Mr. Wicker's Window Part 25

The night was too clear to suit Chris for the dangerous work that lay ahead. The eagle bore him up again from the garden, and turning back, lifted high in the air as it neared the maze of walls of the Emperor's palace.

Chris longed to fly lower but he was afraid that one of the many guards might give the alarm. The eagle flying between the palace and the moon cast a quick-racing shadow over wall and ground. The one advantage on such a clear night, Chris thought, when he could be easily spotted, was in the silence of the magic bird. He bent over to peer down between the eagle's beaked head and widespread, beating wings.

Wall after wall, palace and garden within palace and garden, he saw.

Windows were lit like fireflies far below him and the series of courtyards opened themselves in seemingly endless duplication. How, he wondered, could he ever find the inner garden--well hidden, certainly--where the Princess of China walked under trees and looked at her goldfish in long clear pools? Then he remembered with a start the folded paper seized so long ago in a ship anch.o.r.ed on the Potomac. A cabin under a smoking lamp, the strong scent of flowers, a monkey's form, came back into his memory and he felt in the leather pouch for Claggett Chew's plan.

His fingers touched it and brought out the creased, finger-marked sc.r.a.p of paper. In the moonlight he unfolded it, sitting on the eagle's back high above the walls and palaces of the Emperor of China.

He found that he could follow, from his height, and check with the map, building by building and one courtyard after another. Moving cautiously forward in the air, he looked at the heavy cross-mark made by Claggett Chew the night the _Mirabelle_ had set sail. Then, all at once beneath him, Chris made out walls ahead that seemed higher than the others. He flew over temples with gently rocking bells hung at their curled eaves, and over peaked rooftops of carved stone until, reaching a place apparently identical with the cross on the map, he dared to drop a little lower above a certain courtyard.

As he did so he saw that the guardhouses were set about on the top of the wall, which measured about ten feet from side to side. All faced outward away from the gardens they protected, hidden now in shadow.

Why--it's like a prison! Chris thought, except that the guards aren't allowed to look down at her. The poor kid! Imagine living here all your days! No wonder she was pleased at being in a procession yesterday!

No fragrance, except that of cool water, came up from the courtyard to Chris. Going higher into the air he hovered there on his eagle's back, watching the guardhouses. He timed the guards, counting. After an hour, he found there were two minutes between the time Guard Number Six reached his post and Guard Number Seven went back to replace him.

Chris waited again, watching the guards and counting half aloud in case he missed that two-minute interval.

"One--there he goes across to Two. Two. There Two goes back again.

Three--there Three marches along to Guardhouse Four. Four--there he goes to Five--"

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Chris's breath came quickly and his heart began to pound in his ears.

"Five--Five starts out toward Six. Six--and now they change swords or something, and here I go!"

Pressing on the back of the eagle the bird sank silently into the black well of the courtyard, past the guardhouse and down, just as Guard Number Seven emerged to walk back to replace Number Six.

The walls of the Princess's courtyard were indeed as high and forbidding as those of a dungeon. A shimmer of water reflected the night sky, and looking down, Chris saw a dark, glistening ma.s.s beneath him. It seemed to be trees, but when his dangling legs touched them, sharp edges cut his legs and he quickly veered away. At last, coming down at the edge of the pool, his eyes became used to the gloom and he could see about him.

The garden ground crunched under his feet and glowed in the night, and bending to touch it, Chris's fingertip came away dusted with gold, "Golly Moses!" he breathed, and looked about.

The edge of the long rectangular pool was of silver; the walk around it of jasper and chalcedony, and as he lifted his eyes to look farther, he saw that the entire garden was made up of trees with jewel leaves.

No wonder the leaves cut my legs! Chris thought to himself. They're probably emeralds!

Towing the eagle by its beak, he wandered about. There was neither gra.s.s nor flowers; no true plants or trees. All bushes, borders, and shaded walks were of jewels. They gave out onto the air no scent of greenness and no welcoming scent of flowers.

Gee! Chris almost said aloud, Who'd want to play on ground-up gold?

Why, except that it's yellow it might as well be gravel. And no trees--not real ones. Gee! She must be a pretty miserable girl! I wonder if birds like the jewel trees?

Looking into shrubs of coral, or jade, or amethyst, Chris found no nests, and shook his head. Guess I brought the right replacement after all, he decided. Now to work. Which shall I take?

He made a tour of the jewel gardens, and at the end of the pool, facing the carved jeweled doorway and windows of a pavilion set into the surrounding walls, Chris found a tree he thought right. Small and round, as if freshly trimmed, it answered Mr. Wicker's description of months ago.

"Leaves of emeralds, buds of diamonds, flowers of sapphires, and fruits of rubies studded thick with pearls."

Taking out his magic knife, in a second Chris had cut away a large circle of earth in a tub shape to shelter the roots, and carried his heavy burden to the eagle's back. There, he took off something which he planted where the Jewel Tree had been, and cupping his hands, watered it from the pool as best he could.

Just as he finished and was moving away, a movement in the black rectangle of the pavilion door at the far end of the garden caught his eye. He had only time enough to pull the eagle, the Jewel Tree, and himself into the cloaking shadow of a nearby avenue of emerald trees to avoid being seen.

The movement was pale and slight against the blackness of the open door, and the night was very still. As Chris held his breath, the dampened leaves and petals of the bush he had planted sent their green fragrance lifting and turning on the night air. As if that had been the signal it had long waited for, a dust-colored bird flew down to perch on a th.o.r.n.y stem.

It was a nightingale. Its song started slowly and softly at first, and then, as it forgot that it was alone, the lovely variations grew, pealing out where no birdsong had ever been heard before. Chris was not the only one who had never heard a nightingale. To the other occupant of the jeweled garden, it was newer and more beautiful than anything she had ever heard.

The Princess's tiny feet made no sound on the gold gravel as she edged nearer to the bush and the song. At last the nightingale flew away, and the scent of the roses, drifting toward a princess who had only been permitted flowers of stone, was overwhelming. She went up and broke off a flower as red as a ruby and as red as her mouth. As red, too, as her blood, for a thorn stabbed her and she nearly dropped the rose with a soft cry. But the wonder of it was stronger than the pain, and she buried her face in the freshness of the red rose, the first flower she had ever seen.

Behind her, rising gently and quietly out of sight, was a smiling boy and a tree of jewels she would never miss.

CHAPTER 31

Chris's thoughts were so taken up with the pleasure of the little Chinese Princess at her first rose that he had miscalculated. As a matter of fact he had forgotten about the guards in his excitement at holding the Jewel Tree and at getting away, and just as the eagle rose to the top of the wall, one of the guards saw him.

Had it been earlier, Chris could have risen quickly out of sight. But the Jewel Tree was heavy in itself; the earth holding its roots was an additional weight, so that the eagle only rose half as quickly as it had before.

The guard gave a shout, and a spear whistled past Chris's ear.

Instantly the flames of bonfires spurted on all the walls, and to his terror Chris found himself in a glare of light as powerful as modern searchlights. He clutched the Jewel Tree, urging the magic bird up, but there are limits even to magic and the bird was moving at the peak of its ability. Black racing figures darted along the walls, the flames of the watchfires leapt higher in the air, and now arrows were singing their keening note of death about the boy lifting so slowly into the night.

Chris, crouching behind the Jewel Tree, was rocked and nearly unseated from the eagle when an arrow hit the earth around the Tree roots, imbedding itself deeply and quivering there at an angle. The shouts and confusion grew, but after a few terror-stricken moments Chris knew he was high enough to be out of danger. He gave a deep shuddering sigh of relief, and turned the head of the laboring eagle toward the city.

His thoughts were on escape, but first he had a duty that as an honorable person he felt bound to perform.

He was naturally observant; he had also made a point of noticing landmarks, so that he found the garden from which he had taken the rosebush without too much trouble. What he was totally unprepared for was that the entire city of Peking, aroused by the watchfires on the palace walls, was awake and in alarm, and the light of flares and lanterns glowed from every house.

Nevertheless, to replace the rosebush was an honorable necessity, and in spite of wide canary-yellow blocks streaming from the windows of the lesser palace and falling in broad sections over the lawns and far into the gardens, Chris came down as much in the shadow of trees as he could, and breaking off a sprig of the Jewel Tree, stuck it in the ground where the rosebush had been. Then quickly regaining the eagle's back, he was lifted into the air and up over the roofs.

What was his consternation, however, on nearing the pine knoll, to see the whole group of scrubby trees aflame, and no sign of Amos! The pine needles and tree trunks thick with resin burnt fiercely. Chris did not dare to come too close. Not only was the heat intense but the crowds collecting below looked upward to watch in a puzzled way, while others ran from near the palace gates to gaze and speculate.

Chris turned sadly away, large tears for Amos running down his cheeks, his heart constricted and his eyes half blinded, when from a great distance, he heard a trailing call.

"Oo-h Chris! You--Chris!"

Chris's heart leapt up, and wiping his eyes clear he looked in the direction of the sound. A balloon was moving rapidly away over the peaked curved roofs of Peking, careening slightly from side to side as it sailed on the night breeze. By the time Chris had caught up with Amos in the balloon, Peking lay far behind them.

Holding on to the edge of the basket, Chris blurted out: "What in the world goes on, Amos? I thought you were burned alive! I was never more scared in my life!"

Amos's eyes, wider than ever from the excitement of events, batted at Chris. "_You're_ scared! What do you think _I_ am? Get me out of this--I never did want to be up in the air nohow, and I want out _now_!"

"But what about the fire, Amos?" Chris persisted, holding to the Jewel Tree with one hand and the balloon basket with the other. "How did you get out?"

Amos sent a squeamish glance out of the corner of one eye at the moving ground beneath them, and then, realizing that they were on their way back to the _Mirabelle_, swallowed and began to talk.

"I waited, like you said, an' I guess I fell asleep. All at once such a noise, and flames flashing, woke me up, and right away, seeing fires and commotion all over the palace walls, I supposed they had spotted you somehow. I thought--should another fire break out somewhere else, it might pull the crowds away from the palace, or make them think something was goin' on up there. So I lit a fire with my flint, and then ran right quick with the package to the ledge, struck three times, and shut my eyes"--here Amos covered his eyes with one hand--"and got in. And this silly thing's been a-tippin' and a-teeterin' ever since."

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Chris brought balloon and eagle down into a rice field, and the two boys transferred the Jewel Tree to the greater safety of the balloon basket. Amos, having the wonderful Jewel Tree to guard, forgot his fears and sat down beside it, where he soon fell asleep. Chris, tying the tail of the eagle to the side of the basket with his shirt, towed Amos and the Jewel Tree through the air all that night and all the next day. They came down at noon in a deserted part of the country so that Chris could sleep and rest, and Amos find fresh water for the leathern bottles they had strapped to their waists. Then they went on until they saw the sea and the wavering line of the coast below and ahead of them.