Still they came on, thrusting spears and javelins through every crevice and my strength began to go. I threw two tables into a gap, and brained a besieger with a sweet-meat-seller's block and smothered another, and overturned a great chest against my barricade; but what was the purpose of it all? They were fifty to one and my rampart quaked before them. The smoke was stifling, and the pains of dis-solution in my heart. They burst in and clambered up the rampart like black ants. I looked round for still one more thing to hurl into the breach. My eyes lit on a roll of carpet:
I seized it by one corner meaning to drag it to the door-way, and it came undone at a touch.
That strange, that incredible pattern! Where in all the vicissitudes of a chequered career had I seen such a one before? I stared at it in amazement under the very spears of the woodmen in the red glare of Hath's burning palace. Then all on a sudden it burst upon me that IT WAS THE ACCURSED RUG, the very one which in response to a careless wish had swept me out of my own dear world, and forced me to take as wild a journey into space as ever fell to a man's lot since the universe was made!
And in another second it occurred to me that if it had brought me hither it might take me hence. It was but a chance, yet worth trying when all other chances were against me. As Ar-hap's men came shouting over the barricade I threw myself down upon that incredible carpet and cried from the bottom of my heart,"I wish--I wish I were in New York!"Yes!
A moment of thrilling suspense and then the corners lifted as though a strong breeze were playing upon them. An-other moment and they had curled over like an incoming surge. One swift glance I got at the smoke and flames, the glittering spears and angry faces, and then fold upon fold, a stifling, all-enveloping embrace, a lift, a sense of super-human speed--and then forgetfulness.
When I came to, as reporters say, I was aware the rug had ejected me on solid ground and disappeared, forever.
Where was I! It was cool, damp, and muddy. There were some iron railings close at hand and a street lamp overhead.
These things showed clearly to me, sitting on a doorstep under that light, head in hand, amazed and giddy--so amazed that when slowly the recognition came of the in-credible fact my wish was gratified and I was home again, the stupendous incident scarcely appealed to my tingling sen-ses more than one of the many others I had lately undergone.
Very slowly I rose to my feet, and as like a discreditable reveller as could be, climbed the steps. The front door was open, and entering the oh, so familiar hall a sound of voices in my sitting-room on the right caught my ear.
"Oh no, Mrs. Brown," said one, which I recognised at once as my Polly's, "he is dead for certain, and my heart is breaking. He would never, never have left me so long without writing if he had been alive," and then came a great sound of sobbing.
"Bless your kind heart, miss," said the voice of my land-lady in reply, "but you don't know as much about young gentlemen as I do. It is not likely, if he has gone off on the razzle-dazzle, as I am sure he has, he is going to write every post and tell you about it. Now you go off to your ma at the hotel like a dear, and forget all about him till he comes back--that's MY advice.""I cannot, I cannot, Mrs. Brown. I cannot rest by day or sleep by night for thinking of him; for wondering why he went away so suddenly, and for hungering for news of him. Oh, I am miserable. Gully! Gully! Come to me," and then there were sounds of troubled footsteps pacing to and fro and of a woman's grief.
That was more than I could stand. I flung the door open, and, dirty, dishevelled, with unsteady steps, advanced into the room.
