Arabel and Mortimer (17 page)

"Nevermore!" shouted Mortimer, looking ahead joyfully, and remembering the jet plane he had seen take off into the air at Heathrow Airport.

Arabel, running after him across the grass, was now much too far behind to have any hope of catching up.

"Mortimer!" she panted. "Please turn around. Please come back! Can't you stop the motor?"

But Mortimer could not hear her and, anyway, he did not wish to turn or stop. With a final burst of speed, the LawnSabre shot clean over the edge of the huge hole, bursting through the guard fence as if it had been made of soapsuds.

A scream of horror went up from all the people in
the garden. And the people who were down in the bottom of the hole suddenly saw a large red motor mower in midair right over their heads, with Mortimer sitting on it.

Luckily there was just time for them to jump back against the sides of the hole.

Then the LawnSabre struck the stone table at the bottom of the hole. There was a tremendous crash; the sound was so loud that it could be heard all over Rumbury Town, from the cricket ground to the pumping station.

The LawnSabre was smashed to smithereens. The round stone table was crushed to powdery rubble.

But Mortimer, discovering with great disgust that the LawnSabre was not going to take off into the air as he had expected it would, had spread his wings at the last moment and rose up into the air himself. He did not like flying, but there were times when he had to, and this was one of them.

So all the people up above in Rainwater Crescent Garden, who had rushed to the side of the hole in the expectation of seeing some dreadful calamity, were amazed to see a large black bird come flapping slowly up out of the crater, carrying a massive metal
blade with a red flashing stone in the handle at one end.

As he rose up, Mortimer had grabbed at the hilt of the sword which had been stuck in the stone table; and he took it with him in his flight.

"Oh, if only I had brought my camera!" lamented Dick Otter, a young man from the
Rumbury Borough News,
who had come along because there was a rumor that King Arthur and all his knights had turned up in Rainwater Crescent.

Mortimer was feeling very ruffled. He wanted his tea. Also, he did not quite know what to do with the metal blade he had brought up with him out of the hole. It was very heavy and tasted disagreeably of old lettuce leaves left to soak too long in vinegar. Mortimer hated the feel of it in his beak. But he did like the red sparkling stone in the handle. He wanted to show it to Arabel.

Just at that moment Mr. Dunnage, the history teacher, came rushing back with a white-bearded man, who was his friend, Professor Lloyd-Williams, from the British Museum, an expert in Arthurian history.

The first thing they saw as they ran into Rainwater Crescent Garden was an openmouthed, gaping crowd, all gazing up at a rope that was stretched like a clothesline between two plane trees.

And on this rope a large black bird was walking slowly along, swaying a good deal from side to side. In his beak he held a long, heavy-looking, rusty sword with a red stone in its hilt.

"Oh dear," said Mr. Dunnage. "That looks like the sword that was stuck in the table. But how in the world did that bird get hold of it?"

"Well now, indeed," said Professor Lloyd-Williams, "that certainly does look like the sword Excalibur; for a bardic description says that it was 'longer than three men's arms, with a three-edged blade, and three red rubies in the hilt.'"

"There's only one red stone," pointed out Mr. Dunnage.

"The others might have fallen out," said the professor. "And the bird, no doubt, is one of the Ravens of Owain, who were supposed to have set upon King Arthur's warriors in battle—"

"How the deuce are we going to get the sword
away
from the bird?" said Mr. Dunnage.

Dick Otter, coming up to the two men, said, "Oh, sir, if the sword really is King Arthur's sword Excalibur, can you say what it would be worth?"

"How can I tell?" said Professor Lloyd-Williams. "It is unique. Perhaps a hundred thousand pounds. Perhaps a million."

At this moment Arabel discovered where Mortimer had got to and, standing by one of the plane trees to which the rope was tied, she called, "Mortimer! Mortimer? Please, I think you had better come down from there!"

By now Mortimer had walked about halfway across the rope, but he wasn't as good at balancing as Sandy, and he had been swaying about quite a lot. Arabel's voice distracted him, and he now toppled
right off the rope, letting go of the sword, which fell point downward, stuck into the ground, and broke into four pieces.

A terrible wail went up from the professor and Mr. Dunnage.

"Oh! The sword Excalibur!" They rushed forward to rescue the bits of sword.

Mortimer hoisted himself irritably up from the grass, and looked round for Arabel. In the general excitement over the broken sword, she was able to pick him up and carry him off toward the garden gate.

"I think perhaps we'd better go home, Mortimer," she said. "Perhaps we can get a policeman to see us across the road."

However, just as they reached the entrance, they saw her father, Mr. Jones, who had taken an hour off from taxi driving to come home for his tea.

"Hello, Arabel dearie," he said. "Your ma's sent me to fetch you. And you'd best be ever such a good quiet girl at tea—and Mortimer, too, if he
can
—because she's terribly put out."

"Why is Ma put out, Pa?" asked Arabel, as they crossed the pavement and went through their front gate.

"Because Granny Jones phoned to say she's got a sore throat and she's not coming after all. Seems your ma had just finished making you a pink dress."

Arabel was sorry that Granny Jones was not coming, but very glad that she did not have to wear the pink dress.

"It's lucky Ma doesn't know about your driving the LawnSabre, Mortimer," she said, as she went up to the bathroom to wash her hands before tea. "I don't think she'd have liked that."

"Kaaark," said Mortimer, who had almost forgotten about the LawnSabre, and was thinking about jam tarts, hoping very much there would be some for tea. He lifted one of his wings, which felt fidgety, and shook it. Out from under his wing fell the red shining stone from the hilt of King Arthur's sword. It dropped into the washbasin, rolled around with the soapy water, and went down the plughole.