Chapter VIII The Spell — And How It Worked
The poor children felt as though they had come under some gentle influence, and curiously enough, though outwardly asleep, they were conscious of the Wizard walking around them, pushing and pinching them, which somehow they never felt; and they were conscious, too, that he was troubled about something. What it was they couldn’t imagine. He began to mutter threats coupled with the name of the Bird-Fairy.
The Wizard was clearly not at all happy. Indeed, he was profoundly concerned—for every time he touched the children to wake them, a sensation of cold spread over his hands which became rapidly more and more acute until it felt like touching fire, and he shrank back muttering and grumbling.
At that moment there was a great rush of air. The Bird-Fairy appeared, and with outspread wings she stood over the resting children, and, full of pity, she gazed down at them. Then they knew they were in her care, and they knew, too, that they knew something which might prove useful and precious. And they smiled happily as they lay there.
“What do you want here?” demanded the Wizard harshly. “How dare you come here and try to thwart me?”
“I have come to pray you to turn from your evil ways. Let these poor children go,” begged the Bird-Fairy in tones sweet and pleading. “They have realised how much their happy home means to them and the safety there is in being taken care of. Let them go back to it.”
“Tush! Nonsense! What’s all that to me? Begone while I let you! I’m in no mood to be trifled with.”
“Show kindness and mercy for once,” was her reply.
“What? Go! You remain to mock me? Remember my little Zoological Collection. Which of us triumphed throughout?”
“Don’t boast of that.”
“But there is much to boast about. And my experiments have not stood still since that remote period. Science has progressed!”
“You will not be merciful?”
A scornful laugh was all the reply he vouchsafed.
“Then know,” she continued solemnly, “that our Fairy Enchantments have also strengthened with time.”
“Is it to be another tussle between us?” inquired the Wizard, smiling.
“It is. And I pray it may be for the last time. I have failed before. But this time I am going to succeed. With the girl my difficulty was not so great, but the boy has been hard to convince that other creatures have troubles greater than his. Others have returned to you through your craft, but this little couple you were forced to go and meet. You sought to entrap the boy as a Crab—it was I who restored the gem and saved him, as you may have guessed. And with that success the Bird-Fairy’s hour now has come! You have failed to snare them as Bird, Beast, or Fish—your science can change mortals to nothing else. And now you shall fail to turn them to slaves.”
Again the Wizard’s discordant laughter was heard, and he said—
“You certainly got hold of that gem, my dear—and you evidently consider yourself in consequence an apt pupil of that old Fairy who befriended you—worse luck to her! had she but passed a moment later there would have been no time to frustrate me. My science would have been powerful enough to change you into a mere Bird. My Collection would have been the more valuable, and she could not have made you into a Fairy besides; nor would you have known enchanting arts with power to torment me; nor would you have had any hope of future freedom.”
The Wizard paused a moment, then rasped out—
“Were it not for your own salvation perhaps you wouldn’t be so ready to help the children, and to dare attempt to triumph over me. But we shall see what progress we have both made!”
“We shall see!” she repeated. “Touch these dear children if you can. You find it difficult? You do not understand it, eh?”
The Wizard, with a groan of pain, had leapt back after another attempt.
“I soon shall understand it,” he cried angrily, taking up a bottle containing a green fluid, a few drops of which he poured into his palms, then smiled. “This will wake them quickly enough, and probably never let them sleep again.”
But the only result was a louder cry of pain from him and a peaceful snore from them.
The Bird-Fairy looked steadily at him, and the Wizard trembled with anger and fear. Recovering himself he muttered: “You’ve got them well under your wing. So it must be with you I have to deal first. Ah, ha! I’ll show you how Science can outdo your paltry old-fashioned arts!”
Thereupon he took a curious box-shaped mechanism, pointed it at the Bird-Fairy, pressed a spring, and instantly the pretty trio became enveloped in a halo of rainbow. The next moment the wings of the Bird-Fairy drooped, and the children awoke. Her Spell was broken!
He moved his terrible invention slightly, so that she alone was encircled by the rainbow ray. She stood there motionless like a beautiful statue; and the Bird-Fairy was in the Wizard’s power!
A few moments more and his triumph would be supreme and everlasting. She would exist no more. His evil heart thumped with excitement and glee.
A continuous and regular movement around the cave, and an underground heaving and low, distant rumbling arrested the Wizard’s attention. He gasped and started, and the instrument he held fell from his grasp and shivered to atoms.
The Twins were the cause. It was they who had started the commotion. Unobserved by the Wizard in his moment of exultation, freed by him from the Bird-Fairy’s Spell, they were free to follow the irresistible inclination they felt when they were under it. So they gently stroked each of the animals around, and were charmed to find that as they did so each poor creature changed to girl or boy and vanished from its prison, whilst the ground trembled and the rumbling became louder and louder, as though some unseen power was helping in the rescue. So quickly did they run round on their task that at the moment when the Wizard realised his mishap, just as he thought he had triumphed, Dulcie and Cyril had done their work. They started as they saw the Wizard lying full length on the ground next to his shattered invention, the rays of which were let loose and playing like lightning all round him.
Then they remained rooted to the spot with amazement, for just beyond was the Bird-Fairy, who before their astonished gaze became suddenly bereft of her wings and covering of feathers, and now stood before them as a lovely Princess, in draperies of silver tissue, and with a golden circlet upon her dark hair. A happy smile was on her face, as with a farewell gesture she motioned the children away.
There was a terrific noise as of a thunder-clap. They looked back. Nothing but a dark cloud was there!
“Come quick!” cried Dulcie, taking Cyril’s hand and running off with him; “there’s no shelter here. Let’s get in before the rain.”
And away they sped from the rocks on which they had so often played, reached home, ran indoors, and got upstairs just before the big drops turned into a heavy downpour and came pattering against the nursery window-pane.
“Are you children ready?” called up their mother in her kind, cheery voice. “Come down and have tea with me for a treat.”
It was a welcome invitation. They were quick to shout their thanks and to make themselves tidy. When they entered the parlour, where the sun was peeping in again after his absence, their mother said quietly—
“I’m glad you’ve escaped the storm.”
Later on, they all three sat in the gathering twilight at the large bow-window watching Nature going to sleep. The two children sat up very late that night—and they told their mother such an extraordinary story that she wondered how ever it could have got into their heads; and wondered where they could have read it. But they knew they hadn’t read it.
“Look at the bump on Cyril’s forehead!” exclaimed Dulcie, as conclusive evidence of the fight. But their mother only shook her head. Cyril often wore such marks of battle.
“And, little Mother, we are so glad to be at home.” She laughed. But they meant it.