years and years there's been a guard here, because when the town was first built the astrologers foretold that some day there would be a trespasser who would do untold mischief. So it's our privilege--we're the Polistopolitan guards--to keep watch over the only way by which a trespasser could come in.'

'May I sit down?' said Philip suddenly, and the soldiers made room for him on the bench.

'My father and my grandfather and all my ancestors were in the guards,' said the captain proudly. 'It's a very great honour.'

'I wonder,' said Philip, 'why you don't cut off the end of your ladder--the top end I mean; then nobody could come up.'

'That would never do,' said the captain, 'because, you see, there's another prophecy. The great deliverer is to come that way.'

'Couldn't I,' suggested Philip shyly, 'couldn't I be the deliverer instead of the trespasser? I'd much rather, you know.'

'I daresay you would,' said the captain; 'but people can't be deliverers just because they'd much rather, you know.''And isn't any one to come up the ladder bridge except just those two?'
'We don't know; that's just it. You know what prophecies are.'
'I'm afraid I don't--exactly.'
'So vague and mixed up, I mean. The one I'm telling you about goes something like this.
          Who comes up the ladder stair?
            Beware, beware,
          Steely eyes and copper hair
          Strife and grief and pain to bear
          All come up the ladder stair.
You see we can't tell whether that means one person or a lot of people with steely eyes and copper hair.'
'My hair's just plain boy-colour,' said Philip; 'my sister says so, and my eyes are blue, I believe.'
'I can't see in this light;' the captain leaned his elbows on the table and looked earnestly in the boy's eyes. 'No, I can't see. The other prophecy goes:
          From down and down and very far down
          The king shall come to take his own;
          He shall deliver the Magic town,
          And all that he made shall be his own.
          Beware, take care. Beware, prepare,
          The king shall come by the ladder stair.'
'How jolly,' said Philip; 'I love poetry. Do you know any more?'
'There are heaps of prophecies of course,' said the captain; 'the astrologers must do _something_ to earn their pay. There's rather a nice one:
          Every night when the bright stars blink

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