Unnatural Creatures

It gets light on the top of a mountain well before it does at the foot, and this mountain was so high that when they reached the bottom the sun was nowhere in sight, and they had a good half hour until breakfast time.

“You run and get back in your cell,” said Amos, “and when I have given you enough time, I shall return and eat my eggs and sausages.”

So the prince ran down the rocks to the shore and snuck onto the ship, and Amos waited for the sun to come up. When it did, he started back.

SIX

But, at the boat, all had not gone according to Amos’s plan during the night. The grey man, still puzzling over Amos’s wet clothes—and at last he began to inquire whom Amos had solicited from the sailors to go with him—had gone to the brig himself.

In the brig he saw immediately that there was no jailer and then that there was no prisoner. Furious, he rushed into the cell and began to tear apart the bundle of blankets in the corner. And out of the blankets rolled the jailer, bound and gagged and dressed in the colorful costume of the Prince of the Far Rainbow. For it was the jailer’s clothes that Jack had worn when he had gone with Amos to the mountain.

When the gag came off, the story came out, and the part of the story the jailer had slept through, the grey man could guess for himself. So he untied the jailer and called the sailors and made plans for Amos’s and the prince’s return. The last thing the grey man did was take the beautiful costume back to his cabin where the black trunk was waiting.

When Amos came up to the ship with the mirror under his arm, he called, “Here’s your mirror. Where are my eggs and sausages?”

“Sizzling hot and waiting,” said the grey man, lifting his sunglasses. “Where is the sailor you took to help you?”

“Alas,” said Amos, “he was blown away in the wind.” He climbed up the ladder and handed the grey man the mirror. “Now we only have a third to go, if I remember right. When do I start looking for that?”

“This afternoon when the sun is its highest and hottest,” said the grey man.

“Don’t I get a chance to rest?” asked Amos. “I have been climbing up and down mountains all night.”

“You may take a nap,” said the grey man. “But come and have breakfast first.” The grey man put his arm around Amos’s shoulder and took him down to his cabin where the cook brought them a big, steaming platter of sausages and eggs.

“You have done very well,” said the grey man, pointing to the wall where he had hung the first two pieces of mirror together. Now they could make out what the shape of the third would be. “And if you get the last one, you will have done very well indeed.”

“I can almost feel the weight of those diamonds and emeralds and gold and pearls right now,” said Amos.

“Can you really?” asked the grey man. He pulled a piece of green silk from his pocket, went to the black box, and stuffed it into a small square door: Orlmnb!

“Where is the third mirror hidden?” asked Amos.

“Two leagues short of over there is a garden of violent colors and rich perfume, where black butterflies glisten on the rims of pink marble fountains, and the only thing white in it is a silver-white unicorn who guards the third piece of the mirror.”

“Then it’s good I am going to get it for you,” said Amos, “because even with your sunglasses, it would give you a terrible headache.”

“Curses,” said the grey man, “but you’re right.” He took from his pocket a strip of crimson cloth with orange design, went to the trunk, and lowered it through a small round hole in the top. As the last of it dropped from sight, the trunk went Mlpbgrm!

“I am very anxious to see you at the happiest moment of your life,” said Amos. “But you still haven’t told me what you and your nearest and dearest friend expect to find in the mirror.”

“Haven’t I?” said the grey man. He reached under the table and took out a white leather boot, went to the trunk, lifted the lid, and tossed it in.

Org! This sound was not from the trunk; it was Amos swallowing his last piece of sausage much too fast. He and the grey man looked at one another, and neither said anything. The only sound was from the trunk: Grublmeumplefrmp… hic!

“Well,” said Amos at last, “I think I’ll go outside and walk around the deck a bit.”

“Nonsense,” said the grey man, smoothing his grey gloves over his wrists. “If you’re going to be up this afternoon, you’d better go to sleep right now.”

“Believe me, a little air would make me sleep much better.”

“Believe me,” said the grey man, “I have put a little something in your eggs and sausages that will make you sleep much better than all the air in the world.”

Suddenly Amos felt his eyes grow heavy, his head grow light, and he slipped down in his chair.

When Amos woke up, he was lying on the floor of the ship’s brig inside the cell, and Jack, in his underwear—for the sailors had jumped on him when he came back in the morning and given the jailer back his clothes—was trying to wake him up.

“What happened to you?” Amos asked, and Jack told him.

“What happened to you?” asked Jack, and Amos told him.

“Then we have been found out, and all is lost,” said the prince. “For it is noon already, and the sun is at its highest and hottest. The boat has docked two leagues short of over there, and the grey man must be about to go for the third mirror himself.”

“May his head split into a thousand pieces,” and Amos, “with the pain.”

“Pipe down in there,” said the jailer. “I’m trying to sleep.” And he spread out his piece of grey canvas and lay down.

Outside the water lapped at the ship, and after a moment Jack said, “A river runs by the castle of the Far Rainbow, and when you go down into the garden, you can hear the water against the wall just like that.”

“Now don’t be sad,” said Amos. “We need all our wits about us.”

From somewhere there was the sound of knocking.

“Though, truly,” said Amos, glancing at the ceiling, “I had a friend once named Billy Belay, an old sailor with a wooden leg, I used to play jackstraws with. When he would go upstairs to his room in the Mariners’ Tavern, you could hear him walking overhead just like that.”

That knocking came again.

“Only that isn’t above us,” said Jack. “It’s below.”