14. What Melchisedec Heard and Saw

A Little Princess

by Francis Hodgson Burnett

On this very afternoon, while Sara was out, a strange thing
happened in the attic. Only Melchisedec saw and heard it; and he was
so much alarmed and mystified that he scuttled back to his hole and
hid there, and really quaked and trembled as he peeped out furtively
and with great caution to watch what was going on.

The attic had been very still all the day after Sara had left it
in the early morning. The stillness had only been broken by the
pattering of the rain upon the slates and the skylight. Melchisedec
had, in fact, found it rather dull; and when the rain ceased to
patter and perfect silence reigned, he decided to come out and
reconnoiter, though experience taught him that Sara would not return
for some time. He had been rambling and sniffing about, and had just
found a totally unexpected and unexplained crumb left from his last
meal, when his attention was attracted by a sound on the roof. He
stopped to listen with a palpitating heart. The sound suggested that
something was moving on the roof. It was approaching the skylight;
it reached the skylight. The skylight was being mysteriously opened.
A dark face peered into the attic; then another face appeared behind
it, and both looked in with signs of caution and interest. Two men
were outside on the roof, and were making silent preparations to
enter through the skylight itself. One was Ram Dass and the other was
a young man who was the Indian gentleman's secretary; but of course
Melchisedec did not know this. He only knew that the men were
invading the silence and privacy of the attic; and as the one with
the dark face let himself down through the aperture with such
lightness and dexterity that he did not make the slightest sound,
Melchisedec turned tail and fled precipitately back to his hole. He
was frightened to death. He had ceased to be timid with Sara, and
knew she would never throw anything but crumbs, and would never make
any sound other than the soft, low, coaxing whistling; but strange
men were dangerous things to remain near. He lay close and flat near
the entrance of his home, just managing to peep through the crack
with a bright, alarmed eye. How much he understood of the talk he
heard I am not in the least able to say; but, even if he had
understood it all, he would probably have remained greatly
mystified.

The secretary, who was light and young, slipped through the
skylight as noiselessly as Ram Dass had done; and he caught a last
glimpse of Melchisedec's vanishing tail.

"Was that a rat?" he asked Ram Dass in a whisper.

"Yes; a rat, Sahib," answered Ram Dass, also whispering. "There
are many in the walls."

"Ugh!" exclaimed the young man. "It is a wonder the child is
not terrified of them."

Ram Dass made a gesture with his hands. He also smiled
respectfully. He was in this place as the intimate exponent of Sara,
though she had only spoken to him once.

"The child is the little friend of all things, Sahib," he
answered. "She is not as other children. I see her when she does not
see me. I slip across the slates and look at her many nights to see
that she is safe. I watch her from my window when she does not know
I am near. She stands on the table there and looks out at the sky as
if it spoke to her. The sparrows come at her call. The rat she has
fed and tamed in her loneliness. The poor slave of the house comes
to her for comfort. There is a little child who comes to her in
secret; there is one older who worships her and would listen to her
forever if she might. This I have seen when I have crept across the
roof. By the mistress of the house--who is an evil woman--she is
treated like a pariah; but she has the bearing of a child who is of
the blood of kings!"

"You seem to know a great deal about her," the secretary
said.

"All her life each day I know," answered Ram Dass. "Her going
out I know, and her coming in; her sadness and her poor joys; her
coldness and her hunger. I know when she is alone until midnight,
learning from her books; I know when her secret friends steal to her
and she is happier--as children can be, even in the midst of
poverty--because they come and she may laugh and talk with them in
whispers. If she were ill I should know, and I would come and serve
her if it might be done."

"You are sure no one comes near this place but herself, and that
she will not return and surprise us. She would be frightened if she
found us here, and the Sahib Carrisford's plan would be spoiled."

Ram Dass crossed noiselessly to the door and stood close to
it.

"None mount here but herself, Sahib," he said. "She has gone
out with her basket and may be gone for hours. If I stand here I can
hear any step before it reaches the last flight of the stairs."

The secretary took a pencil and a tablet from his breast
pocket.

"Keep your ears open," he said; and he began to walk slowly and
softly round the miserable little room, making rapid notes on his
tablet as he looked at things.

First he went to the narrow bed. He pressed his hand upon the
mattress and uttered an exclamation.

"As hard as a stone," he said. "That will have to be altered
some day when she is out. A special journey can be made to bring it
across. It cannot be done tonight." He lifted the covering and
examined the one thin pillow.

"Coverlet dingy and worn, blanket thin, sheets patched and
ragged," he said. "What a bed for a child to sleep in--and in a
house which calls itself respectable! There has not been a fire in
that grate for many a day," glancing at the rusty fireplace.

"Never since I have seen it," said Ram Dass. "The mistress of
the house is not one who remembers that another than herself may be
cold."

The secretary was writing quickly on his tablet. He looked up
from it as he tore off a leaf and slipped it into his breast
pocket.

"It is a strange way of doing the thing," he said. "Who planned
it?"

Ram Dass made a modestly apologetic obeisance.

"It is true that the first thought was mine, Sahib," he said;
"though it was naught but a fancy. I am fond of this child; we are
both lonely. It is her way to relate her visions to her secret
friends. Being sad one night, I lay close to the open skylight and
listened. The vision she related told what this miserable room might
be if it had comforts in it. She seemed to see it as she talked, and
she grew cheered and warmed as she spoke. Then she came to this
fancy; and the next day, the Sahib being ill and wretched, I told him
of the thing to amuse him. It seemed then but a dream, but it
pleased the Sahib. To hear of the child's doings gave him
entertainment. He became interested in her and asked questions. At
last he began to please himself with the thought of making her
visions real things."

"You think that it can be done while she sleeps? Suppose she
awakened," suggested the secretary; and it was evident that
whatsoever the plan referred to was, it had caught and pleased his
fancy as well as the Sahib Carrisford's.

"I can move as if my feet were of velvet," Ram Dass replied;
"and children sleep soundly--even the unhappy ones. I could have
entered this room in the night many times, and without causing her to
turn upon her pillow. If the other bearer passes to me the things
through the window, I can do all and she will not stir. When she
awakens she will think a magician has been here."

He smiled as if his heart warmed under his white robe, and the
secretary smiled back at him.

"It will be like a story from the Arabian Nights," he said.
"Only an Oriental could have planned it. It does not belong to
London fogs."

They did not remain very long, to the great relief of
Melchisedec, who, as he probably did not comprehend their
conversation, felt their movements and whispers ominous. The young
secretary seemed interested in everything. He wrote down things
about the floor, the fireplace, the broken footstool, the old table,
the walls--which last he touched with his hand again and again,
seeming much pleased when he found that a number of old nails had
been driven in various places.

"You can hang things on them," he said.

Ram Dass smiled mysteriously.

"Yesterday, when she was out," he said, "I entered, bringing
with me small, sharp nails which can be pressed into the wall without
blows from a hammer. I placed many in the plaster where I may need
them. They are ready."

The Indian gentleman's secretary stood still and looked round
him as he thrust his tablets back into his pocket.

"I think I have made notes enough; we can go now," he said. "The
Sahib Carrisford has a warm heart. It is a thousand pities that he
has not found the lost child."

"If he should find her his strength would be restored to him,"
said Ram Dass. "His God may lead her to him yet."

Then they slipped through the skylight as noiselessly as they
had entered it. And, after he was quite sure they had gone,
Melchisedec was greatly relieved, and in the course of a few minutes
felt it safe to emerge from his hole again and scuffle about in the
hope that even such alarming human beings as these might have chanced
to carry crumbs in their pockets and drop one or two of them.