第58章

And, indeed, the crowd round the doors looked as thick as flies in the jam-making season.

'I wish we'd never seen the Phoenix,' cried Jane.

Even at that awful moment Robert looked round to see if the bird had overheard a speech which, however natural, was hardly polite or grateful.

The Phoenix was gone.

'Look here,' said Cyril, 'I've read about fires in papers; I'm sure it's all right.Let's wait here, as father said.'

'We can't do anything else,' said Anthea bitterly.

'Look here,' said Robert, 'I'm NOT frightened--no, I'm not.The Phoenix has never been a skunk yet, and I'm certain it'll see us through somehow.I believe in the Phoenix!'

'The Phoenix thanks you, O Robert,' said a golden voice at his feet, and there was the Phoenix itself, on the Wishing Carpet.

'Quick!' it said.'Stand on those portions of the carpet which are truly antique and authentic--and--'

A sudden jet of flame stopped its words.Alas! the Phoenix had unconsciously warmed to its subject, and in the unintentional heat of the moment had set fire to the paraffin with which that morning the children had anointed the carpet.It burned merrily.The children tried in vain to stamp it out.They had to stand back and let it burn itself out.When the paraffin had burned away it was found that it had taken with it all the darns of Scotch heather-mixture fingering.Only the fabric of the old carpet was left--and that was full of holes.

'Come,' said the Phoenix, 'I'm cool now.'

The four children got on to what was left of the carpet.Very careful they were not to leave a leg or a hand hanging over one of the holes.It was very hot--the theatre was a pit of fire.Every one else had got out.

Jane had to sit on Anthea's lap.

'Home!' said Cyril, and instantly the cool draught from under the nursery door played upon their legs as they sat.They were all on the carpet still, and the carpet was lying in its proper place on the nursery floor, as calm and unmoved as though it had never been to the theatre or taken part in a fire in its life.

Four long breaths of deep relief were instantly breathed.The draught which they had never liked before was for the moment quite pleasant.And they were safe.And every one else was safe.The theatre had been quite empty when they left.Every one was sure of that.

They presently found themselves all talking at once.Somehow none of their adventures had given them so much to talk about.None other had seemed so real.

'Did you notice--?' they said, and 'Do you remember--?'

When suddenly Anthea's face turned pale under the dirt which it had collected on it during the fire.

'Oh,' she cried, 'mother and father! Oh, how awful! They'll think we're burned to cinders.Oh, let's go this minute and tell them we aren't.'

'We should only miss them,' said the sensible Cyril.

'Well--YOU go then,' said Anthea, 'or I will.Only do wash your face first.Mother will be sure to think you are burnt to a cinder if she sees you as black as that, and she'll faint or be ill or something.Oh, I wish we'd never got to know that Phoenix.'

'Hush!' said Robert; 'it's no use being rude to the bird.Isuppose it can't help its nature.Perhaps we'd better wash too.

Now I come to think of it my hands are rather--'

No one had noticed the Phoenix since it had bidden them to step on the carpet.And no one noticed that no one had noticed.

All were partially clean, and Cyril was just plunging into his great-coat to go and look for his parents--he, and not unjustly, called it looking for a needle in a bundle of hay--when the sound of father's latchkey in the front door sent every one bounding up the stairs.

'Are you all safe?' cried mother's voice; 'are you all safe?' and the next moment she was kneeling on the linoleum of the hall, trying to kiss four damp children at once, and laughing and crying by turns, while father stood looking on and saying he was blessed or something.

'But how did you guess we'd come home,' said Cyril, later, when every one was calm enough for talking.

'Well, it was rather a rum thing.We heard the Garrick was on fire, and of course we went straight there,' said father, briskly.

'We couldn't find you, of course--and we couldn't get in--but the firemen told us every one was safely out.And then I heard a voice at my ear say, "Cyril, Anthea, Robert, and Jane"--and something touched me on the shoulder.It was a great yellow pigeon, and it got in the way of my seeing who'd spoken.It fluttered off, and then some one said in the other ear, "They're safe at home"; and when I turned again, to see who it was speaking, hanged if there wasn't that confounded pigeon on my other shoulder.Dazed by the fire, I suppose.Your mother said it was the voice of--'

'I said it was the bird that spoke,' said mother, 'and so it was.

Or at least I thought so then.It wasn't a pigeon.It was an orange-coloured cockatoo.I don't care who it was that spoke.It was true and you're safe.'

Mother began to cry again, and father said bed was a good place after the pleasures of the stage.

So every one went there.

Robert had a talk to the Phoenix that night.

'Oh, very well,' said the bird, when Robert had said what he felt, 'didn't you know that I had power over fire? Do not distress yourself.I, like my high priests in Lombard Street, can undo the work of flames.Kindly open the casement.'

It flew out.

That was why the papers said next day that the fire at the theatre had done less damage than had been anticipated.As a matter of fact it had done none, for the Phoenix spent the night in putting things straight.How the management accounted for this, and how many of the theatre officials still believe that they were mad on that night will never be known.

Next day mother saw the burnt holes in the carpet.

'It caught where it was paraffiny,' said Anthea.

'I must get rid of that carpet at once,' said mother.

But what the children said in sad whispers to each other, as they pondered over last night's events, was--'We must get rid of that Phoenix.'