Tales of Wonder

  A Narrow Escape

  It was underground.

  In that dank cavern down below Belgrave Square the walls weredripping. But what was that to the magician? It was secrecy that heneeded, not dryness. There he pondered upon the trend of events,shaped destinies and concocted magical brews.

  For the last few years the serenity of his ponderings had beendisturbed by the noise of the motor-bus; while to his keen ears therecame the earthquake-rumble, far off, of the train in the tube, goingdown Sloane Street; and when he heard of the world above his head wasnot to its credit.

  He decided one evening over his evil pipe, down there in his dankchamber, that London had lived long enough, had abused itsopportunities, had gone too far, in fine, with its civilisation. Andso he decided to wreck it.

  Therefore he beckoned up his acolyte from the weedy end of the cavern,and, "Bring me," he said, "the heart of the toad that dwelleth inArabia and by the mountains of Bethany." The acolyte slipped away bythe hidden door, leaving that grim old man with his frightful pipe,and whither he went who knows but the gipsy people, or by what path hereturned; but within a year he stood in the cavern again, slippingsecretly in by the trap while the old man smoked, and he brought withhim a little fleshy thing that rotted in a casket of pure gold.

  "What is it?" the old man croaked.

  "It is," said the acolyte, "the heart of the toad that dwelt oncein Arabia and by the mountains of Bethany."

  The old man's crooked fingers closed on it, and he blessed the acolytewith his rasping voice and claw-like hand uplifted; the motor-busrumbled above on its endless journey; far off the train shook SloaneStreet.

  "Come," said the old magician, "it is time." And there and then theyleft the weedy cavern, the acolyte carrying cauldron, gold poker andall things needful, and went abroad in the light. And very wonderfulthe old man looked in his silks.

  Their goal was the outskirts of London; the old man strode in frontand the acolyte ran behind him, and there was something magical in theold man's stride alone, without his wonderful dress, the cauldron andwand, the hurrying acolyte and the small gold poker.

  Little boys jeered till they caught the old man's eye. So there wenton through London this strange procession of two, too swift for any tofollow. Things seemed worse up there than they did in the cavern, andthe further they got on their way towards London's outskirts the worseLondon got. "It is time," said the old man, "surely."

  And so they came at last to London's edge and a small hill watching itwith a mournful look. It was so mean that the acolyte longed for thecavern, dank though it was and full of terrible sayings that the oldman said when he slept.

  They climbed the hill and put the cauldron down, and put there in thenecessary things, and lit a fire of herbs that no chemist will sellnor decent gardener grow, and stirred the cauldron with the goldenpoker. The magician retired a little apart and muttered, then hestrode back to the cauldron and, all being ready, suddenly opened thecasket and let the fleshy thing fall in to boil.

  Then he made spells, then he flung up his arms; the fumes from thecauldron entering in at his mind he said raging things that he had notknown before and runes that were dreadful (the acolyte screamed);there he cursed London from fog to loam-pit, from zenith to the abyss,motor-bus, factory, shop, parliament, people. "Let them all perish,"he said, "and London pass away, tram lines and bricks and pavement,the usurpers too long of the fields, let them all pass away and thewild hares come back, blackberry and briar-rose."

  "Let it pass," he said, "pass now, pass utterly."

  In the momentary silence the old man coughed, then waited with eagereyes; and the long long hum of London hummed as it always has sincefirst the reed-huts were set up by the river, changing its note attimes but always humming, louder now than it was in years gone by, buthumming night and day though its voice be cracked with age; so ithummed on.

  And the old man turned him round to his trembling acolyte and terriblysaid as he sank into the earth: "YOU HAVE NOT BROUGHT ME THE HEARTOF THE TOAD THAT DWELLETH IN ARABIA NOR BY THE MOUNTAINS OF BETHANY!"