第17章

'Excuse me,' said the Phoenix's soft voice, breaking in on the general sigh of relief, 'but I think these brown people want your cook.'

'To--to eat?' whispered Jane, as well as she could through the water which the plunging Lamb was dashing in her face with happy fat hands and feet.

'Hardly,' rejoined the bird.'Who wants cooks to EAT? Cooks are ENGAGED, not eaten.They wish to engage her.'

'How can you understand what they say?' asked Cyril, doubtfully.

'It's as easy as kissing your claw,' replied the bird.'I speak and understand ALL languages, even that of your cook, which is difficult and unpleasing.It's quite easy, when you know how it's done.It just comes to you.I should advise you to beach the carpet and land the cargo--the cook, I mean.You can take my word for it, the copper-coloured ones will not harm you now.'

It is impossible not to take the word of a Phoenix when it tells you to.So the children at once got hold of the corners of the carpet, and, pulling it from under the cook, towed it slowly in through the shallowing water, and at last spread it on the sand.

The cook, who had followed, instantly sat down on it, and at once the copper-coloured natives, now strangely humble, formed a ring round the carpet, and fell on their faces on the rainbow-and-gold sand.The tallest savage spoke in this position, which must have been very awkward for him; and Jane noticed that it took him quite a long time to get the sand out of his mouth afterwards.

'He says,' the Phoenix remarked after some time, 'that they wish to engage your cook permanently.'

'Without a character?' asked Anthea, who had heard her mother speak of such things.

'They do not wish to engage her as cook, but as queen; and queens need not have characters.'

There was a breathless pause.

'WELL,' said Cyril, 'of all the choices! But there's no accounting for tastes.'

Every one laughed at the idea of the cook's being engaged as queen;they could not help it.

'I do not advise laughter,' warned the Phoenix, ruffling out his golden feathers, which were extremely wet.'And it's not their own choice.It seems that there is an ancient prophecy of this copper-coloured tribe that a great queen should some day arise out of the sea with a white crown on her head, and--and--well, you see!

There's the crown!'

It pointed its claw at cook's cap; and a very dirty cap it was, because it was the end of the week.

'That's the white crown,' it said; 'at least, it's nearly white--very white indeed compared to the colour THEY are--and anyway, it's quite white enough.'

Cyril addressed the cook.'Look here!' said he, 'these brown people want you to be their queen.They're only savages, and they don't know any better.Now would you really like to stay? or, if you'll promise not to be so jolly aggravating at home, and not to tell any one a word about to-day, we'll take you back to Camden Town.'

'No, you don't,' said the cook, in firm, undoubting tones.'I've always wanted to be the Queen, God bless her! and I always thought what a good one I should make; and now I'm going to.IF it's only in a dream, it's well worth while.And I don't go back to that nasty underground kitchen, and me blamed for everything; that Idon't, not till the dream's finished and I wake up with that nasty bell a rang-tanging in my ears--so I tell you.'

'Are you SURE,' Anthea anxiously asked the Phoenix, 'that she will be quite safe here?'

'She will find the nest of a queen a very precious and soft thing,'

said the bird, solemnly.

'There--you hear,' said Cyril.'You're in for a precious soft thing, so mind you're a good queen, cook.It's more than you'd any right to expect, but long may you reign.'

Some of the cook's copper-coloured subjects now advanced from the forest with long garlands of beautiful flowers, white and sweet-scented, and hung them respectfully round the neck of their new sovereign.

'What! all them lovely bokays for me!' exclaimed the enraptured cook.'Well, this here is something LIKE a dream, I must say.'

She sat up very straight on the carpet, and the copper-coloured ones, themselves wreathed in garlands of the gayest flowers, madly stuck parrot feathers in their hair and began to dance.It was a dance such as you have never seen; it made the children feel almost sure that the cook was right, and that they were all in a dream.

Small, strange-shaped drums were beaten, odd-sounding songs were sung, and the dance got faster and faster and odder and odder, till at last all the dancers fell on the sand tired out.

The new queen, with her white crown-cap all on one side, clapped wildly.

'Brayvo!' she cried, 'brayvo! It's better than the Albert Edward Music-hall in the Kentish Town Road.Go it again!'

But the Phoenix would not translate this request into the copper-coloured language; and when the savages had recovered their breath, they implored their queen to leave her white escort and come with them to their huts.

'The finest shall be yours, O queen,' said they.

'Well--so long!' said the cook, getting heavily on to her feet, when the Phoenix had translated this request.'No more kitchens and attics for me, thank you.I'm off to my royal palace, I am;and I only wish this here dream would keep on for ever and ever.'