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—"



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 mass 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 grass 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 thorny 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."



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.



The eagle and balloon came gently down at dusk. The balloon was folded into its small size and put back in the pouch around Chris's neck. Out of sight of Amos, Chris transformed the eagle to a boat in which, in the dark of the night, the two boys reached the side of the Mirabelle with their precious cargo. The sailors of the Mirabelle were asleep, but Chris roused the Captain, who helped them secretly carry the Jewel Tree to a corner of his cabin.

All hands were then called on deck and everything was hurry and bustle. Before dawn had broken, the Mirabelle had left the coast of China and was well out to sea.



CHAPTER 32

It was not until Chris, relieved, proud and happy at the success of his mission, opened his sea chest and took out the shell that he had the faintest vibration of trouble or danger. Until then he had lived, breathed, and thought only of obtaining the Jewel Tree, and once that had been accomplished, he felt that his anxieties were over.

However, as he shut and locked the cabin door behind him, feeling with an increased zest the surge and rock of the Mirabelle under his feet as she plunged through the sea, something brought him up short and took the glow from his face. Slowly, and with a grave expression, Chris went to his sea chest and took the shell from it, but he almost knew before he heard it what Mr. Wicker would say.

Nevertheless, when through the whorls of the shell at his ear he heard the familiar voice, so far away and so long unheard, his eyes lit up again.

"You have done better than my fondest hopes, Christopher, my boy," came Mr. Wicker's voice. "I cannot commend you enough for the success of your difficult journey, and the manner in which with courage, quick wit, and fortitude you met every danger. Amos is much to be praised too. He is a loyal friend and I am proud of him as well as of you."

Chris, kneeling by the brass-studded chest with the shell held to his ear, could easily bring before his inner eye the cosy room in Georgetown, the crackling logs upon the hearth, and the voice of Becky Boozer raised in lusty song coming from the direction of the kitchen.

He missed it. Much as he loved the Mirabelle, and much as he prized the friendship of all aboard her, still, Mr. Wicker and Becky held an especial place in his heart and he longed all at once, with almost intolerable sharpness, to be at home once more. That his mother was getting better he had never doubted, but kneeling there alone, he suddenly wanted to have done with adventure for a while.

"My boy—are you listening?" came Mr. Wicker's words, and Chris's thoughts brought him back with a jolt to the cabin of a ship sailing the China seas. "Christopher, my poor lad," Mr. Wicker said at his ear, "had you forgotten the Vulture?

"No," he answered for the boy, "not altogether, but perhaps just a little. Yet make no mistake—the Captain of the Vulture has not forgotten you. Nor is he under any misapprehension as to who it was who so skillfully crippled his ship so that he did not reach Peking before you."

Mr. Wicker's voice took on the edge it always held when he spoke of Claggett Chew.

"Claggett Chew waits for you beyond Shanghai in the East China Sea. Be wary, and be rested, Christopher, for you will have a battle such as you have never dreamed of, and even I cannot tell how it will end. It will depend on your quickness and ingenuity. And do not forget the leather pouch!"

The voice of his friend hesitated, and then said so faintly and from so far that it was all Chris could do to hear it: "I repeat, be wary, Christopher. He will do everything in his power—"

The voice faded away, and Chris with heavy gestures replaced the shell, shut the lid of his sea chest, and unlocking the door, went with dragging feet to tell Captain Blizzard of what awaited them.



The wind was only moderately fair so that the Mirabelle took some time passing beyond the Yellow Sea. During those days Chris practised his magic with more concentration than ever before. He rested and slept, ate hugely, and exercised by climbing up the masts of the Mirabelle, so that by the time a long dark line was sighted on their starboard side on the Chinese coast and the approach to Shanghai, Chris was fit and well as he had never been before.

Warned by Chris in time, Captain Blizzard, on hearing of the dangers ahead, had determined to put into port at Shanghai, and there, with much haggling and bargaining, bought four cannons and ammunition. He also laid in a store of swords, daggers, and assorted weapons for all on board.



Believing that an ounce of prevention was better than a pound of cure, the worthy captain drilled all hands on the Mirabelle twice a day thereafter. This, the weather being fair and the ship needing only the helmsman and a lookout to care for her, the sailors were quite willing to do. More especially when their captain, in whom they had unbounded faith, told them he had good reason to believe they would have a nasty, and perhaps disastrous, encounter with the pirate ship during which they bid fair to be bested if they did not bestir themselves and prepare for it.

The men entered into the training with gusto. They made dummies which were hung on ropes and maneuvered by their friends, braced in the rigging. The dummies were suddenly swung out and down in every direction, in imitation of pirates boarding the ship, and were fallen upon by the sailors of the Mirabelle with roars of glee as if they were at that very moment being tackled by the pirate crew. Then they practised fast turning and tacking of the ship, and even in between the regular hours set aside by the Captain for what he termed "fighting time," several groups of men could always be seen on some part of the deck practising dueling with sword and dagger. In short, long before the Mirabelle reached the East China Sea, its crew had become proficient in all manner of hand-to-hand fighting.

The Mirabelle was level with the Ryukyu Islands on a gusty, glary day when the lookout's long-drawn-out cry floated down from the crow's-nest to those sailors who were engaged in a mock fight on deck.

"Sail—ho-oo!"

Instantly every man was at the ship's side, shading his eyes against the dazzle that made a brassy light over sea and sky. The Ryukyu Islands, off the port beam, were not visible in the metallic haze that grew as the sun arched higher. The fitful wind gave promise of stopping altogether and leaving both ships becalmed.

Chris, on the bridge beside the Captain, stood looking through his spyglass at the advancing sail. Captain Blizzard lowered his own glass to turn enquiringly to Chris.

"Yes," the boy said at last, "I'm sure now. I ought to know those sails. They're unmistakable. That is the Vulture, sir."

Captain Blizzard wheeled about before the last word had left Chris's lips, and bellowed at the top of his lungs.

"All hands on deck!" he roared. "Man the guns! Bring out the ammunition, and every man to his place!"

The training the men had gone through instantly asserted itself. Although there was a great deal of running about, up and down the ladder to the hold, and of handing up the heavy ammunition, all was orderly, and not an extra word was spoken.

There was little enough time left over, however. The Vulture approached rapidly and then crossed the bow of the Mirabelle so narrowly that the Mirabelle had to put hard about and Captain Blizzard roared orders to take in sail in order not to smash into the pirate vessel before it had been carried by the breeze beyond its prey.

This maneuver by Claggett Chew momentarily threw the Mirabelle's crew into confusion and turned their attention to the hasty management of their ship. To Chris, working with the men at whatever was most urgent, it seemed only an instant before the Vulture was again alongside the Mirabelle, and Claggett Chew stood on the gunwale hailing them.

"Heave-to, or you shall sink to the sharks!" he cried.

"Look to yourself, pirate!" Captain Blizzard thundered in reply, and giving the signal, the unsuspected guns of the Mirabelle belched out their deadly charges.

Claggett Chew was knocked back to the deck of his ship, and Chris had time to see him shake off the hand of a sailor who would have helped him to safety. Chris also saw, peeking out from the doorway of Claggett Chew's cabin, the white horrified face of Osterbridge Hawsey, who "could not stand the sight of blood—so common!" The face withdrew, and Chris could imagine the dandy playing cards or reading as best he could in the din until the battle should be over.



The pirates, many wounded and all taken aback at the unforeseen presence of guns on board the Mirabelle, were tough fighters notwithstanding, and moved the Vulture in ever nearer until the two ships, with fallen masts and entangled rigging, were locked on the brazen sea in deathly struggle.

Brave as the seamen of the Mirabelle proved themselves to be, the pirates were seasoned in pitiless combat. The guns of both ships roared and coughed and the battle raged through the noon into the afternoon. Finally, Chris could bear no more. The crew of his ship were weakening, even as were those of the Vulture, and shuddering though he was at the thought of the sharks in the sea, Chris knew he had to use every method in his power if any on board were to survive.



Keeping his own form he jumped into the blood-tinged water, his magic knife open and ready in his hand.



CHAPTER 33

The smoke of the guns of both ships so hung upon the air that Chris counted on its heavy curtain to screen him from his enemies. He swam to the far side of the attacking vessel and there forced his magic knife for the second time against the side of the Vulture.

He was treading water, holding to a rope that dangled over the side of the ship when, with no interior tremor of warning, a cut that he almost thought had penetrated to the bone lashed across his shoulders narrowly missing his left ear. Without stopping to think Chris took half a breath and submerged as deeply as he could go, hearing above him, even through the sounds of the battle and the wavering water, the "fleck!" of Claggett Chew's metal-tipped whip as it hit the water where he had been only a second before. Chris would have dived under the great barnacled hull of the Vulture then and there, to come up on the other side, but good swimmer though he was, he was unsure that he could hold even a full breath for so long a dive. Added to this, he had had no time to do more than gasp a momentary breath of air, and even as he rose to the surface with bursting lungs, he saw the figure of a man leap into the water from the side of the Vulture.

Before the bubbles of the man's descent had had time to disappear, the most dreaded of all sights for a swimmer showed itself above the water. It was the sinister triangle of a shark's-fin cutting the surface of the sea as it advanced with terrifying speed to where Chris gazed, almost paralyzed with horror.

Thrusting the knife into the pouch at his neck, Chris took the shape of a dolphin and plunged deeply, even as the infuriated shark was carried over and beyond him by its own impetus before it could turn. But turn it did, with lightning speed, and Chris knew he had no protection against that murderous underslung jaw racked above and below with deadly teeth.

The shark, in one long powerful movement, had turned and gone under the dolphin, which now raced upward from the dim, lightless depths of the sea to the surface where it hoped to escape. The shark turned on its back with a motion at once lazy and sickening in its assurance of its prey. Its soft greenish-white belly glimmered slimily in the sea, its frightful jaws open as it came almost languidly up through the water, certain of snapping its adversary in half.

But in that one moment when it turned belly uppermost, its eyes were unable to watch its goal, and in that moment the dolphin made a desperate leap from the water and a sea bird soared into the air.

The sea bird had no more than wheeled to sight the shark below, when a scream from the air above it made it instantly drop and shift to one side as a hawk, talons spread and eyes red with hatred, plunged down from a great height, its beak open to seize and to rend.

The sea bird, veering away on the wind, became a fly, but the hawk instantly vanished to be replaced by a bat, which darted after the fly with such velocity that it was the current of air from its wings that drove the fly closer to the pirate ship.



With a despairing effort, the fly flew directly into the smoke of the battle, and at that moment a mouse hid in a corner near an overturned cask shaking in all its limbs, its pointed teeth chattering with fright. Finally regaining its breath, it ventured to look around the corner. All seemed serene to the mouse, who saw no shadow of danger, although sounds of battle still ebbed and flowed on the deck below it, crisscrossed by shouts and orders, screams and groans, as the pirates and the sailors of the Mirabelle doggedly fought on. The mouse wished to retake its own shape and continue its work with the magic knife which had been interrupted, it thought, too soon to have done any good. At last it decided to run along the deck near Claggett Chew's cabin. From there it hoped to reach the side of the ship nearest to the Mirabelle.

As it slipped from its hiding place and began its run, it realized too late its mistake, and panic almost overcame it. For a cat had been crouched behind it and now gave a mighty pounce. One outstretched paw came down on the mouse's tail, but the mouse wrenched it free and desperate and panting, dashed into the first opening it saw.



This proved to be no less than Claggett Chew's cabin, the door of which had been left open so that Osterbridge Hawsey could watch the fight with the least possible discomfort. He sat, somnolent, in a comfortable chair, his long legs stretched out before him, smoking a clay pipe. His attention wandering, as it so often did, he failed to see the mouse who ran under his legs into the shadow beneath them. The frantic mouse now determined, in the seconds left to it for decision, to attempt a bold move. In a flash—in fact, as a black cat with angry yellow-slitted eyes put its head around the door jamb—a jade-green parakeet with red and yellow breast feathers hopped onto Osterbridge Hawsey's ankle, and with a speed tempered by its most engaging ways, sidled up Osterbridge Hawsey's outstretched leg.

The yellow-eyed cat made a dash with both clawing paws outstretched to fall upon the bird, but the parakeet fluttered into the air out of reach and came down higher up on Osterbridge Hawsey's knee. Osterbridge, startled from his daydream, shooed away the cat and got up precipitously enough to give it a kick which sent it miaowling from the cabin. Osterbridge, vastly pleased to see his green parakeet again, was wreathed in smiles.

"Ah, now!" he exclaimed, holding out a condescending finger, "Petit Monsieur back again! How too simply enchanting! Just when poor Osterbridge was so bored and had no one to talk to! Well, my pretty—" and both Osterbridge and the parakeet cocked their heads at one another—"and where have you been, I wonder?"

Osterbridge examined the little bird perched on his finger and his eyes were thoughtful. "It is true, you have a tiny mark at the side of your jaw—if parakeets have jaws, my friend. But there is no such thing as magic. Not the kind of magic whereby a human can be something else!"

He broke into peals of high laughter. "What a joke if it were possible! Now what could I be, eh?"

He looked fondly at the bird and the bird looked back at him, daring to open its beak and emit a small but clear "Haw!"

"Haw yourself!" returned Osterbridge in high good humor. He leaned back in his chair.

"Now, all this is a most engaging train of thought," he pursued. "If I could change myself, what should I be?"

He fell to musing, and as he did so the dreaded shadow Chris had anticipated fell across the doorway. A moment later Claggett Chew, limping from an old wound and a newly received bruise, stood in the entrance.

Osterbridge Hawsey yawned. "Ah—there you are at last, Claggett," he said, "Battle all over? It still sounds rather ferocious, to me. But of course I am no expert. Heaven forbid!" Osterbridge ended, rolling his eyes toward the ceiling with his vague smile.

As Claggett Chew did not reply, Osterbridge looked back at him. The pirate's eyes were fixed on the parakeet, and his twitching fingers played with the steel-tipped whip. Claggett Chew's voice when it came was as sharp and as cold as a dagger in a dead man.

"I will have that bird, Osterbridge," he said.

Osterbridge's expression did not change but his eyes did, and they became almost as icy as Claggett Chew's.

"Oh no, you will not, Claggett," he said, and his high-pitched voice managed to be saturated with sarcasm. "This is the one thing that is keeping me from unutterable boredom, while you go into your interminable fight." He paused to give Claggett Chew a cutting look. "You know how I feel about piracy—too terribly degrading, though I can see it has its excitement and rewards. But it is unnecessary—"

Claggett Chew's eyes had a way of not blinking. They held a crocodile fixity. His tone, when he spoke again, did not vary. "I am not a trader, Osterbridge. Nor shall I bandy words with you on this subject. Give me that bird, or I shall take it from you!"



Osterbridge Hawsey rose with a slow grace from his chair, his hand curled gently but protectingly around his parakeet.

"Claggett," he said in his thin voice that cut now with the unexpected thinness of paper, "I am sorry to say such a thing to you, but your fever during the weeks just past has undoubtedly altered your brain. You are a madman, Claggett." Osterbridge Hawsey removed himself with deliberation from the proximity of the doorway, placing himself on the other side of the cabin table over which hung the swinging lamp. He did not turn his back to Claggett Chew nor take his eyes from him.



"Kindly leave the room, Claggett," he went on, in too quiet a voice to be otherwise than poisonous, "until you are more yourself. Your conduct and tone are unbecoming to a gentleman," Osterbridge said, with his head held high in disdainful dignity.

They were an extraordinary sight. The shaven-headed, clay-faced pirate looming so high and so huge in the doorway that he filled it altogether, his clothes torn, filthy and stained from the battle and from careless weeks at sea. His companion was a travesty of his onetime elegance, dirty lace ruffles spotted by forgotten meals, his velvet coat marked by chairbacks and soiled from months of constant wear, his hair unwashed and sleazily caught back, no longer curled with a fine exactitude. Both men had been housed together for too long. Long ago they had exhausted all topics of conversation, their two difficult personalities had for months been festering, each at the sight of the other.

Now Claggett Chew ground out between his clenched teeth: "You are a fool, Osterbridge. Have always been one and will so remain. Do you defy me and do not give up that bird, as hell is my witness I shall snatch it from you with this whip, and nothing shall stop me!"

Osterbridge reached behind him with his right hand, holding the parakeet in an increasingly uncomfortable and tightening grip in his left. On the wall behind him hung his rapier in its scabbard, delicately incised and showing the fine workmanship of its French origin. With a quick, deft movement, Osterbridge's fingers had found the hilt and drawn the rapier out, his face snarling, his eyes expressionless. They were fixed on Claggett Chew who had not moved from where he leaned against the side of the doorway.

Osterbridge Hawsey's voice was almost more frightening when he spoke again than Claggett Chew's, as he slowly brought the rapier to his side with quiet calculated gestures.

"I have had enough of your ordering, Claggett. You may order your scurvy men about as you wish—half-wits, rascals, thieves and murderers who know no better than to do your bidding, knowing they may well die by your hands as by some other. But you have met your match. I, Osterbridge Hawsey, shall not give in to a madman and a murdering pillager. How I ever came to join you or your pirates God alone knows, but you shall not govern me! Nor shall you have one object that is my own! En garde!" he cried, whisking out the rapier.

As he did so—such is the force and training of habit—his left hand automatically came up in the first position of the fencer and the duelist, and as it came up and the fingers slackened about the parakeet, the long whip lashed out and curled around Osterbridge Hawsey's hand. The parakeet ducked into encircling fingers, Osterbridge Hawsey let out a piercing scream, more of rage than of pain, and opened his hand. The parakeet, liberated, flew straight into the face of the man with the whip, pecking at it with its sharp beak, scratching at it with his pin-like claws, and beating its wings in such confusing fury that the pirate bobbed his head. At the same time the big man stepped backward, throwing up his left arm in an attempt either to catch the bird or drive it off.

But the bird's attack lasted for only a moment. Then, as Claggett Chew's fingers grasped at it, the parakeet was off over his shoulder and lost in the din and obscurity of the battle. Behind it it heard the cries of hatred and rage as the pirate and Osterbridge Hawsey faced one another in the cabin to fight with whip and sword amid the crash of overturned tables and chairs and the splintering crack of the lamp and the windowpanes.



CHAPTER 34

Safe on the Mirabelle, Chris, exhausted and increasingly conscious of the pain of the whiplash, took his own shape with sighs of thankfulness and looked about him. A wind was rising, rocking the interlocked ships, and he could plainly see that the crew of the Mirabelle had done enormous damage to the Vulture and its attacking men. Cannon shots from the opening sally, and at such close range, had broken two of its three masts, and the decks of the Vulture were a clutter and tangle of lines, sails and splintered spars. The fact that the men of the Mirabelle were in better physical shape than the pirates stood them in good stead, for their agility and strength had carried them through the battle even against the wilier and more murderous knowledge of Claggett Chew's men. The pirates, Chris could see, were turning back, and those who still fought were one and all wounded or grazed, and losing ground with every passing moment.



Chris had been so terrified and panicstricken by his own personal danger and fight for life that it took him a few minutes to catch his breath and grasp the situation from where he stood on the Captain's bridge. Wondering if he still had the strength to force a leak in the Vulture's hull, as he had begun to do, he felt in the leather pouch at his neck for the knife. At the bottom of the pouch his fingernails hit a gritty substance, and into his head came an echo of Mr. Wicker's words: "Remember the leather pouch!"

Taking out the knife, the folded balloon, and the map of where the Jewel Tree had been, Chris, leaning against the side of the Mirabelle, shook out the grainy stuff into the palm of one hand.

It looked like ground-up lava. Gray-black, almost a powder, it had a faintly sulphurous smell. As he turned it speculatively in his hand, wondering how he was supposed to use it, a few grains sifted between Chris's fingers and fell over the side into the sea.

Instantly, as soon as they touched the water, several infinitesimal flames started up, burning on the waves as hardily as if they had fallen onto dry grass, and their heat produced a sturdy mist which rose in heavy spirals from every grain.

Then Chris knew what it was for. Shaking every particle carefully back into the bag, he hurried to find Captain Blizzard.

"Sir!" he cried as soon as he was within earshot, "the pirates are bested, and we can make a safe escape if you will give an order to set loose the grappling irons and lines and bid our men raise sail!" He looked eagerly at Captain Blizzard. "The pirates look pretty tired now, but the Vulture might pursue us if I didn't know a way to stop her!"

The Captain looked thoughtfully at Chris and hesitated not at all. Too much had already depended on the boy and had been faithfully carried out for even Captain Blizzard to doubt of his ability. Orders were quickly given to cast off from the pirate ship and Chris disappeared to a hidden corner. There he hid everything the leather bag had contained excepting the grainy powder. Next, taking the bag from around his neck and leaving the mouth of it wide open, he changed his shape to that of a sea gull.

Taking the pouch in its beak the gull soared high above the two vessels, now drifting imperceptibly apart. Sounds of violent fighting could still be heard inside Claggett Chew's cabin, but the pirate crew seemed grateful enough to fall to the bloody decks to rest and care for their wounds. As the two ships finally stood clear of one another, a resounding cheer of victory rose from the courageous members of the Mirabelle. Their shirts ripped into hasty bandages, their bodies glistening with sweat and rusty with their own or their foes' blood, they were a bedraggled sight. Nevertheless, as they raised their arms or flung their caps into the air, flinging after the pirates a few last resounding epithets. Chris's heart swelled with emotion at the men he was proud to call his friends.

As the gull, he swung up into the air away from the Mirabelle, and began shaking the dust from the open pouch on the sea around the Vulture. By the time the bag was empty, a mist impossible for any helmsman to see through had surrounded the battered ship from stem to stern, and in despite of a freshening wind, was rising steadily to the top of its one remaining mast.

Chris returned to his own ship, and in his own shape at last, surveyed the dwindling island of mist that clung persistently around the Vulture, blow though the wind might, and turn and turn again though the helmsman might try to do. How long, Chris wondered, would the mist hold? Or would the Vulture be doomed to drift at the mercy of the sea in its magic white shroud?

He gave it a long look, a diminishing irregular white shape on the vast spread of the ocean, then turned quickly and went to the decks below to help his wounded friends. Yet not before he had seen that the prow of the Mirabelle was turned triumphantly home!



CHAPTER 35

Chris had always known, tucked away somewhere out of sight at the back of his heart and his mind, that he loved his country and his city. But he had never given it much thought; it had been something as taken for granted as the air he breathed. So that he found himself overwhelmed by the gust of emotion sweeping through him when he stood beside Captain Blizzard as the Mirabelle sailed slowly up the Potomac.

Chris stood there with Amos on his other side, looking at the shores that were both familiar and unfamiliar. Familiar when he saw Mount Vernon on its imposing bluff; unfamiliar because no domes or obelisks were to be seen; no airfield, and no Pentagon. But the sweet green land itself was there, holding out its welcoming and individual scent of fields and rich American soil.

However, the Georgetown Ned Cilley and Amos remembered, the little town from which they had all sailed in secrecy and haste so many months before, was there awaiting them. The noon sun was bright over the few slate roofs and red brick chimneys, and Chris felt a choke of happiness binding his throat like a scarf too tightly drawn, and a constriction at his heart as if it were too firmly held in a welcoming hand.

An excited happiness shook him as the Mirabelle was eased to the wharfside, and at last, after dangers and adventures beyond his imagining, Chris not only knew that he was home again, but saw a familiar black-dressed figure and a plump woman in a monstrous hat, waiting for him to disembark.

What a day that was! The greetings and handshakings; the enveloping hug for Chris and Amos from Becky Boozer, her eyes filled with happy tears and her bonnet trembling with agitation. Her roguish glances and coy giggles flew out like a flock of doves at the sight of swaggering Ned Cilley, who came down the gangplank carrying a macaw in a cage for "Mistress Boozer," and hustled her behind some bales to kiss her warmly. But most of all and best of the day, that first look from Mr. Wicker that spoke more than any gesture or carefully chosen words could have done. He had no need to speak. Chris could see the pride and pleasure shining in his face, and Mr. Wicker, so solitary all his life, could see in the boy's eyes an affection his own son might have shown him.

In due time a well-crated object was carefully hauled by cart to Mr. Wicker's back door and taken inside. The ship's carpenter had made a case to measurements given him without knowing what it was to hold, and when Chris saw it at last set in a corner of Mr. Wicker's well-remembered study, he knew a lightness of mind he had not had since first he had been told of the Jewel Tree and his long journey.

There were long hours of talk with Mr. Wicker before the fire, telling him of every detail. Mr. Wicker's fine dark head nodded from time to time, interspersing Chris's account with an occasional "Quite so—you did perfectly right," or, "Indeed? I did not see that too clearly, and so I was not sure." At last all was told; every tale unfolded.

Then Mr. Wicker rose, smiling at Chris. "Go have your supper lad, and come back. I have some other things to say."

The candlelit kitchen, the blazing hearth, the hissing spit on which wood pigeons roasted; the steaming pots where savory things were cooking; Amos laughing and chattering and swinging his legs from the cane-bottomed chair; Becky Boozer alternating between bursts of happy song and jokes directed at Amos or Ned Cilley, everything seemed beautiful to Chris and the room the gayest he had ever known. Yet he was conscious of a heavy feeling inside himself in spite of the laughter and the talk, and sat quietly staring at the rosy firelight that flowed up Becky's white apron and starched fichu to her hot, flushed face and kind blue eyes. The reflection of the sparks went even higher to gild the twenty-four roses and twelve waving black plumes, and when they passed on, found a kindred spark in the large contented eyes of his friend Amos. Ned Cilley was going through the usual formula of pretending that he should not stay to supper, and that even if he did, he had no appetite at all.

"Ah now, Master Cilley," coaxed Becky, her hands on her hips and the soup ladle she still held standing out at right angles, "you will fade away into a wraith, my good man, so you will! Do you not eat a morsel nor a mouthful, and die in the night, how shall I bear to live with my conscience thereafter, tell me that?"

Ned Cilley, seated at the table near the Water Street windows, his legs sprawled out and his rough hands folded over his round little paunch, twiddled his thumbs and wagged his head in a doleful manner, drawing the corners of his mouth down, though it was plain that this was an effort.

"Eh, lack-a-day!" he sighed. "The life of a sailor, 'tis that hard—is't not, me boys?" He wagged his head again. "The vittles is hard on a stummick as delikit nor what mine be—"



Amos put his hand over his mouth to stifle some sound that broke through in spite of him. Ned gave him a reproving glance. "Or else, me innards is ruint by that galley cook of ours." He sighed and nodded in reminiscent sorrow. "Ah, sweet Boozer, were you to sample but a spoonful of what us pore sailors must face week after week, and month after month, and us on the high seas—you bein' such a delikit cook, so to speak—your heart's blood would curdle on the instant, that it would, by my cap and buttons!"

Tears of pity streamed down Becky Boozer's face, and pulling out a bandanna handkerchief from her apron pocket she blew her nose with a honk that would have blown a less sturdy man than Ned Cilley off his chair.



"Deary me, the saints preserve and defend us!" she cried. "I must do all in my poor weak woman's power to tempt you as best I may. Draw up, lads, for here it comes!" she announced without ceremony, and the three watching her needed no second invitation.

Then such a feast as was heaped upon their plates and crowded on the table. Steaming vegetable soup, roast pigeons, roasted ducks, several boiled fowl with wild rice, a cold beef pie, several kinds of cheese, tarts and pies, jams and preserves. A blissful silence fell over the cheerful room and Becky Boozer stood back to survey the two busy boys and engrossed silent man. Silent if one can call Ned Cilley's champing jaws, smacking lips, great sighs after a draught of ale, or loud appreciative belches a silent meal.

When everyone had finished at last and they had pushed back their chairs and looked about them again with dozy smiles, Chris remembered Mr. Wicker's request. He rose, not without difficulty.

"Mr. Wicker asked me to see him for a moment." He moved to the passageway. "That was a superb supper, Becky. I'm stuffed."

Becky looked around genuinely surprised. "Why—a mere mouthful, a taste, a tidbit, was all any of you had. See—there's a pigeon or two left, and half a duck, and part of the beef pie—why, you do but peck at your food, all of you, like poor birds!" she insisted.

Chris laughed. Ned Cilley, picking his teeth with his habitual ship's nail, was already falling asleep, and Amos, his head on one hand, propped himself up amid a jumble of empty plates. Peacefulness and content lay everywhere in the room, warm as the firelight and as pervasive.

Chris turned. "Anyhow, thanks again. I'll be back," and he went along to knock at Mr. Wicker's door.

Inside, the ruby damask curtains were drawn close across the windows, for it was nearly dark, and the fire here too was as red as the rose that was the joy of a princess of China. Chris closed the door behind him, looking around with a smile at the familiar walls and objects he had missed and dreamed of, many a time, the table with its flowers in a fine China bowl, the desk between the windows with the long-feathered quill pens and the papers marked by Mr. Wicker's meticulous hand, the carved cupboard at the end of the room, and the Indian rug of many colors under his feet. Last of all he brought his look back to Mr. Wicker, sitting in the winged leather chair.

Mr. Wicker had a strange expression on his face. He was smiling but at the same time he looked sad. And for the first time Chris saw some curious-looking garments folded neatly on a stool before the fire. Mr. Wicker, watching him as he gazed about, saw the question in his eyes. "Do you not recognise these things, Christopher?" he asked.

Chris looked more closely, touching nothing. His voice was bewildered. "Well—it seems to me I may have seen them before—they sort of look familiar, but—I couldn't be sure."

His master's voice was gentle. "They are your twentieth-century clothes, my lad. The ones you wear in your own time. And deeply as it hurts me to say it, the moment has come for you to put them on."

Chris raised startled worried eyes to the dark penetrating ones watching him so quietly from the high-backed chair. "Not yet? I don't have to go now, do I, sir?" And as he saw insistence in Mr. Wicker's face he began to expostulate as a child does when it wants to retard its bedtime.

"But I've scarcely got back—I mean, here. And we've only had one talk—I'm sure there'll be other things I've forgotten to say that you should know—"

He threw out his hands as if to grasp at something that might hold him there.

"And—and—I didn't say good-bye to Captain Blizzard or Mr. Finney. They were wonderful to me, really they were! And"—his voice suddenly became very small and high, disappearing to a whisper at the end—"and Becky and Ned and dear Amos—"

He stood there against the door, swallowing hard with his head down, his stomach and his throat a mass of hateful knots and the whole of him swamped with unhappiness. Mr. Wicker had never moved, his elbows on the arms of his chair, and his folded hands just touching his chin. At last Chris whispered: "Does it have to be?"



"It has to be," said Mr. Wicker.

Without a word, Chris took the folded clothes that seemed so unfamiliar off the stool and dressed behind the other leather chair, his lower lip trembling. Mechanically, as boys will, he shifted everything from his pockets to those of the trousers he had just put on. With careful slow gestures he folded up the knee breeches, the full-sleeved shirt, the long white hose and silver buckled shoes, the flare-backed jacket last of all, and put them where his clothes had been.

Mr. Wicker then spoke, getting slowly to his feet and standing with his back to the fire.

"I am afraid I shall have to have the leather pouch, Christopher," he said, holding out his hand. Chris took it off and put it in the long, strong hand of the magician.



"More than that," Mr. Wicker said, putting the pouch in his pocket, "I shall have to take everything from you that you have gained here, Christopher." He paused. "All but one thing which you may choose and keep—one ability." He waited. "Choose well."

Chris looked up at the man he admired and respected and had grown to love, and pondered deeply.

To make a boat or eagle or dolphin out of rope? Very tempting! How the kids would envy him!

Or change himself in other shapes? So useful. He hesitated.

"I'd like to be able to come back, sir," he said, and his growing grief at those he must leave prevented him from saying anything else. Mr. Wicker's face broke into a radiant smile and he held out his firm hand.

"So you shall, Christopher, so you shall! And you shall remember it all, I promise you. That too, you can have."

He stepped forward and put his hands on the boy's shoulders. His eyes were deeply sad although his lips still smiled.

"And now," said Mr. Wicker, "good soldier that you are for General Washington and for your country, all that you learned must leave you and remain with me."

Mr. Wicker put his hand briefly on Chris's head, let it slip to cover his eyes—so lightly it was scarcely felt—and then to cover his mouth. Chris waited, but he felt no different.

"Be a fly!" commanded the magician.

Chris searched his mind. There were words to say, and you thought hard. He tried once more, and a third time, and then wordlessly shook his head.

"Make a rope boat!" said Mr. Wicker.

Chris took the rope and as it hung from his hands he wondered how one set about it—he had known how, once upon a time. He let the inert rope fall to the floor. Mr. Wicker put a hand on his shoulder and turned him toward the door.

"Come, my boy," he said.



CHAPTER 36

The shop was dark but headlights flashed by out on Wisconsin Avenue, glaring over the meager display of objects in Mr. Wicker's window. There seemed even fewer objects than before, Chris thought, for the carved figure of the Nubian boy was gone, and so was the coil of dusty rope. The ship in the glass bottle was still there, however.

Mr. Wicker went forward in the darkness and leaning over, took up the bottle with care from where it had lain for so many years, dusted and polished only by the loving eyes of a boy who had often pressed his nose against the Georgian panes.

"You are to have this," Mr. Wicker said, putting the bottle with its delicate contents in both Chris's hands. "Both Ned and I would like to know that it is yours."

He turned to put his hand on the doorknob. Chris found his voice.

"What about the job, sir?" he broke out. "Can Jakey Harris apply for it?"

Mr. Wicker smiled, and it was strange, in that dim room inconsistently lit by the lights of passing cars, Mr. Wicker looked exactly like a venerable, wizened old man, when Chris knew perfectly well he was not.

It's peculiar, he thought, the tricks your eyes play on you. Guess I'm tired.

"Jakey Harris for the job?" Mr. Wicker remarked, "Why no—there is no job to fill. You filled it, Christopher!"



And all at once, without any good-bye, Chris found himself outside on the top step. The din of cars and honking horns rushed at him like a gape-mouthed monster; the drumming whine and roar from the freeway shook the ground, and up ahead the lights of the People's Drugstore looked garish but friendly. Across the way as he turned to go home, Chris glanced at the two tumbledown storehouses opposite, the winch and tackle broken, and panes of glass missing from the windows.

As he reached the corner of Wisconsin and M Street, Mike rushed breathlessly up.

"Hey! Here I am! Not much later than I said I'd be, either! What you got?" he asked, falling into step beside Chris and looking down at the bottle.

"Mr. Wicker gave it to me," Chris replied in a colorless voice.

"What for?"

"I dunno. Guess he didn't need it."

A silence fell, and then Mike said as they passed the strong light of a shop window, returning down bustling M Street toward 28th: "Say—you been running—or sitting by a fire? You look almost sunburnt. And look—"

They stopped dead while Mike put a grubby forefinger on a mark on Chris's jaw. "I never noticed that before. It shows up white an' plain. Must have been a pretty deep cut ya had there!"

For the first time in what felt like hours, Chris smiled, and the smile became a grin.

"It sure was!" he said reminiscently.

"Oh—an' by the way," Mike said much farther along as he left Chris to go on to his own house, "your Aunt Rachel called my ma and told her your mother was so much better she could come home soon. Seems that your father's on his way back too." He walked off and then turned to call from a quarter-block away, "Bet you'll be glad to have your own folks at home?"

Chris's grin deepened but he did not reply, nor even wave, for fear of dropping the bottle.

N Street, then Dumbarton Avenue, dropped behind him, and he came to Happy's Grocery with the bookshop on the opposite corner. He stood looking at his lighted windows, the lighted windows of his house, remembering a time when he and Amos had seen only a wooded ridge and a burnt-out campfire.

Something stirred in his mind, and after finding the front door unlatched, he eased himself in and up the stairs as quietly as he could. He did not want to face his Aunt Rachel for a few minutes longer.

In his own room he shut the door and carefully lifted the Mirabelle in its bottle to the place of honor on top of his chest of drawers. Then he stood looking at his reflection in the small mirror hung askew near the window.

He looked the same—well, not quite. The tiny scar was there, to prove it was not a dream, and he quickly undid his shirt, and pulling it off, got up on a chair to peer over his shoulder to see how his back looked in the square of glass.

A whiplash like a long clean briar tear lay across his shoulders, and as he looked, he almost felt again the searing cut.

Chris grinned, buttoning up his shirt. Then it had been no dream, no childish imagining.

A voice soared up the stairs. "Chris! Chris darling? Are you home?"

Aunt Rachel had news for him of his mother's imminent return.

Chris opened his bedroom door, pulling out from his pocket the first thing his fingers hit on, and as he went downstairs whistling, "Farewell and Adieu, to you Spanish Ladies," he tossed and caught, and tossed and caught again, an old silver button burnt black in a fire.

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$3.25

Mr. Wicker's Window

by

Carley Dawson

When twelve-year-old Chris entered Mr. Wicker's shop to inquire about a job for his friend, something about old Mr. Wicker forced him to take the job himself. Chris found himself the pupil of Mr. Wicker, not the old man he first saw, but a powerful man in his forties—a magician. Chris learned how to turn himself into a fish, a bird, a fly, and with a magic rope he learned to make a boat or even an elephant.

Chris had been chosen to sail to China on a mysterious mission. Long before he sailed, Chris met the enemies who would try and stop him—evil Claggett Chew, the dandy Osterbridge Hawsey, the treacherous old beggar Simon Gosler. With a Nubian boy Chris brought to life with magic, he set out on his hazardous voyage.

Carley Dawson writes beautifully, combining fact and fantasy with skill. Her characters are lifelike and vivid, and the plot of this, her first book, is fantastically exciting and exceptionally outstanding. With power and imagination Lynd Ward has illustrated the book with over eighty drawings in two colors.

Illustrated by

Lynd Ward

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Johnny Tremain

By Esther Forbes

Illustrated by

Lynd Ward

"If Jonathan Lyte Tremain never lived in the flesh, he lives vividly with the men of his time in this book. So we dare to put him among the people of importance.

"He is a boy, an apprentice to a silver-smith in Boston, when we meet him just before the American Revolution. Casting the handle of a sugar basin for John Hancock, he seriously burns his right hand. He is crippled, the work that he loves must be given up—forever. Johnny goes through some hard and bitter times before he finds his work in the struggle that is to free the Colonies from British rule. The solution comes through the young printer, who likes Johnny and befriends him. Rab, too, is a 'person of importance.'...

"This story of Johnny Tremain is almost uncanny in its 'aliveness.' Esther Forbes's power to create, and to recreate, a face, a voice, a scene takes us as living spectators to the Boston Tea Party, to the Battles of Lexington and of North Creek. It takes us, with Johnny, to the secret meetings of the Sons of Liberty, to the secret training of the Minute Men...."

Saturday Review of Literature

$3.00

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THE END