Chapter XI: Into the City of the Wicked King

Dick turned, and saw a very pretty lady, in a green gown that floated about her in the water, and bare feet that lightly pressed the sand.

“I want to get to the Red City,” he explained simply.

“Well, come along!” said the pretty lady, with a musical little laugh. And she picked him up in her arms and held him close. “Now shut your eyes!”

He did as she told him to; and she kissed him lightly. Her lips felt warm, even through the cold water. “Now open your eyes!” she commanded.

Dick stared about him. He was no longer at the bottom of the sea, but on solid dry land again, just in front of a big iron gate, with a gray stone wall stretching on either side, and the tops of a number of crimson houses and turrets showing beyond the wall.

The pretty lady put Dick down, and laughed again.

“Here you are!” she said, “at the very gate of the Red City.”

“But—but—” gasped Dick. “What became of the Old Witch of the Sea?”

The lady laughed even more merrily than before.

“I am the Old Witch of the Sea,” she said. “Oh, I am ever so many persons! It is my pet game, playing at being all sorts of different people! Good-bye, little mortal boy. I have an idea that we shall be very good friends one of these days, and I’m glad that we met! Good-bye,—and don’t forget that you have been kissed by the Fairy of Fancy.”

“Is that your name?” asked Dick, looking at her gravely.

“It’s one of my names. Your sister Bab calls me the Idle Princess, and if you asked Meg, she would say that I was the Lady Dreams-Come-True. You’ll know me by a hundred other names by and by!... Good luck, and good-bye!” And she danced away from him laughing, her golden hair tossing in the wind. In a moment she had disappeared.

“And now,” thought Dick, “to get into that Red City!”

While he was thinking this problem over, he heard a voice cry: “Good-fortune, Dick! I’m off to see how Bab and Meg are getting on. You have done well to get here so soon! Good luck! Good luck!”

It was Bizzybuzz! Before Dick could even answer him, he was off, a mere glimmering green speck in the distant light. Dick felt more cheerful after seeing him, but he wished that he might have stopped long enough to advise him as to the best way of entering the city.

For lack of fuller directions, he started to follow the wall for a time, to see if there might not be an opening. And as he walked, he suddenly heard a voice just over his head, whispering in saddest accents, “Oh, shall I never be free?” Dick looked up, startled. There, at the top of the wall, was Humpty Dumpty himself, at last!

As we have heard before, Humpty Dumpty was an Egg,—a huge white, smooth egg. The only thing about him that was different from other eggs was that he had features; that is, he had features of a sort, and also limbs, though very queer ones. On the pallid white surface of the egg-shell was sketched a large mournful face which looked as though it had been drawn in lead-pencil; and two little thin arms and two little thin legs stood out from the shell like spider-limbs. He was sighing and moaning in a very pathetic way, and Dick felt extremely sorry for him.

“Oh, dear! Oh, dear!” groaned poor Humpty Dumpty, addressing the air and the sky. “Will no one ever come to rescue me?”

“Yes, indeed!” cried Dick, eagerly. “I have come to rescue you!”

“What!” exclaimed Humpty Dumpty, “a Rescuer at last? Let me look! Oh, let me look!”

He gazed down at Dick, and then his expression became even sadder than before.

“What could _you_ do?” he asked in deep depression. “You—a little mortal boy!”

“I know I’m little,” said Dick, feeling rather hurt. “But your mother thinks that I can help you get away, anyway!”

“Did my mother send you?” questioned Humpty Dumpty, in surprise.

“Yes, indeed!” said Dick. “And, oh, dear Prince Humpty Dumpty, won’t you please let me try to help you?”

“Oh, you’re welcome to _try_!” said Prince Humpty Dumpty, gloomily. “There’s not the slightest objection to your doing _that!_ Only I feel it my duty to warn you that you won’t like it in this place. It isn’t at all a pleasant city to live in, and the King is a most annoying person!”

“Well,” said Dick, “I don’t expect to have much fun, you know; not what you’d _really_ call fun, that is! But I want to get into that city most awfully. Can you think of a way? The wall is pretty high to climb.”

“Oh, it is very easy to get _in_!” declared the Egg, with dark meaning. “_Your_ trouble will be in getting out!”

“I—I suppose so,” said Dick, and for a moment felt just a wee bit queer. Suppose that the Wicked King or this charming person called Grump should take it into his head to turn him into an egg,—or something even worse? But that cowardly thought only lasted for a moment, for Dick was a brave little boy, and aloud he cried cheerfully, “Well, tell me how to get _in_, anyway!”

“Climb up the flowering vine,” said Humpty Dumpty; “repeat in each blossom, as you pass, the words, ‘Help me! Help me!’ That’s all.”

Dick noticed that the outside of the wall was covered with pretty climbing flowers of a bright red colour. It looked like a morning-glory vine, only the blooms were scarlet. He put his foot into the tangle of green at the bottom, and cried boldly, “Help me! Help me!” into the first red cup that he saw. In a moment more he was climbing up as easily and merrily as though the delicate tendrils were a strong ladder. Once at the top he thanked the flowers politely, and shook Humpty Dumpty’s thin spidery hand.

“Why can’t you get down that same way?” he inquired.

“Looking like this?” said the unfortunate Egg. “Go home to my mother in an egg-shell? Never! Besides, I’ll never go until I can take the Princess with me. And besides all _that_, you just try to move me—that’s all!”

Dick tried his best, and soon found that the great Egg was quite stationary.

“Without the help of some sort of a spell I can’t move nor be moved,” said Humpty Dumpty, with sad calm. “You see why _I_ haven’t escaped, don’t you?”

Dick felt more determined than ever to find the Princess and join forces with her. Surely, since she was in love with Humpty Dumpty, she must be able to suggest some way of setting him free.

He jumped down into the Red City, and, waving a farewell to Humpty Dumpty, he ran away in search of the Princess.

“The tallest tower in the city,” he repeated to himself, remembering the Sea Kobold. “That ought to be easy to find.”

He looked about him anxiously. The Red City of the Wicked King was a place of many and narrow streets, that turned, every other moment, in the queerest, crookedest ways imaginable, and sometimes brought up in short dark alleys that frightened Dick. He wandered about for some time between the silent dark-red buildings,—everything was crimson in this horrid city,—and for a long time he did not meet a living soul. He wondered what had become of the people who must live in these funny red houses. They surely couldn’t all be dead, or sick, or asleep, or in prison, or away visiting in the country. There must be some few who were shopping, or paying calls, or attending to their business, or looking out of their front doors, or taking a walk. Yet there seemed to be no one at all.

There was something really rather horrid and frightening in these little silent red streets, with so many corners and turnings and so many blind alleys (they are little short streets only open at one end) and shut-up-looking houses. Dick found himself hurrying faster than before, and looking around every now and then, as though something unpleasant and big were behind him.

Where did the Wicked King live? he wondered; and where, oh, where was the highest tower in the city?

At last, as he was hastening along, he happened to peer into a window that was nearly on a level with his own head. Of course it is always rude to look into people’s windows, and Dick knew it; but things were so very dreadful, and he was so anxious to find some human being, that he thought that this once he might do it.

And there, gazing out of the window, was a little boy of about his own age.

Dick stopped at once, and said “Hollo!” and the other little boy said the same; and then the two little boys stood and stared at each other.

“My name’s Dick,” said one.

“Mine’s Mudge,” said the other.

“What!” cried Dick. “Not the Sea Kobold’s son?”

“Yes, indeed!” sighed the little boy. “And I’m kept a prisoner here in the Red City, because my father made the Wicked King angry. I am very tired of being a prisoner; I want to go back and live in the sea. They took all my lovely scales away, too; and I do so want them back!”

Dick was very sorry for poor Mudge, but he was glad they had met, and he asked him to tell him the way to the highest tower in the city.

“You go on to the right, always to the right,” said Mudge, “until you come to the Palace; and then you walk around the Palace three times, moving to the left; and then you stop under a tree with green flowers on it; and then you look up, and you will see the Princess in her tower.”

“Oh, dear!” said Dick. “I’ll never remember all that! Could you not come with me and show me? Oh, I forgot; you’re a prisoner!”

“Oh,” said Mudge, “I’m not a prisoner in that way. I can get out of this house whenever I want to. It is the city that I can’t leave. I’ll come with you if you like. I often go to see the Princess and tell her how Humpty Dumpty is looking.”

He climbed out of the window as he spoke.

“But doesn’t he always look pretty much the same?” asked Dick.

“Oh, yes!” said Mudge, as they set out. “But, even so, she likes to hear about him. I just say, ‘He’s as well as usual, your Highness!’ and that satisfies her.”

“Is she a nice Princess?” asked Dick.

“Oh, yes; she’s rather small, and pretty, and kind; and her father’s horrid to her. She wears lovely things, and sits and cries in the tower all day.”

Dick felt ready to cry himself, when he thought of the poor, pretty, small, kind Princess who was in so much trouble. Perhaps he could rescue _her_ as well as Humpty Dumpty! He became quite excited at the thought. And Mudge—_he_ must be rescued, of course! It was really wonderful, the number of people in the Red City who needed a champion like himself!

“Why are there no people about?” he asked Mudge.

“Because,” Mudge answered, “everyone is too much afraid of the Wicked King. When he is in a bad temper, he has people’s heads chopped off without a moment’s notice, and the citizens think it wiser and healthier to keep indoors as much as possible.”

In time they reached the Palace,—a huge, splendid building which seemed to be made chiefly of rubies,—and, after walking around it three times, always to the left, they looked up at last through the branches of the green-blossomed tree.

And there, sure enough, was the highest tower in the city,—a tall, tall tower, with one little window about half-way up.

“Here is where the Princess lives,” explained Mudge. And then he called softly, “Princess Star! Princess Star!”

XII

_Princess Star_