, gaily striped in orange and blue and yellow and brown. In these booths was spread out in disorderly profusion a ma.s.s of merchandise of all kinds; gold and silver ornaments, bra.s.s and copper vessels, rugs and carpets, spectacles and clocks, toys and games, herbs and ointments, fish-nets and sailors" instruments, canes and crutches, ribbons and laces, perfumery, precious stones--things innumerable; even parrots and monkeys, in cages; in one booth was a potter, twirling his potter"s wheel; in another a fortune-teller, laying little sticks down in curious patterns on his table; in another a man pasting on cards bits of coloured feathers, in the form of tiny birds and fowls, most life-like; in another a gla.s.s-blower, delicately twining a thread of spun gla.s.s for the rigging of a ship; in another a man sitting on a rug with a snake before him, whose flat head stood stiffly up from his coil, and waved a little to the motion of his master"s finger; in another, a man was bending over a flower-pot with a wand in his hand, and as he moved the wand a stalk grew from the pot and at its end a bud appeared and unfolded into a flower before the very eyes of his audience; in another a great ape was marking down figures with chalk as his master called them; in another a shuttle was weaving back and forth in a loom; there seemed to be no end to the curious and diverting things to be seen in those booths. The people in them were apparently of all the nations of the earth; there were brown men and yellow men and black men, as well as white; men with slant eyes, with round eyes, with flat noses, with beak-noses, with wooly hair, with straight hair; there were turbans, and fezzes, and hoods, and white gowns, and coloured robes, and velvet jackets, and cotton blouses; and from all the venders rose such a hubbub as Freddie had never in his life heard before, except once in the Gaunt Street Theatre at home. A lively crowd chaffered with the venders and walked in the paved street before their booths. It was a scene full of life and colour, and Freddie was transported with delight.
"Oh!" he said, "can"t we get down here and see all those sights? I should like to spend the whole day here!"
"We"ve got other fish to fry just now, Freddie," said Toby. "We"ll have to see this some other time."
"It is a precious thought," said the Sly Old Fox, "that we have here with us on our mules enough treasure to buy this whole bazaar, if we wished to do it. It is a beautiful thought."
"Six "undred paces to the right!" said Mr. Punch.
"Shiraz the Rug-Merchant!" said Toby. "By the looks of it, there must be about five hundred rug-merchants along there."
"What was the number we were to find him by?" said Aunt Amanda.
"It"s 3103101," said Toby.
"You are quite mistaken," said Mr. Punch. "Hit"s 3013101."
"That"s exactly what I said," said Toby.
"Excuse me," said the Old Codger with the Wooden Leg, "it seems to me that it is--er--3101301."
"My recollection is," said the Churchwarden, "that it is 3031010."
"I am sorry to differ," said the Sly Old Codger, "but I am perfectly sure it is 3013010."
"Why don"t you look at the paper?" said Aunt Amanda, in an exasperated tone.
Everyone looked at everyone else to produce the paper, but no one produced it.
"I regret to confess it," said the Third Vice-President, placidly, "but I have a distinct recollection of having left it on the table at Low Dudgeon. Never mind, it is perfectly safe."
"Well!" said Aunt Amanda. "Isn"t that a perfect shame! Whatever are we going to do? And where"s the map? Freddie, have you got the map?"
Freddie looked in all his pockets. "No"m," said he. "It isn"t here."