David and the Phoenix by Edward Ormondroyd (the best electronic book reader .txt) ๐
He heard a flailing in the thicket, followed by the bird's anxious voice: "Hello! Are you still there?"
"Yes. What--?"
There were more sounds of struggle. "This is rather awkward. I--the fact is, I am afraid, that I am stuck myself. Could you--"
"Yes, of course," said David. He smiled to himself, a little shakily, and re-entered the thicket. When he had disentangled the bird, the two of them sat down on the grass and looked at each other. They hesitated, not quite sure how to begin.
"I trust," said the bird at last, "that you are not of a scientific turn of mind?"
"I don't know," said David. "I'm interested in things, if that
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"Gryffons!"
The Phoenix rushed along the ground a few feet and sprang into the air. But it was too late. The foremost Gryffons, with powerful strokes of their wings, shot up to meet them. The Phoenix swerved sharply. They missed the snapping beak of the first Gryffon by half an inch and dodged the secondโonly to smash into a third. David was stunned by the blow and the fall. When he regained consciousness, he found himself in the tight grip of two Gryffons. The Phoenix was struggling feebly with another, and still more were crowding around them, screaming like hawks.
They looked like the sleeping Gryffen, but were as large as ponies. Their eyes were yellow and unblinking, and their tails twitched like an angry cat's. Their smell, like the lion house in the zoo, made David feel faint.
"Well, Phoenix," said the largest Gryffon coldly, "you know the Rule, I believe?"
The Phoenix smiled weakly and cleared its throat. "Ah, there, Gryffon," it said unsteadily. "Fancy meeting you here. Ahโahโrule? What rule?"
"Rule 26," said the Gryffon. "'No human being shall be allowed to enter theโ'"
"Oh, that rule," said the Phoenix, with a careless laugh. "I thought everyone knew that the Council of 1935 had changed it. Can it be that you have not yet heard?"
"That won't do, Phoenix. You have also heard, of course, of the penalty for breaking the Rule, which you must suffer along with this human boy?"
"Now, one moment, my dear Gryffon! Iโahโ"
"Death!"
The Phoenix quailed, and David's legs went limp under him. But they had no chance to plead with the Gryffons. Their captors formed two lines, one on each side of them, and at a scream of command from the leader, all began to march. The Gryffon that had been holding the Phoenix winked horribly at David and made a throat-cutting gesture with its wing.
"Courage, my boy," the Phoenix whispered. "It is always darkest before dawn."
Presently they reached a hillside. David and the Phoenix were marched up to a cave and thrown in. Two of the Gryffons sat down at the entrance to guard them while the others went off to consider the best method of carrying out the penalty.
David was terribly frightened now, but he did not want to let the Phoenix know it. In a voice which trembled a little he asked, "What are we going to do?"
The Phoenix frowned. "Do not be downcast, my boy. My brain is equal to any occasion. I shall Think. Silence, please."
And the Phoenix, covering its eyes with one wing, Thought.
To keep himself occupied, David explored the cave. But there was nothing to see. The cave was small and bare. He tested the walls thoroughly to see if there were any places where they might dig their way out. There were none. His feet raised a cloud of fine dust, which got into his eyes and nose and made him sneeze violently. Discouraged, he went back to the Phoenix and sat down. There was a long silence.
Gradually an idea came to David. It started as a small, faint thought at the back of his mind, wavered, began to grow and expand and fill outโbecame bigger and clearer and better andโ
"Phoenix!" cried David, jumping to his feet.
"My boy, my very dear boy," said the Phoenix, its voice breaking with emotion, "I have Thought, I have Pondered, I haveโwell, to be brief, it is no use. Stiff upper lip, my boy! We are Doomed."
"Phoenix, Iโ"
"Let this be a lesson to you, my boy, even though it be your last one. Fools rush in where angels fear to tread. Ah! who could have said, in the golden days of my youth, that I should come to such an end! Oh, miserable bird! Oh, unhappy boy!"
"Phoenixโ"
"But we can show them how to die, my boy! We still have thatโthe last magnificent gesture. Let those who have lived wisely and well show that they can die in the same way! I hope I am to go first, so that you may have an example to follow."
"Phoenix!"
"My boy?"
"Listen, please!" And David whispered in the Phoenix's ear.
The plan had seemed like a good one while it was still in his mind, but put into words it sounded a little too simple. As he whispered, David began to feel more and more foolish, so that finally he stopped altogether.
"IโI guess it's really kind of silly," he stammered.
But the Phoenix was looking at him with hope and admiration in its eyes. "My very dear chap," it said solemnly, "I salute you. I humbly await your signal."
"Do you really think it will work?"
"My boy, it mustโit canโit shall. Proceed."
Poor as the plan now seemed to David, he prepared to carry it out. Holding his breath so as not to sneeze again, he scooped up as much dust as he could hold in two hands. Then he took his position on one side of the cave, nodded the Phoenix toward the other, and glanced out to see if the guardian Gryffons were looking. They were not.
"Now," he whispered.
The cave rocked with their uproar. David screamed at the top of his voice and kicked the walls. The Phoenix let out a series of ear-splitting whistles and squawks and beat its wings frantically. Echoes bounced from wall to wall. The two Gryffons came rushing into the cave, adding to the racket with their shrieking. "Now!" David shouted, and he flung the double handful of dust into the Gryffons' faces. Instantly they were all choking and sneezing in the thick cloud. He plunged between the legs of the two Gryffons, who in the confusion began to bite and tear savagely at each other.
David and the Phoenix burst out of the cave together. The other Gryffons, aroused by the noise, were bounding toward them. David flung himself on the Phoenix's back and shouted "Fly!" and sneezed. From somewhere behind him a set of talons snatched out and ripped through the back of his shirt. He kicked blindly and felt his foot crunch into something which shrieked. "Fly, Phoenix!" he sobbed. The Phoenix was already in the air and needed no encouragement. They heard raucous cries and the thunder of wings behind them. David looked back over his shoulder. The Gryffons were rising from the ground in pursuit, their legs drawn up under them and their wings beating. "Faster!" he screamed.
"You have seen nothing in the way of flying until now, my boy," the Phoenix shouted back. "Watch this!" Its wings were two blurs slicing through the air and roaring like kettledrums. The ground below streamed backwards. David looked back again. The Gryffons were falling into the distance. Their cries were getting fainter. Now they looked like a flock of starlings ... now like a cluster of flies ... now like gnats. And then they had faded out of sight, and David and the Phoenix were streaking over the grassland alone.
Ten minutes later they reached a shore and landed. They flopped on the sand, panting. And David, suddenly feeling very faint, closed his eyes and put his head between his knees. After they had got their breath, the Phoenix patted David on the shoulder and said huskily:
"I congratulate you, my boy. Your plan was magnificentโprecisely what I should have done, had I thought of it first. Needless to say, we shall not go on looking for the Gryffins. But now you know exactly what they are like: midway in size between the Gryffens and Gryffons, and reddish in color. Most amiable souls, willing to do anything for anyone. It is hard to believe that they are all related. But enough, my boy. Let us go home."
As soon as they reached the ledge, the Phoenix put David down and prepared to take off again.
"Where are you going, Phoenix?" David asked.
"Some business to attend to, my boy."
Muttering under its breath something that sounded like "tail feathers, indeed!" the Phoenix soared off. And David, stiff and sore and thoroughly tired, started down the mountainside for home.
5: In Which the Scientist
Arrives in Pursuit
of the Phoenix, and
There Are Alarums and
Excursions by Night
The lights downstairs were all on when David got home, and as soon as he opened the front door he could tell that they had company.
He shouted, "I'm home!" and sneezed. The dust from the Gryffons' cave still clung to him, tickling his nose.
"Well, here he is at last," said Dad's voice. "Come on in, David." Then, as David walked into the living room, "Good heavens, Son, what's happened to you?"
"Your back, David!" Mother said in a horrified voice. "Your poor back! What happened to you?"
David felt himself. The back of his shirt was ripped to tatters, and there were three lines of caked blood across his shoulders. He remembered now: it was the Gryffon that had tried to grab him as he and the Phoenix made their escape. But he had promised the Phoenix to keep its secret.
He stammered, "IโI had an accident."
"And dust all over you!" Mother went on.
"Well," said David desperately, "it was a dusty accident."
"It seems to have been very dusty indeed," said a third voice. There was a loud sneeze.
David's father jumped up. "You gave me such a shock when you came in that I almost forgot, David. We have a guest." And he introduced David to a very tall, thin man with a bald head. His face and neck were burnt red by the sun, and he had on a pair of thick glasses which made his pale eyes look immense. For some reason David took an instant dislike to him, but he shook hands politely and said, "How do you do?"
"David, eh?" said the man. "Well, well. Are you a good boy, David?"
Of all the stupid questions in the world, that was the one David hated most. He clenched his teeth and looked the other way.
"David, dear," said Mother with an awkward laugh, "I think you'd better go upstairs and wash and change."
When David came into the living room again, the guest was talking excitedly. "... completely unknown to man," he was saying. "It's the discovery of the age. My name will be famous if I succeed in my plans."
"How fascinating!" Mother said. "And to think of it happening right here!"
"And it's huge," the guest said, "simply huge. And brilliantly colored. For a scientist like myself, it's more than fascinating."
David was listening now. Scientist? Scientist! His heart missed a beat, and he choked. Oh, no, it couldn't be the Scientist. Or could it?
"David here spends all his time up on the mountain," his father said. "Maybe he's seen it."
The guest turned his big, pale, unpleasant eyes on David. "Well, David," he said, "maybe you can help me. Now, have you seen anything unusual on the mountain?"
"Unusual?" said David unsteadily. There was a pain in his chest from the pounding of his heart.
"Yes, David," the guest went on, "unusual. So unusual that you couldn't miss it: a very large bird with bright plumage."
The floor under David seemed to rock. It was true, thenโit was horribly true. This was the Scientist who had been chasing the Phoenix. This was their enemy.
"Bird?" David dodged. "Wh-wh-why, there are lots of birds up there. Sparrows and meadow larks andโand sparrows...."
"But nothing like a huge bird with bright feathers?"
Well, he would have to tell a lie. After all, it was for the Phoenix's sake.
"No," said David.
"Ah," said the Scientist. But his cold eyes bored into David's for another instant, plainly saying, "I'm not fooled, young man."
"It's odd," he continued, "that no one has seen it. But I have no doubt it's somewhere here. I am going to begin my search as soon as my equipment gets here."
"Tell us about it," said Mother politely.
"Well, I discovered it on the
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