_ CHAPTER XX. THE ARRIVAL
About sundown John with his train came to the gates of the city where the King lived. They were all very hungry, dusty, and tired.
A watchman on the wall, with telescope to his eye, had spied them afar off.
"Hello!" he cried. "What is this coming down the highroad? It seems a small caravan, creeping and writhing like a caterpillar. The head of it seems human. But, by my faith! the rest of it is like nothing I have seen for many years! What ho! Let us be on guard. It may be an enemy of the King."
The warders ran to arms. And so it happened that a crowd of them were gaping at the entrance when John and his companions came up.
The lad was almost exhausted. But when he saw the way barred by a band of frowning armed men, he doffed his cap and smiled his own peculiar smile.
"Good-evening, friends," he said. "We have been long in reaching your city. We are glad to be at the gates at last."
"Who are you?" asked the Captain gruffly, stepping forward and barring the way, while his companions gazed in amazement at the wolf and the bear who were huddled at John's side.
"I come on an errand to the King," said John. "Please guide me to him quickly, for it is an urgent matter."
"To the King!" sneered the Captain; and the warders echoed his laugh. "No one goes to the King in such company as you bring. You must know that. They are outlaws, all,--and you too, I dare say!"
"I know not. But I must see the King, and that quickly," said John. "I come with these friends to heal the King's son, if I can."
"Ha! More sorcery!" interrupted the Captain. "No, you shall not enter here. The King allows no animals in his domain. How you have brought them so far I cannot guess!"
"Well, I bear this," said John, drawing out the silver talisman.
The men bent forward to look at it, then fell back, staring at one another with astonished faces.
"Who is he?" they whispered among themselves. "What shall we do?"
"Let me pass, good friends," begged John, looking up in their faces with his simple smile. "I will promise to do no harm. Among friends my friends are quite harmless. But tell me, I pray you, where I may find the good Hermit who healed the Prince's wound? I come at his bidding."
At these words the guards pulled themselves together and exchanged looks. They began to swagger.
"Ah, is it so?" growled the Captain. "You are a friend of the wizard himself. We must let the King know of this. Yes, you shall enter. Here! Take him captive! Off with him to the prison."
"To prison!" cried John in amazement. "For what ill deed, I pray?"
But already the guards were pressing forward upon him. At the sight of their threatening looks Brutus ran in front of John and began to growl warningly, crouching ready to spring upon the first who should lay hands on the boy. The wolf bristled and showed his fangs. And the bear, rising on his hind legs, growled and blinked his little red eyes so terribly that the men fell back. John was protected by powerful friends. The other animals shrank close to him, and the raven began to scream.
"Have a care!" warned John. "My friends are armed with sharp teeth and claws, and they will not readily let a stranger touch me."
"He is a wizard!" muttered the soldiers; but they shrank back, afraid to touch him.
"Why do you treat me thus?" asked John wistfully.
"Because you say you are a friend to that vile magician of the woods, by whose arts the Prince was wounded, they say, and who yet holds him at death's door." So spoke the Captain of the guards. "The Prince still lives. But when he passes, the King has decreed that the wizard shall die the death. You come in time to share it, if you be his pupil!"
"Oh, hasten, hasten!" cried John, clasping his hands. "Please take me to him! Perhaps I may yet save the good old man. If it is not too late, perhaps I can also save the Prince."
"Ay, we will take you to him fast enough, if you will call off your growling beasts," said the Captain.
"Nay, we must all go together," answered John, who saw how they meant to trap him. "Oh, come, let us be moving, for there is no time to lose!"
Grumbling, but afraid either to delay or to venture near John, the guards formed in a hollow square about him and his pets, and they all began to march in a strange company through the city streets to the palace.
A crowd gathered as they passed. Men, women, and children craned their necks to look at this group of animals, such as had not been seen in the city for years. They gazed, too, at the handsome yellow-haired boy, and whispered among themselves, "Who is he? What has he done?"
John noticed that the faces of the people who gazed at him were set and hard. They seemed sad and hopeless. He pitied them. "It is a kingdom without love," he said to himself.
Yet, as they looked, their faces changed. A new something came into their eyes. A whispering went around among the crowd, increasing to a murmur, like the sound of bees.
They came at last to the palace, where the crowd was forced to pause. But, surrounded by the band of soldiers, John and his party went in and on, led by the Captain himself, at whose word or gesture doors flew open and servants bowed.
Through long, glittering halls, lined with mirrors in which their rags and dust, draggled feathers and matted hair showed pitifully, limped John and his weary friends. Up a grand marble staircase, with wondering footmen lining either side, pattered on muddy feet Brutus and his gray brother, and the bear, clumsily erect at John's side. Behind mewed the tired Blanche, whose kittens John carried in his arms, while the carrier pigeon and the raven perched on his shoulder. But the other birds had remained outside in the trees of the palace garden. _