Around the little table stood the Arab, Monsieur Jules, and Madame, and they were all staring angrily into each other's faces.
"But the flask!" cried Ali Dubh. "Where is my precious flask?"
"It is here," said Madame, reaching behind the mirror and drawing forth something that glittered in the lamplight.
"But this is the silver flask – the cure for rheumatism," exclaimed the Arab. "Where my Golden Flask – containing the priceless Elixir of Life?"
"I must have made a mistake," said Madame, honestly; "for my eyes are so queer that I cannot tell gold from silver. Anyway, the contents of the other flask I emptied into a bowl of water, and rubbed my limbs with it."
The Arab shouted a despairing cry in his native tongue and then glared wildly at the woman.
"Was it the brown bowl, Leontine?" asked Monsieur Jules, trembling with excitement.
"Yes," she answered.
"Where is it? Where is it?" demanded the Arab, in a hoarse voice. "The precious liquor may yet be saved."
"Too late, Monsieur," said the baker, shaking his head, sadly. "I used the contents of the bowl to mix the dough for my gingerbread man."
"A gingerbread man! What do you mean?" asked Ali Dubh.
"I baked a man out of gingerbread this morning," said Monsieur Jules, "and to my horror he came alive, and spoke to me, and walked out of the shop while he was still smoking hot."
"It is no wonder," said the Arab, dolefully; "for within him was enough of the Great Elixir to bring a dozen men to life, and give them strength and energy for many years. Ah, Monsieur and Madame, think of what your stupidity has cost the world!"
"I do not comprehend," said Madame, firmly, "how the world has ever yet been benefited by the Great Elixir, which you and your selfish countrymen have kept for centuries corked up in a golden flask."
"Bismillah!" shouted the Arab, striking himself fiercely across the forehead with his clinched fist. "Cannot you understand, you stupid one, that it was mine —mine!– this Wonderful Water of Life? I had planned to use it myself – drop by drop – that I might live forever."
"I'm sorry," said Monsieur; "but it is your own fault. You forced my wife to care for the flask, and you would not let her tell me about it. So, through your own stupidity, I used it in the gingerbread man."
"Ah!" said Ali Dubh, an eager gleam in his eyes, "where, then, is that same gingerbread man? If I can find him, and eat him, a bit at a time, I shall get the benefit of the Great Elixir after all! It would not be so powerful, perhaps, as in its natural state; but it would enable me to live for many, many years!"
John Dough heard this speech with a thrill of horror. Also he now began to understand how he happened to be alive.
"I do not know where the gingerbread man is," said Monsieur. "He walked out of my shop while he was quite hot."
"But he can be found," said the Arab. "It is impossible for a gingerbread man, who is alive, to escape notice. Come, let us search for him at once! I must find him and eat him."
He fairly dragged Monsieur and Madame from the room in his desperation, and John Dough crouched out of sight behind the counter until he heard them pass through the door and their footsteps die away up the street.
The talk he had overheard made the gingerbread man very sad indeed. The bakery was no safe home for him, after all. Evidently it was the Arab's intention to find him and insist upon eating him; and John Dough did not want to be eaten at all.
Therefore his enemies must not find him. They were no safer to meet with than the awful woman who wanted to cut him into slices; and he was learning, by degrees, that all men were dangerous enemies to him, although he had himself the form of a man.
He left the bakery and stole out into the street once more, walking now in the opposite direction from that taken by the Arab and the Grograndes.
As he hurried along he met with few people on the streets; and these, in the dark, paid little attention to the gingerbread man; so gradually his spirits rose and his confidence in his future returned.
By and by he heard a strange popping and hissing coming from the direction of the square in the center of the town, and then he saw red and green lights illuminating the houses, and fiery comets go sailing into the sky to break into dozens of beautiful colored stars.
The people were having their Fourth of July fireworks, and John Dough became curious to witness the display from near by. So, forgetting his fears, he ran through the streets until he came to a big crowd of people, who were too busy watching the fireworks to notice that a gingerbread man stood beside them.
John Dough pressed forward until he was quite in the front row, and just behind the men who were firing the rockets.
For a time he watched the rush of the colored fires with much pleasure, and thoroughly enjoyed the sputtering of a big wheel that refused to go around, merely sending out weak and listless spurts of green and red sparks, as is the manner of such wheels.
But now the event of the evening was to occur. Two men brought out an enormous rocket, fully fifteen feet tall and filled with a tremendous charge of powder. This they leaned against a wooden trough that stood upright; but the rocket was too tall to stay in place, and swayed from side to side awkwardly.
"Here! Hold that stick!" cried one of the men, and John Dough stepped forward and grasped the stick of the big rocket firmly, not knowing there was any danger in doing so.
Then the man ran to get a piece of rope to tie the rocket in place; but the other man, being excited and thinking the rocket was ready to fire, touched off the fuse without noticing that John Dough was clinging fast to the stick.
There was a sudden shriek, a rush of fire, and then – slowly at first, but with ever-increasing speed – the huge rocket mounted far into the sky, carrying with it the form of the gingerbread man!
Chick, the Cherub
The rocket continued to send out fiery sparks of burning powder as it plunged higher and higher into the black vault of the heavens; but few of these came in contact with John Dough, who clung to the far side of the stick and so escaped being seriously damaged. Also the rocket curved, and presently sped miles away over land and sea, impelled by the terrible force of the powder it contained. John fully expected that it would burst presently, and blow him to bits amid a cloud of colored stars. But the giant rocket was not made in the same way as the other and smaller ones that had been fired, the intention being merely to make it go as high and as far as possible. So it finally burned itself out; but so great was the speed it had attained that it continued to fly for many minutes after the last spark had died away.
Then the rocket began to take a downward course; but it was so high up, by that time, that the stick and the empty shell flew onward hour after hour, gradually nearing the ground, until finally, just as a new day began to break, the huge stick, with John Dough still holding fast to its end, fell lightly upon an island washed on all sides by the waves of a mighty sea.
John fell on a soft bush, and thence bounded to the ground, where for a time he lay quite still and tried to recover his thoughts.
He had not done much thinking, it seems, while he was in the air. The rush of wind past his ears had dazed him, and he only realized he must cling fast to the stick and await what might happen. Indeed, that was the only thing to be done in such an emergency.
The shock of the fall had for a moment dazed the gingerbread man; and as he lay upon the ground he heard a voice cry:
"Get off from me! Will you? Get off, I say."
John rolled over and sat up, and then another person – a little man with a large head – also sat up and faced him.
"What do you mean by it?" asked the little man, glaring upon John Dough angrily. "Can't you see where you're falling?"
"No," answered John.
It was growing lighter every minute, and the gray mists of morning were fading away before the rising sun.