"After all, he was going to kidnap us!" agreed Martha.
"He was?" cried Jane and Katharine, in surprise and excitement.
"Yes, he was, but let's not go into that now," said Mark. "I'll tell you later. After all, maybe he wouldn't have if he weren't poor and downtrodden. And we're supposed to be kind to our enemies, aren't we?"
Achmed the Arab was coming nearer now. Mark waited till he was close enough for them to see his face. Then he spoke aloud a wish he had thought out very carefully.
"I wish that Achmed the Arab may have twice as much as he deserves of whatever it is that he would wish for with this charm!" Mark said.
And of course the charm, to which arithmetic was as nothing, cut the wish neatly in half and in that moment the Arab Achmed received as much as he deserved of happiness.
Suddenly there were five camels in the caravan instead of three. The camels were young and healthy instead of old and mangy. The harnesses were new and trim instead of old and worn through. The meager, empty-looking packs bulged with rich stuffs for trading.
A plump Arab lady appeared suddenly at Achmed's side, leading six plump Arab children by the hand. She smiled coyly at Achmed.
Achmed stopped short and looked at the caravan, at the lady, at the Arab children. He gave a great cry of happiness. On his face a look of peace replaced the old crafty shiftiness. He turned toward the East and fell on his face on the sand. His voice lifted in what sounded like a prayer of thanksgiving.
And it was then that Mark, still waving away the proffered help of Jane, spoke aloud the second wish he had carefully thought out.
"I wish that the four of us, and Carrie the cat, may travel in the direction of home, only twice as far."
Next thing they knew, they were all sitting on their own front steps.
The first thing they did was walk down the street to Mrs. Hudson's house. The iron dog still trembled in half-life on the lawn.
At that moment Mrs. Hudson came out of the house, her market basket on her arm. She took one look at the shaking dog.
"Earthquake! Earthquake!" she cried, and ran back inside the house.
Mark, who was getting quite good at it, made a third wish.
"I wish that this dog," he said, "may be twice as alive or twice as un-alive as it wishes to be."
Immediately the dog stopped trembling and stood still and cold as iron (which it was again).
"Wouldn't you think it'd rather have been real?" said Katharine in wonder.
"I guess iron things are happier being iron," said Mark, who had learned a lot in one day.
The four children now turned to the case of Carrie the cat.
"Wouldn't you like to go on talking, only plainer?" asked Martha, who had grown to enjoy her conversations with her pet.
"Notonna fitztintype," said Carrie. "Fitzsilence fitzgolden!"
The others then decided that Mark had had enough wishes for one day and they would take on this problem.
"I wish that Carrie the cat couldn't talk any of the time!" said Martha, not stopping to think it out.
"Well, you certainly messed that up," said Carrie the cat. "Now of course I can't talk half the time but the rest of the time I can talk perfectly plainly, not that I want to, of course, but here I go, talk, talk, talk, and here I will go for the next thirty seconds, and then thirty seconds of silence I suppose, and then talk, talk, talk again, just as though I had anything to say, which I don't, being always one for quiet meditation myself; still, duty calls; so speak the words trippingly on the tongue, only three more seconds to go now, the rest is silence, Shakespeare!"
She broke off suddenly, but only for thirty seconds. Then she began again. The children held their ears till the next silent period. Then Katharine made a hurried suggestion.
"The thing is, we want her to just mew, the way she used to," she said. "The thing is to think of a word that has 'mew' for half of it."
"I know!" said Jane. And she made a wish. "I wish that Carrie the cat may in future say nothing but the word 'music.'"
"Sick!" said Carrie the cat. "Sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick."
She looked sick.
"Better let me," said Mark. "I've had practice." He took the charm in his hand. "I wish that Carrie the cat may be exactly twice as silent as she wishes to be."
"Mew," said Carrie the cat. "Purr."
And without so much as a look of gratitude at Mark for restoring her to normalcy, she hurried off after a passing robin.
Tired but happy, the children trooped homeward. It had been a long, full day, but everything had worked out beautifully in the end.
Miss Bick met them with reproaches for having stayed out all day and missed their lunch.
"Just wait till I tell your mother!" she said.
And the children did.
Their mother looked very grave that night, when Miss Bick had told her.
"I don't want you children wandering away from the house like that again," she said to them at dinner. "As a matter of fact, you may as well know—something rather frightening has been happening. There seems to be an epidemic of kidnapping, or at least lost children. We kept getting reports at the paper all day, from different lakes and camps and places. A lot of little boys have disappeared. Mostly friends of yours, Mark, I'm afraid. Freddy Fox and Richey Gould and Michael Robinson, only there's a report he turned up halfway home and doesn't know how he got there...."
Mark choked suddenly on his milk, and turned bright red.
He signaled the others in a private way the four children had. They finished dinner as soon as they could, and gathered in Mark's room.
"It's awful!" Mark cried, as soon as the door was safely shut. "I just remembered! This morning I wished all the guys were home. Now there they all are, halfway home and wandering the countryside! I've got to fix them up!"
He took the charm from his pocket, where he'd put it after the last wish of the afternoon.
"I wish all the guys I wished home to be back twice as far as they were before I wished!" he said.
The others agreed that that ought to do it. But Mark was still worried.
"We have to be careful from now on," he said. "We don't want any more mistakes. That could have been bad."
"We'll hide it in a safe place," said Jane, "until tomorrow."
"I know where," said Katharine.
She led the others to the room she shared with Martha. There was a loose board in the floor with a space under it that the children had used to hide things in, back in the days when they were young.
The children hid the charm in this secret place.
"A mouse might find it and make a wish," Martha objected.
But the others felt that half the wish of a mouse could do little to upset their plans.
They had many plans to make.
"We'll spend the night thinking up wishes," said Jane. "It'll be better from now on, because now we all know. We'll make sensible wishes from now on. Tomorrow the real fun will begin."
And, in a way, it did.
4. What Happened to Katharine
Next morning there were no secret meetings before breakfast.
Jane stayed in her room and Mark stayed in his room, and in the room they shared Katharine and Martha hardly conversed at all.
Each of the children was too busy making private plans and deciding on favorite wishes.
Breakfast was eaten in silence, but not without the exchange of some excited looks. The children's mother was aware that something was in the air, and wondered what new trial lay in store for her.
When their mother had gone to work and the dishes and other loathly tasks were done, the four children gathered in Katharine and Martha's room. Katharine had already checked to see that the charm still lay in its cubbyhole, unharmed by wish of mouse or termite.
Jane had drawn up some rules.
"The wishes are to go by turns," she said. "Nobody's to make any main wish that doesn't include all the rest of us. If
there have to be any smaller wishes later on in the same adventure, the person who wished the main wish gets to make them, except in case of emergency. Like if he loses the charm and one of the other ones finds it. I get to go first."
Katharine had something to say about that.
"I don't see why," she said. "You always get dibs on first 'cause you're the oldest, and grown-ups always pick Martha 'cause she's the baby, and Mark has a wonderful double life with all this and being a boy, too! Middle ones never get any privileges at all! Besides, who hasn't had a wish of her own yet? Think back!"
It was true. Jane had had the half-fire, and Martha had made Carrie half-talk, and Mark had taken them to half of a desert island.
Jane had to agree that Katharine deserved a chance. But she couldn't keep from giving advice.
"We don't want any old visits with Henry Wadsworth Longfellow," she said. "Make it something that's fun for everybody."
"I'm going to," said Katharine. "But I can't decide between wishing we could all fly like birds and wishing we had all the money in the world."
"Those aren't any good," said Jane. "People always wish those in stories, and it never works out at all! They either fly too near the sun and get burned, or end up crushed under all the money!"
"We could make it paper money," suggested Katharine.
A discussion followed as to how many million dollars in large bills it would take to crush a person to death. By the time the four children got back to the subject of the magic charm seventeen valuable minutes had been wasted.
But now Mark had an idea.
"We've found out the charm can take us through space," he said. "What about time?"
"You mean travel around in the past?" Jane's eyes were glowing. "See Captain Kidd and Nero?"
"I've always wanted to live back in the olden romantic days," said Katharine, getting excited, too. "In days of old when knights were bold!"
The others were joining in by now. For once the four children were all in complete agreement.
"Put in about tournaments," said Mark.
"And quests," said Jane.
"Put in a good deed, too," said Martha. "Just to be on the safe side."
"Don't forget to say two times everything," said all three. They clustered eagerly around Katharine as she took hold of the charm.
"I wish," said Katharine, "that we may go back twice as far as to the days of King Arthur, and see two tournaments and go on two quests and do two good deeds."
The next thing the four children knew, they were standing in the midst of a crowded highway. Four queens were just passing, riding under a silken canopy. The next moment seven merry milkmaids skipped past, going a-Maying. In the distance a gallant knight was chasing a grimly giant with puissant valor, and in the other direction a grimly giant was chasing a gallant knight for all he was worth. Some pilgrims stopped and asked the four children the way to Canterbury. The four children didn't know.
But by now they were tired of the crowded traffic conditions on the King's Highway, and crossed into a field, where the grass seemed greener and fresher than any they had ever seen in their own time. A tall figure lay on the ground nearby, under an apple tree. It was a knight in full armor, and he was sound asleep.
The four children knew he was asleep, because Martha lifted the visor of his helmet and peeked inside. A gentle snore issued forth.
The knight's sword lay on the ground beside him, and Mark reached to pick it up.
Immediately the sleeping knight awoke, and sat up.
"Who steals my purse steals trash," he said, "but who steals my sword steals honor itself, and him will I harry by wood and by water till I cleave him from his brainpan to his thighbone!"
"I beg your pardon, sir," said Mark.
"We didn't mean anything," said Jane.
"We're sorry," said Katharine.
The knight rubbed his eyes with his mailed fist. Instead of the miscreant thief he had expected to see, he saw Mark and Jane and Katharine and Martha.
"Who be you?" he said. "Hath some grimly foe murdered me in my sleep? Am I in Heaven? Be ye cherubim or seraphim?"
"We be neither," said Katharine. "And this isn't Heaven. We are four children."
"Pish," said the knight. "Ye be like no children these eyes have ever beheld. Your garb is outlandish."
"People who live in tin armor shouldn't make remarks," said Katharine.
At this moment there was an interruption. A lady came riding up on a milk-white palfrey. She seemed considerably excited.
"Hist, gallant knight!" she cried.
The knight rose to his feet, and bowed politely. The lady began batting her eyes, and looking at him in a way that made the children feel ashamed for her.
"Thank Heaven I found you," she went on. "You alone of all the world can help me, if your name be Sir Launcelot, as I am let to know it is!"
The children stared at the knight, open-mouthed with awe.
"Are you really Sir Launcelot?" Mark asked him.
"That is my name," said the knight.
The four children stared at him harder.
Now that he wasn't looking so sleepy they could see that it was true. No other in all the world could wear so manly a bearing, so noble a face. They were in the presence of Sir Launcelot du Lake, the greatest knight in all the Age of Chivalry!
"How is Elaine?" Katharine wanted to know right away, "and little Galahad?"
"I know not the folk you mention," said Sir Launcelot.
"Oh, yes, you do, sooner or later," said Katharine. "You probably just haven't come to them yet."
"Be ye a prophetess?" cried Sir Launcelot, becoming interested. "Can ye read the future? Tell me more!"
But the lady on the milk-white palfrey was growing impatient.
"Away, poppets!" she said, getting between the four children and Sir Launcelot. "Gallant knight, I crave your assistance. In a dolorous tower nearby a dread ogre is distressing some gentlewomen. I am Preceptress of the Distressed Gentlewoman Society. We need your help."
"Naturally," said Sir Launcelot. He whistled, and his trusty horse appeared from behind the apple tree, where it had been cropping apples. Sir Launcelot started to mount the horse.
The four children looked at each other. They did not like what they had seen of the lady at all, and they liked the way she had spoken to them even less.
Katharine stepped forward.
"I wouldn't go if I were you," she said. "It's probably a trap."
The lady gave her an evil look.
"Even so," said Sir Launcelot, "needs must when duty calls." He adjusted his reins.
Katharine drew herself up to her full four feet four.
"As you noticed before, I be a mighty prophetess!" she cried. "And I say unto you, go not where this lady bids. She will bring you nothing but disaster!"
"I shall go where I please," said Sir Launcelot.
"So there!" said the lady.
"You'll be sorry!" said Katharine.
"Enough of parley," said Sir Launcelot. "Never yet did Launcelot turn from a worthy quest. I know who ye be now. Ye be four false wizards come to me in the guise of children to tempt me from my course. 'Tis vain. Out of the way. Flee, churls. Avaunt and quit my sight, thy bones are marrowless. Giddy-up."
Sir Launcelot chirruped to his horse, and the lady chirruped to hers, and away they went, galloping down the King's Highway. The four children had to scatter to both sides to avoid the flying hooves.
Of course it was but the work of a moment and a simple problem in fractions for Katharine to wish they all had horses and could follow.
Immediately they had, and they did.
Sir Launcelot turned, and saw the four children close at his heels, mounted now on four dashing chargers.
"Away, fiends!" he said.
"Shan't!" said Katharine.
They went on.
The four children had never ridden horseback before, but they found that it came to them quite easily, though Martha's horse was a bi
t big for her, and she had trouble posting.
And it was particularly interesting when, every time the lady started casting loving looks at Sir Launcelot, the children would ride up close behind and make jeering noises, and Sir Launcelot would turn in his saddle and shout, "Begone, demons!" at them. This happened every few minutes. Sir Launcelot seemed to get a little bit angrier each time.
When they had ridden a goodly pace they came to a dark wood, stretching along both sides of the highway. Just at the edge of the wood, the lady cried out that her horse had cast a shoe. Sir Launcelot reined in to go to her aid. The four children stopped at a safe distance.
Then, just as Sir Launcelot was dismounting, three knights rode out of the wood. One was dressed all in red, one in green and one in black. Before the children could cry out, the knights rushed at Sir Launcelot from behind.
It was three against one and most unfair. But even so, Sir Launcelot's strength would have been as the strength of at least nine if he hadn't been taken by surprise. As it was, he had no time even to touch his hand to his sword before the three knights had seized and disarmed him, bound him hand and foot, flung him across the saddle of his own horse, and galloped off into the wood with him, a hapless prisoner.
The lady turned on the four children.
"Ha ha!" she cried. "Now they will take him to my castle, where he will lie in a deep dungeon and be beaten every day with thorns! And so we shall serve all knights of the Round Table who happen this way! Death to King Arthur!"
"Why, you false thing, you!" said Jane.
"I told him so!" said Katharine.
"Let's go home!" said Martha.
"No, we have to rescue him!" said Mark.
"Ho ho!" said the lady. "Just you try it! Your magic is a mere nothing compared with mine, elfspawn! Know that I am the great enchantress, Morgan le Fay!"
"You would be!" said Katharine, who didn't like being called "elfspawn," as who would? "I remember you in the books, always making trouble. I wish you'd go jump in the lake!"
Katharine wasn't thinking of the charm when she wished this, or she might have worded it differently. But that didn't stop the charm.
"Good old charm!" said Mark, as he watched what happened.